Next time somebody tells you to “listen up” … tell that person that the human brain retains less than 5% of what you hear in any talk. Think that will slow down the talkers around you?
It’s true. Those monologues we all suffer through, bore us for good reason - they actually work against the human brain.
Yet in every staff meeting, and in every hard seat, you find people sitting up bolt straight, feigning interest for the sake of some speaker. Wait a minute … how then have one way talks stuck around since before Plato, if they reduce people’s brains? Good question, and we’ve moved closer to an accurate answer.
Talking benefits and motivates speakers, not listeners! 
How so? When speakers talk they fire up multiple intelligences, garner aha moments, and retain most of what they teach. That’s the clincher … since talkers retain 90% of what they teach others.
Time to do the math and you’ll see why you want to avoid meetings where one person natters on. Compare that high-stake 90% retention to the talker -- with the less than 5% retention for the poor schmuck bolt upright in a hard seat.
Staff meeting monologues stick with us because they benefits the talker who dominates them, and that motivation keeps words flying in your direction and mine.
Still feeling the need to talk to groups? If so, it’s best to tell your speech to the cat. Why so? You’ll still get the 90% retention benefit. Kitty loves the attention, and unsuspecting listeners get spared a bunch more wasted words to reduce their brains.
So how then do we teach at staff meetings, without talking?
recently I gave a breakfast talk to a Rotary group and showed alternatives. The Title of my talk was … ”How could a brain ever benefit from a talk like this?” And I engaged Rotarians multiple intelligences in this way.
1. I offered a brief introduction -- under two minutes -- and threw in a joke to release enzymes for better learning. Then I popped my 2-footed question … “What was the best talk you’ve ever heard and why?” Since there were too many present, to hear all the answers, attendees swapped stories with the person to their right, and then shared a few after 3 minutes.
2. Next I played the song, “I believe I can fly,” and asked Rotarians to come up with one question each about how their brains could reboot to help them fly in a new direction that day? I invited them to reflect on one thing that held their career back in past, and to jot their own question down on a piece of paper, during the song.
3. Then my PowerPoint generated an interactive discussion. With each of five slides, I will motivated participants to apply brain based ideas to renew their day, in ways that answered a few of their questions… Remaining questions that came in, I answered in future blogs here at Brain Based Business. That way we all benefited from the great questions and interactions that emerged.
Here were core facts from my 5 slides.
a. Nightly your brain rewires based on questions you ask and things you do that day
b. Target a new adventure for the day and you strengthen your working memory
c. Expect serotonin not cortisol to move your day forward
d. Move multiple intelligences into action to grow neuron pathways for your brain
e. Reflect on new solutions to a problem, laugh at yourself, and play with ideas
Nuff said. My time was up anyway… the breakfast meeting was over before we knew it… I talked less … and hopefully my audience left inspired by the many intelligences they engaged from their own brainy circles. Ok, Rotarians are the best and they deserved the best, but so are you! Any ideas to make my ‘un-talk” even better for their brains, or your next staff meeting?
Ellen,
Twice this week clients told me that their memories were just not what they used to be. One of them said he felt that he had a narrow field of vision - visualize his hands in from of his face like the blinders on a race horse - and his memory is going round and round on a carousel, and something he's looking when what he needs to remember passes through his field of vision.
What your suggestions lead me to think is that people who do rote work, or at least never expand their intellectual interests beyond a certain defined field begin to have diminished brain power over time. Are you saying that people who not just learn new things, but experience new things in order to keep the brain function at a higher level? And how late in life can we do this?
Posted by: Ed Brenegar | December 16, 2006 4:34 AM | Permalink to Comment