How We Learn

Let’s pause for just a minute and take a look at ourselves. Let’s start off with how we learn. Let’s talk about how our brains work. Let me show you a little bit about that and about how we learn. Did you know that once somebody tells you something that you will remember only about five percent of it the next day?  

Involvement Leads to Understanding 

So think about it this way:  

• Tell me … I forget  
• Teach me … I remember  
• Involve me … I understand  

Understanding Leads to Living What You Learn 

• If I can understand it, I  can own it. 
• If I can own it, I can live it. 
• If I can live it, I can teach, train, and equip others. 

Teaching, Training, and Equipping Others 

That’s why we encourage you, as you learn the tools we are presenting to you from Transformational Leadership, to go practice them. Teach others what you’ve learned. As you do, you’re involved. And because you’re involved, your team gets involved. Then once they get involved, they really remember what they’ve learned and then they start living it. Then we start teaching each other each of the tools that help us become transformational leaders. 

If you’ve been reading these blogs, you’ve already learned some leadership tools, tools such as giving affirmations, how to approach others, and how to apologize, to name a few. So remember, the way to understand new information and internalize it as a part of your life is to involve yourself in what you’re learning because when you teach, train, and equip others, you can live out the new learning in your own life. 
 

The Best Way to Learn and Remember 
Okay, let’s talk about what the research shows and how that’s connected to “tell me, teach me, involve me.” If you look at the research produced by the World Bank that is called the Learning Pyramid, here’s what it says. We remember from: 

• Lectures – If we hear a lecture where someone just stands up and talks to us or at us, twenty-four hours later we can remember approximately 5 percent of what was said.  
• Reading – If we add some reading to what we’ve just heard, that number soars to 10 percent.  
• Audio-Visuals – If we add some audio-visual, that number goes to 20 percent.  
• Demonstration – If some demonstration accompanies the information, our recall jumps to 30 percent.  
• Lectures – If we hear a lecture where someone just stands up and talks to us or at us, twenty-four hours later we can remember approximately 5 percent of what was said.  
• Reading – If we add some reading to what we’ve just heard, that number soars to 10 percent.  
• Audio-Visuals – If we add some audio-visual, that number goes to 20 percent.  
• Demonstration – If some demonstration accompanies the information, our recall jumps to 30 percent.  

(Adapted from National Training Laboratories, Bethel, Maine) 

If practice and teaching others is the most effective way we learn, think for a moment how most of education is presented and how most learning is expected to take place—through lectures. This research shows us that the person who learns the most in a teaching/learning situation is the teachers themselves unless these other strategies are included in the teaching and learning.  

As you might imagine, if you really want to learn and live out something that is meaningful to you, something that you want to incorporate into your own life, I recommend you take one of the tools we’ve talked about and practice doing it by trying to teach it to someone else. You yourself will benefit from doing that, but you will also help others learn powerful and valuable tools, and that helps you become a transformational leader.