This Summer, Read the Best Book I've Read This Year

I just finished this amazing book called “Moonwalking with Einstein,” by Joshua Foer. One of my clients recommended it to me and I'm now spreading the word. It’s a book about the power of memory, and how people remember. Besides making me wish I had a better memory, this book follows the author is on a quest to improve his memory with the help of “mental athletes” and meets these incredible people (including one guy who had memorize pi to 50,000 digits. My record is closer to 10).

This is a book every business leader should read, but not to make their memories better. The real value is in making their employees more effective and productive, and if done right, build skills for life. Studies have shown that adults retain only 10% of materials they receive in a powerpoint or lecture setting. 10%. For many business leaders looking to drive a change in how their employees interact with customers or co-workers, that level of retention is a major bottleneck. In contrast, when adults engage in experiential learning, they retain 65% of the materials.

In come the techniques that Foer talks about in "Moonwalking with Einstein." I'll share my favorite three and encourage you to pick up the book and begin a process to help your employees perform better through greater use of their memory.

The most famous of the memory techniques is to create a "place" or "loci" memory experience to recall information. For example, if a salesperson needs to memorize product facts or features, they should establish a mental image of each product fact on top of a place or loci that they know extremely well, for example their home growing up. In each room of the house, they take a piece of information and imagine it in that room. As they journey around the house they create a mental map of the materials that can be recalled later by walking through the house.

A second example Foer talks about is the definition of experts and expertise. In today's world, to be effective, business leaders are becoming more and more specialized with deep areas of expertise. Foer explains that expertise rests on pattern recognition. The ability to make inferences from small bits of data based on deep experience and act on it. My colleagues in their book Sales Growth talked about this perception in the sales world that people are either good sales people or they’re not. It’s the genius complex. As they say, it’s possible to coach “rookies into rainmakers.”

My third favorite example from the book is how Foer talks about the "OK Plateau." This is a levelling off of skills or effectiveness that professionals hit almost without exception. Skills stop improving and therefore performance is either flat or down. The biggest culprit? It turns out that a lack of immediate feedback on the quality someone's work is the main driver people hit an "OK Plateau." As managers, we all need to do more to push employees past the "OK Plateau." His advice is to find a way to push employees to go faster and further than they have been able to in the past. This could be through stretch goals but must also include a consistent and high quality feedback loop so they can learn from mistakes and build skills.

The common pattern throughout the book and the reason I found it so exciting is that these skills can be learned. You don't have to be a "genius" to dramatically improve the effectiveness of your natural skills and improve the power of your brain.

So, don’t go looking for Einsteins; train them in your own organization. In the meantime, I’m going to work on doing a better job remembering where I left my car keys.

What examples have you found of companies who train their people to become champions?

Read more about leadership and other topics at the Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum site, and follow us @McK_CMSOForum. And please follow me at @joshleibowitz.

For 50+ more summer favorites from Influencers, check out the full Influencer Summer Guide here. Photo: jessica wilson/Flickr