Don’t Forget Ebbinghaus
One of the first questions that I ask clients is “What are your objectives of the training event”?
The reason I ask this question is straightforward; I want to ensure that I understand their objectives and the “problem” they’re trying to solve and ensure that I can meet them.
Some clients place an emphasis on learning something new, or having an enjoyable team experience, and that’s absolutely fine. I can certainly deliver on those.
However, some clients want the training session to drive behaviour change, where the learners adopt new techniques that I’ve taught, to improve their performance and to achieve better business outcomes. This is fine, too.
The challenge with driving sustainable behaviour change of the learners is that a one-day session, in isolation, simply cannot deliver on the desired outcome.
The reason for this is “the forgetting curve”, pioneered by psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus in the 1880’s.
His work demonstrated that we forget a huge chunk of what we’ve learnt immediately after the learning event. As time elapses, we can recall even less, and as much as 80% of what you’ve learnt is gone from your memory after 1 month!
Source: www.mindtools.com
This study was repeated in 2015 by Jaap M J Murre and he concluded that Ebbinghaus’s findings still held.
I hate to say it, but if your objective is sustained behaviour change, holding a 1-day training event is a waste of your precious training budget.
So what can you do to counteract Ebbinghaus?
The good news is that there are several actions you can take to defeat Ebbingahus and his forgetting curve.
1. Spaced learning – hold a review session shortly (say, within 1 week) after the initial training session, and then 2-3 further short sessions. These can be held at increasing intervals.
2. Relevant learning – if the topics are relevant to the learner with examples being linked to the learner’s world, the knowledge is more likely to be retained.
3. Engagement – learners will retain more of what they’ve heard if the material is delivered in an engaging way. This can be achieved if the training is less “tell” and more of an inquisitive discussion, with learners sharing their thoughts and views with peers.
So, here’s my tip.
When you’re thinking about how to get the biggest impact from your training budget, consider your overall objective. If you want to drive sustained behaviour change, don’t throw your money away with a “one and done” workshop.
Instead, make additional, smaller, investments in follow-up sessions to defeat Ebbinghaus.
See also: Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve - Why We Keep Forgetting and What We Can Do About It (mindtools.com)
