How to remember names, from a top CEO coach

In coaching hundreds of executives over the years, a few questions come up again and again. Recently the CEO of a large company in the Midwest noticed during a training that I greeted a new group, asking each person their name, and was able to remember all 50 of them. He asked what my secret was. Below, I’ve laid out how anyone can get better at something most of us struggle with.

Tip #1: 80% of it is effort. Just raw effort. You’ve got to brute-force the problem. Like most progress in life, it starts with a wanting—an irrational commitment to get good at something.

One of our young tech guys, Chris, who handled our cameras and dial testing equipment, once said, “I could never learn that many names.” We challenged him to keep trying. Each event, he improved. He went from learning 5 names out of 50, to 10, to 20. On his fourth “intentional” try, he memorized 35 names by lunchtime.  Of course, that training was all women so maybe he had a different motivation.

Tip #2: You didn’t forget the names—you never really learned them.
Think of it like this: You’re at a big event, and three people approach you. Each hands you a helium balloon—that’s their name. You hold all three in one hand and say, “Nice to meet you, Brett. Diane. Paul.” Now you’re holding three balloons.

Then three more people come up and hand you three more balloons. Now both hands are full. Then three more… What happens? Poof, the first ones are let go and float away. They are gone. 

To hold onto those names, you’ve got to tie them down to something.

Like in old Westerns: the cowboy hops off his horse and flips the reins around the hitching post. If he doesn’t tie the reins, the horse wanders off. That’s how information works. If it’s not hitched, it wanders.

There is still so much we don’t know about the brain, but think of memory in stages—short-term, medium-term, and long-term.

Years later, do you need to remember where you parked the car that day or or your hotel room number that night?  No.  You just need that info short-term. Names might be short term (that nice wait staff), a couple of loops on the hitching post—that’s often enough.  By the way, sleep helps tie loops by processing what happened during the day, thus depending how you “tie” it moves to medium and then long term.

Tip #3: Use the name ASAP!

On a call this week, someone referred to Yolany as “Johlany.”  Piqued, I asked her how she pronounces it, and she said it’s “Johlany” in Honduras, but everyone at work had been saying it wrong for years—and she never corrected us!

If you can’t spell it and say it correctly, your brain ties it to the wrong post.

So, ask questions. Use the name in a sentence. Ask what the name means. Where it comes from. Just like learning a new language—you’ve got to get phonics right first, not just vocabulary.

Statistically, we’ve all been slightly mispronouncing someone’s name at work for years. A helpful phrase: “I’ve heard a few different pronunciations—can you tell me how you say it so I can get it right?”

Here’s another trick:
Let’s say you’re in a meeting with 20 people. I flip over my agenda paper and, as they introduce themselves, I write their names in a big circle. No one notices.
That’s… Lisa… Mark… Adam… Trinity… Dinah…

Then, during the next few minutes, I repeat them to myself. Lisa, Mark, Adam. Then backward: Adam, Mark, Lisa. We remember sequences better.

Final tip: Don’t be afraid to interrupt early to get the name right. Imagine you’re in a room with 20 people introducing themselves quickly. Some speak softly or mumble. A junior person will let it slide. A senior person—a leader—will interrupt.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that—can you say it again?”
“Oh, Achim, did I say that right?  Got it. And Yao—how do you spell that?”

It’s a power move—but a respectful one. You’re not dominating. You’re building. No one ever feels insulted by being asked how to say their name.

Bill Hoogterp is an author, entrepreneur, and one of the top executive coaches worldwide. He has advised dozens of Fortune 500 CEOs, and last year his company LifeHikes offered trainings at more than 100 global companies in 47 countries and seven languages. To learn more about Bill, visit lifehikes.com. To ask Bill a question for a future column, email bill_hoogterp@lifehikes.com.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com