How to Help People Learn Faster (and Actually Remember It)

If you’ve ever tried to show someone how to do something - whether it’s your child tying their shoelaces, your partner setting up the Wi-Fi, or a colleague getting to grips with a new piece of software - you’ll know the moment where it just… doesn’t click.

You’ve explained it three times. You’ve pointed at the screen. You’ve even done it yourself and said, “See?”

But still - nothing.

It’s not that they’re not listening.
It’s that learning doesn’t work the way we think it does.

Most of us explain.
Few of us teach.

And that difference - the ability to help others really learn - is one of the most powerful skills you can develop as a leader, trainer, or teammate. 

1. People Don’t Learn by Listening - They Learn by Doing

If you’ve ever tried to teach a teenager to drive, you’ll know this truth immediately. You can spend an hour explaining the clutch and gears, but it’s not until they stall at a junction that they really understand what balance feels like.

The same is true at work.
When we’re teaching someone how to use a new finance tool or lead a meeting, we often default to “show and tell.” But people build understanding through doing - through experience, not observation.

Psychologists call this active learning - linking new information to something familiar. It’s why practical exercises in training matter more than lectures, and why “just watching someone do it” rarely sticks.

If you’re rolling out a new process, give people a safe space to try it.
Let them break it, fix it, and figure it out.
The confidence that follows is real learning in action.

2. The Brain Remembers Stories, Not Slides

Think about your favourite teacher at school.
You probably don’t remember the bullet points they showed - or in my case, the chalk squeaking across the board - you remember the story they told that made the lesson make sense. 

It’s the same in business.
When you’re introducing a new concept, a personal story is worth a hundred PowerPoint slides.

If you’re explaining project risk, tell the story of a time something did go wrong and what you learned from it. If you’re training someone on customer service, share a real client story - the good and the bad.

The psychology of learning shows that we remember information far better when it’s tied to emotion.

• Stories create emotion.
• Emotion creates memory.

The next time you need to teach something, don’t start with “Here’s how it works.”
Start with, “Let me tell you about the time I got this wrong…”

3. Repetition Doesn’t Just Reinforce - It Rewires

There’s a reason you can remember every lyric of a song you haven’t heard in years.
Repetition builds recognition, and recognition creates confidence.

In training, we often expect people to “get it” after one go. But the brain doesn’t work like that.
Each repetition strengthens neural connections - it’s how short-term understanding becomes long-term skill.

At work, this means checking in a week later, revisiting a topic at the next meeting, or asking someone to teach it back to you.

One of the best ways to reinforce learning is through peer teaching - asking someone who’s just learned a new process to show it to the next person.
It’s efficient, empowering, and cements their understanding.

So the next time you think, “We’ve already covered that,” remember: repeating something isn’t a waste of time. It’s how the brain learns best.

4. Leaders Don’t Lecture - They Coach

 A few years ago, one of our clients was running a technical capability programme in a challenging operational environment. Trainers were expected to pass on skills quickly - often with limited time, tools, and very different learner needs.

The trainers who succeeded weren’t the ones with perfect delivery or polished slides.
They were the ones who adapted.
Who listened.
Who found ways to make learning relevant and real.

That’s the difference between teaching and leading.
It’s empathy - understanding that every learner comes with their own experience, confidence, and pressure.

At home, it’s the same instinct that makes you take a deep breath when showing your partner (again) how to load the dishwasher correctly. You know they’ll only learn it if they see the logic for themselves.

That’s coaching, not commanding.
And it works everywhere.

The Leadership Lesson

Whether you’re managing a team, onboarding a new hire, or mentoring a colleague, the same principles apply:

• Start with why. People learn faster when they know why it matters.
• Involve them early. Learning by doing creates ownership and confidence.
• Reinforce regularly. Short, repeated practice beats one big download.
• Add stories. Emotion turns knowledge into memory.

When you understand how people learn, you don’t just teach better - you lead better.

If this resonated with you - and you’d like to go deeper into learning design, facilitation, and how to make training stick - we run two practical courses built around these principles:

👉 Train the Trainer Course
👉 Advanced Train the Trainer

Both are delivered virtually or onsite, designed for professionals who need to share knowledge and build confidence in others.

Because when people learn well, everything else gets easier - leadership, collaboration, and change.

About the Author

Emma-Jane Haigh

Leadership and People Development Specialist, Executive Coach, and Facilitator. Emma-Jane designs and delivers training that helps managers and teams strengthen communication, build resilience, and lead with confidence. At Underscore, she runs leadership, management, and project management programmes focused on practical skills and real workplace impact.