My Justice of the Peace seal and stamps were in a large red pouch. It was definitely in my office. Absolutely on the bottom shelf, somewhere between the stack of workshop materials and some large books.
Every time I looked for the red pouch, I looked there. Except, that wasn’t where it was.
A few days ago, inspired by a request to certify a stack of documents (read: highly motivated to avoid handwriting the same sentence 20+ times), I found them. Not in a red pouch, but in a small bag covered with watermelons. Not on a shelf, but tucked away somewhere I hadn’t even thought to check. The result was a feeling equal parts relief and humility – because I knew where I’d put it. I was sure.
Turns out, our memory isn’t a video camera. It’s more like a sketch artist working under pressure, trying to piece together a scene from a few scattered details, in bad lighting, while someone shouts suggestions from behind.
Why our memories lie to us
We like to believe our memories are trustworthy. That if we remember something, it happened that way. But decades of research in psychology and neuroscience show otherwise: memory is not a passive retrieval process. Memory is active, reconstructive, and often biased by what we expect, assume, or feel.
Neuroscientifically speaking, memory isn’t stored in one single spot. Different elements of what we experience, like sights, sounds, emotions, and meanings, are distributed across brain regions. When we “remember” an event, we’re actually rebuilding it from scattered pieces, not pressing play on a mental movie. That’s why things shift. Why memories degrade. And why, even when we’re sure, we can be wrong.
Another reason is that memory is inherently linked with attention. We only encode what we notice. If we’re distracted, multitasking, or emotionally heightened during an event, those gaps are more likely to be filled with assumptions when we try to recall.
Psychology in action: interviews and investigations
At the Australian Psychological Society’s recent Festival of Psychology, I heard Professor Martine Powell from Griffith University speak about the variables that affect memory, particularly in forensic and investigative settings. Her work reveals something that’s crucial for both law enforcement and leaders alike: the quality of someone’s recall is influenced by how they are asked to remember.
It’s not just about what people know, it’s how we access that knowledge.
For example, specific, open-ended questions tend to yield more accurate responses than general or leading ones. Asking “Can you walk me through exactly what happened from the moment you arrived?” is far more effective than “Did you see anything strange?” General questions leave space for the brain to fill in blanks based on schemas, or our internal scripts for what we think should have happened.
And time matters. Memory degrades rapidly in the first 24 to 48 hours. That’s why best-practice investigative interviews aim to occur as soon as practical, and why law enforcement uses structured interview protocols like PEACE (Planning, Engage & explain, Account, Closure, Evaluate) to maximise clarity, reduce suggestion, and support psychological safety.
Three tips to avoid memory fails for yourself and others
Whether you’re conducting interviews, leading a team, or simply trying to remember where you left your keys, understanding how memory works can give you an edge. Here are three ways to make recall more reliable:
- Write it down – quickly
Our brain begins to overwrite the fine details of memory very quickly. I spoke about this in a past newsletter on the neuroscience of reflection. One client told me they applied this advice with their team post-Cyclone Alfred and found it invaluable in evaluating their organisation’s response and learning for future scenarios.
If something important has happened, or if someone’s shared key information with you, take notes within 24 hours. Even better: note down your impressions, thoughts, and interpretations separately from facts about the actual event. That way, you can separate memory from meaning.
- Ask better questions
Swap “Did you remember to check that email?” for “Can you tell me what happened after the meeting finished?” Open-ended, specific, and time-sequenced questions reduce the chance of distortion and make it easier for others to remember accurately. How we ask determines what we get – not just in investigations, but in team conversations, performance reviews, and retrospectives.
- Don’t confuse confidence with accuracy
Research shows that people can be extremely confident and completely wrong at the same time – my JP stamps are proof! When someone sounds certain, it doesn’t mean their memory is accurate. It might just mean they have rehearsed the memory. Get comfortable with triangulation: corroborate, cross-reference, and be curious, especially in emotionally charged or high-stakes situations.
Scaffolding better memory: structure as a leadership tool
Memory matters in leadership. It shapes how we remember team members’ behaviour, how we interpret previous results, and how we plan for the future. If we’re not actively checking, reflecting, and verifying, we risk building decisions on faulty foundations and assumptions built on imperfect recollections.
Just like my watermelon bag moment, it’s easy to become convinced we know what we know. But memory isn’t a static vault. It’s more like a dynamic Google Doc: editable, suggestible, and sometimes tampered with by unconscious biases, stress, or assumptions.
That’s where structured frameworks help. Whether it’s a reflection template, a decision assessment framework, or structured analytic technique, using consistent processes can help to scaffolding our memory. These tools reduce our reliance on gut recall alone and ensure that critical, questions, assumptions, insights, and reasoning are captured while they’re still fresh. They can help distinguish between what actually happened and what we think happened, especially in complex, high-stakes environments.
So what:
- Understanding how memory works, including its strengths, its flaws, and its blind spots, is not just a cognitive skill. It’s a leadership capability. This capability helps us communicate better, lead with more clarity, and confidently make decisions grounded in substance, not speculation.
- If you’re curious to learn about the kinds of structured frameworks that support better thinking, collaboration, and recall, I’d be glad to share what’s working in teams right now.
- I run a session called Problem Solving Like a Pro, where I teach practical, evidence-based frameworks to help you scaffold your decision-making where and when you need it most. If your team is ready to sharpen their thinking and lift the quality of their decisions, let me know and we’ll book in a time to chat. With end of financial year around the corner, it’s the perfect time to invest in your team’s thinking capability.
References:
Clarke, C., & Milne, R. (2001). National evaluation of the PEACE investigative interviewing course. Home Office Police Research Series Paper 140.
Craik, F. I., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11(6), 671-684. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(72)80001-X
Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966-968. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1152408
Loftus, E. F. (2005). Planting misinformation in the human mind: A 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory. Learning & Memory, 12(4), 361–366. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.94705
Powell, M. B., Fisher, R. P., & Wright, R. (2005). Investigative interviewing. In N. Brewer & K. D. Williams (Eds.), Psychology and law: An empirical perspective (pp. 11–42). Guilford Press.
Schacter, D. L. (1999). The seven sins of memory: Insights from psychology and cognitive neuroscience. American Psychologist, 54(3), 182–203. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.3.182