Memorisation vs Internalisation

I had lunch a few weeks ago at a great little restaurant. Our waiter was very well spoken his restaurant patter flowed from his tongue like poetry.

Until that is, we started talking back. Whenever we interrupted his well prepared dialogue he stammered, blinked wildly and then went back to his script as though we’d said nothing at all.

He’d memorised what he was meant to say beautifully, but he hadn’t internalised it at all and as such, if we didn’t say our lines perfectly, he was thrown. Unfortunately no-one had given us a script for eating lunch!

I’ve written before on the fact that I love scripts and dialogues. I love it that when I call my hairdresser they answer the phone “how can I make your day” I love that many Harcourts offices answer the phone “it’s a great day at Harcourts”. That’s memorisation, but when you ask someone what the company’s all about. They can memorise your mission statement or you company profile and repeat it verbatim, or they can have internalised that information so that they can speak conversationally about it (with interjections) and not be thrown.

Memorisation’s a great start, but internalisation and be able to interject a scrip with a personality is key.

Many thanks to Rob Morton from the Disney Institute www.disneyinstitute.com for reminding me what an important topic this is in a recent speech of his.

By Kirsty Dunphey with No comments