“Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry“

-Bruce Springsteen, The River

Perhaps Bruce Springsteen was on to something when he wrote those words back in 1980. It would be several years until neuroscientists began to wonder the same thing. Just how good is our memory? Not very. And, does it ever lie to us? Yes, probably more often than we realize.

In an effort to be efficient, our brains try to compress and squeeze as much information into one place as possible. It filters out the “noise” and retains the salient facts. Unfortunately, sometimes that “noise” is actually important.

For example, consider the last time you were reviewing work that didn’t meet your expectations. You probably cycled through the typical explanations: you didn’t communicate your expectations well, the other person wasn’t paying attention, the other person wasn’t up to the task, or perhaps, the other person just isn’t bought in and is doing his own thing. These explanations are certainly plausible and in many cases, one or more might be true. But before jumping to a conclusion on any of them, you might want to consider another explanation: what you remember communicating might be wrong.

You might be remembering the conversation that you had with yourself as you prepared for that meeting. You most likely went through all of the things that you wanted to say and how you wanted to say them. Your brain doesn’t necessarily distinguish the two events – the planning and the meeting. After the meeting, your brain combined the two memories into one. As you think back to the meeting, you “remember” with certainty what you said. And, you are right – at least partially. Most likely it is what you said (or thought) just not during the meeting. Where you said it is part of the “noise” that your brain filters out in order to more efficiently store memories.

The same might be happening to the person who did the work. Perhaps he thought through the discussion prior to the meeting. Or, maybe he spoke with someone after the meeting. As time goes by, his initial planning, his discussion with you, and the discussion afterward, all get combined. While he remembers the content of the discussions, he may not remember where and when that came up.

The lesson for leaders is that our memories can be fragile. Don’t jump to conclusions when what you see is different from what you remember requesting. Stop and confirm that your memory is correct. Better, yet, continually confirm that from the time you make the request until it is delivered.

How our memory really works is just one of the many things we talk about in our new book, The Brain Advantage: Become a More Effective Business Leader Using the Latest Brain Research by Madeleine Van Hecke, Lisa P. Callahan, Brad Kolar, and Ken Paller.