There is (almost) nothing in the world so personal and so dear to any person to hear than his or her name. If you hear your name drop in a conversation where you are no part of, you’ll be triggered like nothing else.

Knowing and using the name of a person builds trust: you actually see the person and remember a really precious thing about them.

Make it a routine to carefully listen to an introduction. A simple trick is to repeat their name a couple of times during the first minutes of interaction. Things like “nice to meet you [name]”, and “so, [name], what brought you here?” can make their name stick in your head. If you are in meetings with a large group of people, write down the names during the introduction round, so you can refer to them later.