Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

by Chip Heath

PRINCIPLE 1: SIMPLICITY

PRINCIPLE 2: UNEXPECTEDNESS

PRINCIPLE 3: CONCRETENESS

PRINCIPLE 4: CREDIBILITY

PRINCIPLE 5: EMOTIONS

PRINCIPLE 6: STORIES

This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.

What we mean by “simple” is finding the core of the idea.

There are two steps in making your ideas sticky—Step 1 is to find the core, and Step 2 is to translate the core using the SUCCESs checklist.

second aspect of simplicity: Simple messages are core and compact.

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The first problem of communication is getting people’s attention. Some communicators have the authority to demand attention.

The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern.

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So, a good process for making your ideas stickier is: (1) Identify the central message you need to communicate—find the core; (2) Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message—i.e., What are the unexpected implications of your core message? Why isn’t it already happening naturally? (3) Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audience’s guessing machines along the critical, counterintuitive dimension. Then, once their guessing machines have failed, help them refine their machines.

McKee says, “Curiosity is the intellectual need to answer questions and close open patterns.

Today that seems obvious, because these techniques have become ubiquitous. But this avalanche of context started because a twenty-nine-year-old wrote a memo about how to make college football more interesting.

The distance from New York to Los Angeles is much more tangible.

Hacer la estadistica tangible

This tactic of the “Three Whys” can be useful in bypassing the Curse of Knowledge. (Toyota actually has a “Five Whys” process for getting to the bottom of problems on its production line. Feel free to use as many “Whys” as you like.) Asking “Why?” helps to remind us of the core values, the core principles, that underlie our ideas.

It’s simple:

It’s unexpected:

It’s concrete:

It’s credible:

It’s emotional:

It’s a story:

Aristotle believed there were four primary dramatic plots: Simple Tragic, Simple Fortunate, Complex Tragic, and Complex Fortunate. Robert McKee, the screenwriting guru, lists twenty-five types of stories in his book:

Telling stories with visible goals and barriers shifts the audience into a problem-solving mode.

Making an Idea Stick: The Communication Framework For an idea to stick, for it to be useful and lasting, it’s got to make the audience: 1. Pay attention 2. Understand and remember it 3. Agree/Believe 4. Care 5. Be able to act on it

Problems getting people to pay attention to a message SYMPTOM: “No one is listening to me” or “They seem bored—they hear this stuff all the time.” SOLUTION: Surprise them by breaking their guessing machines—tell them something that is uncommon sense.

SYMPTOM:“I lost them halfway through” or “Their attention was wavering toward the end.” SOLUTION: Create curiosity gaps—tell people just enough for them to realize the piece that’s missing from their knowledge.

Problems getting people to understand and remember SYMPTOM: “They always nod their heads when I explain it to them, but it never seems to translate into action.” SOLUTION: Make the message simpler and use concrete language. Use what people already know as a way to make your intentions clearer, as with a generative analogy

“We have these meetings where it seems like everyone is talking past each other” or “Everyone has such different levels of knowledge that it’s hard to teach them.” SOLUTION: Create a highly concrete turf where people can apply their knowledge.

SYMPTOM: “They’re not buying it.” SOLUTION: Find the telling details for your message—the equivalent of the dancing seventy-three-year-old man, or the textile factory so environmentally friendly that it actually cleans the water pouring through it. Use fewer authorities and more antiauthorities.

SYMPTOM: “They quibble with everything I say” or “I spend all my time arguing with them about this.” SOLUTION: Quiet the audience’s mental skeptics by using a springboard story, switching them into creative mode. Move away from statistics and facts toward meaningful examples. Use an anecdote that passes the Sinatra Test.

Problems getting people to care SYMPTOM: “They are so apathetic” or “No one seems fired up about this.” SOLUTION: Remember the Mother Teresa effect—people care more about individuals than they do about abstractions. Tell them an inspiring Challenge plot or Creativity plot story. Tap into their sense of their own identities, like the “Don’t Mess with Texas” ads, which suggested that not littering was the Texan thing to do.

SYMPTOM: “The things that used to get people excited just aren’t doing it anymore.” SOLUTION: Get out of Maslow’s basement and try appealing to more profound types of self-interest.

Problems getting people to act SYMPTOM: “Everyone nods their heads and then nothing happens.” SOLUTION: Inspire them with a Challenge plot story (Jared, David and Goliath) or engage them by using a springboard story (the World Bank). Make sure your message is simple and concrete