Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

by Chip Heath

The barrier to idea-spotting is that we tend to process anecdotes differently than abstractions.

In some sense, there’s a wall in our minds separating the little picture—stories, for instance—from the big picture. Spotting requires us to tear down that wall.

How do we tear down the wall? As a rough analogy, think about the way we buy gifts for loved ones. If we know that Christmas or a birthday is approaching, there’s a little nagging process that opens up in our minds, reminding us that

“Dad is a gadget guy, so keep an eye out for cool gadgets.” It’s barely conscious, but if we happen upon a Retractable Roto-Laser-Light on December 8, chances are we’ll immediately spot it as a possible fit for Dad. The analogy to the idea world is maintaining a deeply ingrained sense of the core message that we want to communicate. Just as we can put on Dad Gift Glasses, allowing us to view merchandise from his p...

In the Introduction, we debunked the common assumption that you need natural creative genius to cook up a great idea. You don’t. But, beyond that, it’s crucial to realize that creation, period, is unnecessary.

If you’re a great spotter, you’ll always trump a great creator. Why? Because the world will always produce more great ideas than any single individual, even the most creative one.

In the average one-minute speech, the typical student uses 2.5 statistics. Only one student in ten tells a story. Those are the speaking statistics. The “remembering” statistics, on the other hand, are almost a mirror image: When students are asked to recall the speeches, 63 percent remember the stories. Only 5 percent remember any individual statistic.

There is a curious disconnect between the amount of time we invest in training people how to arrive at the Answer and the amount of time we invest in training them how to Tell Others.

Business managers seem to believe that, once they’ve clicked through a PowerPoint presentation showcasing their conclusions, they’ve successfully communicated their ideas. What they’ve done is share data. If they’re good speakers, they may even have created an enhanced sense, among their employees and peers, that they are “decisive” or “managerial” or “motivational.” But, like the Stanford students, the surprise will come when they realize that nothing they’ve said had impact. They’ve shared data, but they haven’t created ideas that are useful and lasting. Nothing stuck.

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 r...

5. Be able to act on it This book could have been organized around these five steps, but there’s a reason they were reserved for the conclusion. The Curse of Knowle...

The SUCCESs checklist is a substitute for the framework above, and its advantage is that it’s more tangible and less subject to the Curse of Knowledge.

1. Pay attention: UNEXPECTED 2. Understand and remember it: CONCRETE 3. Agree/Believe: CREDIBLE 4. Care: EMOTIONAL 5. Be able to act on it: STORY

So, rather than guess about whether people will understand our ideas, we should ask, “Is it concrete?” Rather than speculate about whether people will care, we should ask, “Is it emotional? Does it get out of Maslow’s basement? Does it force people to put on an Analytical Hat or allow them to feel empathy?” (By the way, “Simple” is not on the list above because it’s mainly about the Answer stage—honing in on the core of your message and making it as compact as possible. But Simple messages help throughout the process, especially in helping people to understand and act.) The SUCCESs checklist, then, is an ideal tool for dealing with communication problems. Let’s look at some common symptoms of communication problems and how we can respond to them.

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. (The lead is, There will be no school next Thursday! Nordies gift-wrap packages from Macy’s!) 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. (Remember Roone Arledge’s introductions to college football games, setting the context for the rivalry.) Or create mysteries or puzzles that are slowly solved over the course of the communication. (Like the professor who started each class with a mystery, such as the one about Saturn’s rings.) 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 (like Disney’s “cast member” metaphor). Or use concrete, real-world examples. Don’t talk about “knowledge management”; tell a story about a health worker in Zambia getting information on malaria from the Internet. SYMPTOM: “We have these meetings where it seems like everyone is talking past each other” or “Everyone has s...

Have people grapple with specific examples or cases rather than concepts. Problems getting people to believe you or agree 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 (J...