“How do you design an idea that sticks?” – Made to Stick

Think about a moment when you were trying to get an idea across to someone. Think about how you approached the situation, what skills you used, what words you said, and the techniques you used. Were you successful? Was the person responsive to your message? Did your idea ‘stick’ with them?

If your idea didn’t ‘stick’ with your audience then you’ll need to change your technique. You don’t need expensive training or to attend a seminar to learn it either. Your aid can be found in one of the best business books to be released this year – “Made to Stick”.

You face the situation above more than you probably imagine. Every person deals with trying to get a message or idea across to others. If you are a teacher you face the situation weekly. Any time you present new information to students your end goal is to get the idea(s) to resonate with them and not just through rote memorization. You want your information to ‘stick’. You want your students to have “aha!” moments. Moments that change student’s perspectives. In business it’s the same scenario. There are circumstances when you need to ‘sell’ ideas. Bosses, customers, fellow co-workers – there are no boundaries to communicating your message. You need an effective method to craft your ideas. Ministers with gospels to share, historians with facts, cab drivers with advice, the list is endless who can benefit from getting their message to ‘stick’.

“Our interest is how effective ideas are constructed – what makes some ideas to stick and others disappear.” – Made to Stick

After reading the ‘Tipping Point‘ by Malcolm Gladwell two brothers Chip Heath (a Stanford Business school professor) and Dan Heath (a corporate education consultant at Duke) were inspired by Gladwell’s top selling book. Gladwell spoke of the innovations that cause the ‘tipping point’ are due to their ‘stickiness’. The Heath brothers take the extra step to find out what exactly causes ideas to be ‘sticky’. How are they constructed? After extensive research they found that the ideas that ‘stick’ (i.e. Jared from Subway, Urban Legends, JFK’s call to put a man on the moon) all share the following six principles (with a chapter dedicated to each principle):

Simple – Find the core of your idea. This isn’t done by ‘dumbing it down’; this is done by finding what is essential to your message. Strip your idea down to the bare essential.

Unexpected – Get peoples attention. Attract it. Hold it. How? Through surprise. Break people’s ‘guessing machine’ and then repair it.

Concrete – Concrete is memorable. Abstract is not. Make your idea like Velcro. Hook them through concreteness.

Credible – Help people believe. Honesty and trustworthiness should be glorified. Use authorities and anti-authorities. Vivid details boost credibility. If possible, use statistics that generate a human context. Use the “Sinatra Test”.

Emotional – Make people care. Associate ideas with emotions that already exist in others. Bridge the emotional gap between your idea (that they don’t care about – yet) with something they already are emotional or care about. Place emphasis on benefits!

Story – Get people to act. Use stories as stimulation (tell people how to act). Use stories as inspiration (give people energy to act).

There are villains in the whole scheme of creating “sticky” ideas – one of them being The Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it difficult to recall what it was like not to know. The authors put you in the situation of experiencing the Curse of Knowledge perfectly. Try it yourself. Go get a friend. Think of a song and tap it out with your finger. Ask them to guess the song. To you it seems utterly ridiculous that they can’t guess it. But that’s because you have the song playing in your head. You don’t know what it’s like to be in that situation unless you switch roles. This is the exact situation you face when trying to express your ideas and messages to fresh minds. It’s the Curse of Knowledge. Don’t worry though, the Heath brothers will play superhero and show you how to navigate around this villian.

Each chapter contains ‘clinics’ or helpful case studies to show the principle in use. They are the icing on the cake because examples are bountifully placed throughout the text.

You will find “Made to Stick”in the business section of your local bookstore but don’t let its store location fool you. If you find yourself needing to communicate important ideas and messages – no matter what you do in life - this book will no doubt be a benefit to you. The Heath brothers claim that “Made to Stick” is no silver bullet for getting ideas to stick, but it’s pretty damn close!

Some more goodies:

• Made to Stick Blog
• Today Show Interview
• Are you Sticky? - Time article highlighting Made to Stick
• Marketing Made Sticky - Inc. feature