Book Report: Made to Stick
My wife is an amazing baker. She could start her own bakery and make millions. This would cause a few problems, not the least of which is that I’d need to buy larger size pants. My favorite thing is Anna’s carrot cake. It’s heavenly.
My wife has learned how to make her carrot cake “stick;” the smell, the taste, the expectation of the cream cheese frosting…oh my. I can’t help but share with others how good her carrot cake is. And once they’ve had a piece, it’s all over. I recently ran into an old co-worker I’d not seen in 2 years. The first thing out of her mouth was, “It’s been too long since I’ve had your wife’s carrot cake.”
She didn’t even say hi.
Anna has successfully done what authors Dan and Chip Heath write about in their book Made to Stick. She’s found a way to take a message, in this case – yummy carrot cake – and make it so memorable and sticky in the mind of her audience that they are compelled to talk about it, share it with others and in this case even use it as a metaphor in a blog post. 
Wouldn’t it be great if your vision or purpose statement was that sticky? Is it possible to communicate a message in a way that creates much greater reception and influence by simply applying a few key properties to every message?
Dan and Chip Heath believe it is. And so do I.
Below are my key learnings from the book. To read the actual introduction of the book click here.
THOUGHTS FROM BOOK
Pg 8 - Definition of Stickyness “when your ideas are understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact – they change your audience’s opinions or behavior
Pp 16-18 – The Six Principles of Sticky Ideas (SUCCESs)
- Simplicity
- Unexpectedness
- Concreteness
- Crediblity
- Emotions
- Story
Pg 20 – Beware: The Curse of Knowledge. This has immediate impact for anybody that has a message they want to communicate. Curse of Knowledge – when I as the message sender assume that you know what I know.
SIMPLICTY
- Find the CORE of an idea.
- Two great questions as you schedule a day or a week:
- If I do nothing else during tomorrow’s ___________ (meeting, day, seminar, etc), I must ____________.
- The single, most important thing that I must accomplish tomorrow is _________________.
- Finding the CORE requires “Forced Prioritization.” This is a great concept. When we decide what is most important we are forced to prioritize around that. It sounds simple and easy but in reality this is tough for leaders to be clear on.
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- Simple = CORE + Compact The message has to have both variables to be simple. They will not work if one is left out. Another way of putting it is that ideas need to be compact enough to be sticky and meaningful enough to make a difference….otherwise it probably doesn’t need to be said.
UNEXPECTED
- To get someone’s attention you have to find a way to break the pattern.
- To make our communication more effective, we need to shift our thinking from:
“What information do I need to convey? ========> to “What questions do I want my audience to ask?
CONCRETE
- Big takeaway for me was the idea that a message will not grow if it is ambiguous. It must have skin, bones and flesh; it has to have feet on the ground.
Concreteness makes the abstract accessible.
- The Velcro Theory of Memory: Our brains function in much the same way as Velcro. The more hooks an idea has, the better it will cling to memory.
- Pg 111 A powerful and moving story that illustrates the power of CONCRETE titled Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes.
CREDIBLE
- Vivid details boost credibility
- Statistics will, and should, almost always be used to illustrate a relationship. It’s more important for people to remember the relationship than the number.
EMOTIONAL
- The most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something they don’t yet care about and something they do care about.
- Pg. 203 To get people to care about our ideas, we have to get them to take off their analytical hats. We create empathy for specific individuals. We show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about. We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities—not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be.
STORIES
- Story provides simulation (knowledge) and inspiration (motivation to ACT)
FAVORITE QUOTE FROM THE BOOK
“If you’re a great spotter (of ideas, creativity and the principles from the book), 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.”
HOW TO APPLY THIS TO YOUR VISION MESSAGE.
- Write out in detail the current situation behind the message. What is the reason for the message or the aim of the message?
- Write out what the existing message to the end user is currently. What is the current message being communicated?
- Then create and write out a second message trying to use the SUCCESS principles from the book.
- As a team create a scorecard (see below)
- As a team evaluate which message has more points, based on the SUCCESS principles. The more points, the better the chance the message will stick.
Scorecard (how do the 2 messages compare based on the following criterea?)
Checklist Message 1 Message 2
Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Story
NEXT ACTION:
- Read the book. This post does only a cursory overview of some great writing and illustrations. One of the best parts of the book is that it’s written in a way that helps it stick, the whole book is an example of what they are writing on.
- Also, at the end of the book is a bulleted list of all the key concepts and core messages from the book for quick reference.
- Subscribe to the Author’s blog on their website: www.madetostick.com
What other great books or ideas have you learned for making vision sticky? (Yes, Making Vision Stick by Andy Stanley would be a GREAT example. )
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