Book Review: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Authors: Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Publisher: Random House

Year of Publication: 2007

“Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath is a bestselling classic that demonstrates why some ideas are more effective than other. It explains what makes ideas stands out and in doing so illustrates ‘stickiness’. The authors talk about six principles that can help express one’s message so that the audience can remember it and act upon it. The book is a compendium of short stories that ‘sticks’ to the reader’s mind along with providing insights on this interesting phenomenon.

The book is co-authored by two brothers: Chip Heath and Dan Heath. “Made to Stick” is one of the four bestsellers authored by the Heath brothers, namely Decisive, Switch and The Power of Moments. Collectively, these books have sold over 3 million copies worldwide and been translated into 33 languages, including Thai, Arabic and Lithuanian. Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Dan Heath is currently a Senior Fellow at Duke’s University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs.

According to the authors, the six underlying SUCCESs principles for making ideas stick are: Simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotional and stories. Sticky ideas all share these six common traits. The uniqueness of each of these traits are explored in detail within each chapter. The short stories are all sticky messages that draws their power from the same six traits. My favorite short stories are the infamous kidney heist tale, the Halloween Candy stories. The book also talks about a range of theories that can help the ideas stick, including the Velcro Theory of Memory, the Curse of Knowledge and Curiosity Gaps.

For the authors, simplicity boils down to the core message that a communicator would want people to walk away with. In a way, a simple message makes it easier for the audience to capture the true essence of an idea. Secondly, unexpectedness in any idea can generate interest and curiosity among the audience by surprising them.  Concreteness refers to explaining ideas “in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information”. This means that sticky ideas can be grasped easily and remembered later with ease. Next, sticky ideas must carry their own credentials. Sticky ideas are usually believable and has credibility.

The authors also discuss the importance of emotions and stories in ideas. Evoking feelings are the best ways to make one’s idea stand out. Stories can help wrap the idea with context, that can help make associations or familiarity. Stories can help empower people to use an idea through narrative. Finally, for an idea to stick, it has to be useful and lasting. The idea should make the audience pay attention, understand it, believe it and be able to act on it.

What I really liked about this book is its simplicity. In a way, the six traits discussed by the authors can transform the way one communicates. The book is surprisingly provocative, yet humorous. Although the book is more than 200 pages, it is a quick read, full of interesting anecdotes. While the stories are not mind boggling, they are interesting and successfully engages the audience. One of my key learning from this book: Thinking about how YOU would respond to an idea if YOU were your target audience. It’s asking oneself the question: what would make me take notice?

The book can help communicators, who can apply the six rules to make messages stick. The techniques discussed in this book can make any idea more memorable and meaningful, thus making it sticky.