Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

“Given the importance of making ideas stick, it’s surprising how little attention is paid to the subject.”

There is relatively little research done on how ideas gain traction. Most of the existing literature focuses on teaching people how to deliver a message or how to target the right audience, neither of which explores what makes certain ideas stick.

“We wanted to take apart sticky ideas—both natural and created—and figure out what made them stick.”

The authors have already discussed why certain ideas resonate with people. By dissecting sticky ideas, they have individually compiled over the years in their individual careers, they hope to find the core components of what makes them so long-lasting.

“A designer of simple ideas should aspire to the same goal: knowing how much can be wrung out of an idea before it begins to lose its essence.”

People who wish to come up with sticky ideas must learn how to simplify a message to its core message without eliminating its critical aspects. This is because without simplicity, the message is easily lost, but too much distillation leaves the message without its needed context.

“A common mistake reporters make is that they get so steeped in the details that they fail to see the message’s core—what readers will find important or interesting.”

A common problem in journalism is burying the lead—when a writer is so focused on conveying details that the most important point of a story is lost. The same is true of ideas: if the core is lost, the idea loses appeal.

“Forced prioritization is really painful. Smart people recognize the value of all the material.”

The process of stripping an idea down to its essence is difficult because it requires eliminating details. Experts in particular have a difficult time doing this because they have been trained to value nuance and complexity. Nevertheless, to be sticky, ideas need to be simple and easy to retain—even if their simplicity makes them less accurate.

“You prioritize goals that are ‘critical’ ahead of goals that are ‘beneficial.’”

Sometimes, when people are presented with too many choices or with uncertainty, they have decision “paralysis”—the inability to choose what do to, or how to differentiate between what is “critical” and what is “beneficial.” Ideas that are too complex or lose sight of their core also encourage decision paralysis.

“The first problem of communication is getting people’s attention.”

Ideas need an element of surprise to capture attention because when people are confronted with something unexpected, they are more likely to pay attention. This is a piece of our evolutionary biology that can be harnessed for the attention economy.

“Surprise is triggered when our schemas fail, and it prepares us to understand why the failure occurred.” 

Schemas are predictions people make in their heads about what will happen next based on past experiences. Schemas help people make decisions by anticipating likely outcomes. When ideas are presented with an element of unexpectedness, they challenge people’s preconceived schemas and encourage them to pay attention.

“Common sense is the enemy of sticky messages.”

This passage highlights the importance of defying expectations. Ideas that only repeat what is already established seem mundane and unworthy of attention. In contrast, ideas that stick challenge people’s knowledge and encourage them to remember the new paradigm being proposed. In this lies one of the pitfalls the book doesn’t address—sometimes, the standard “common-sense” ideas are the correct and best approaches to a problem while the disruptive sticky ideas undermine useful knowledge.

“Language is often abstract, but life is not abstract.”

Conveying ideas using concrete imagery—tangible, everyday scenes and actions—makes stories resonate. Conversely, abstraction prevents people who are not experts from remembering or understanding ideas.

“Concrete language helps people, especially novices, understand new concepts. Abstraction is the luxury of the expert.”

Since ideas must be conveyed through communication, the authors emphasize here the importance of using non-expert language for an audience that may not appreciate or understand abstract terms. Additionally, the stickiest ideas resonate with large groups of people, not just experts, which makes concrete language essential.

“Concreteness creates a shared ‘turf’ on which people can collaborate.”

Here, concrete language is portrayed as a bridge that closes the gap between employers and employees, the Commander’s Intent and soldiers, and novices and experts: Tangible rather than abstract messages are more easily understood.

“A citizen of the modern world, constantly inundated with messages, learns to develop skepticism about the sources of those messages.”

The authors stress the importance of having an idea that is credible to the audience. The message being conveyed must be trustworthy for people to retain it and act upon it. In other words, ideas that encourage people to doubt do not stick, even if their more nuanced approach conveys information more accurately.

“Statistics are rarely meaningful in and of themselves. Statistics will, and should, almost always be used to illustrate a relationship.”

After arguing that statistics can be a source of authoritative information, the authors caution that quantitative data must be used strategically to be meaningful. Often, numbers alone mean little to an uninformed audience; to be significant, statistics must be used in conjunction with a more easily digestible image.

“When people think analytically, they’re less likely to think emotionally.”

This passage highlights the importance of evoking emotions for messages to stick. Being asked to think analytically can prevent people from taking action, as they consider the ramifications of what they do. Encouraging people to act without thinking requires getting them to feel rather than to think analytically.

“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.”

One way to evoke emotion in people is to associate a new idea with something familiar—a method that helps audiences visualize and understand the core message being conveyed.

“People matter to themselves.”

Another way to evoke emotions is to directly address an audience’s personal interests. Messages designed to appeal in this way are more easily understood and retained. They are also more likely to be convincing.

“There’s not much evidence that public opinion can be predicted by narrow self-interest.”

This passage adds nuance to the previous point. Although people are often moved by self-interest, their actions are not always dictated by personal stakes. Instead, people will often forsake personal benefit in favor of going along with the greater group identity with which they identify.

“Asking ‘Why?’ helps to remind us of the core values, the core principles, that underlie our ideas.”

When the core of an idea is obscured, the Heaths suggest asking “why should this idea matter?” to rid it of elements that are not critical to the message.

“Mental simulation is not as good as actually doing something, but it’s the next best thing. And, to circle back to the world of sticky ideas, what we’re suggesting is that the right kind of story is, effectively, a simulation.”

This passage illustrates the importance of narrative to making ideas stick. A compelling narrative simulates the actions it describes in an audience’s mind, which gets the message across and acts as a guide for future action.

“You don’t need to make stuff up, you don’t need to exaggerate or be as melodramatic as the Chicken Soup tales. […] You just need to recognize when life is giving you a gift.”

The authors underline that stories do not need to be sensationalized or made up to be effective—though this disclaimer implies that such attention-getting stories often are. The Heaths claim that people who wish to use stories to convey their ideas simply need to be able to spot a good true story.

“Stories can almost single-handedly defeat the Curse of Knowledge. In fact, they naturally embody most of the SUCCESs framework.”

A good story usually follows the same six rules that the Heaths have laid out for sticky ideas. Stories like this fight the “Curse of Knowledge,” which prevents experts from conveying their ideas in a universal and compelling way.

“Ultimately, the test of our success as idea creators isn’t whether people mimic our exact words, it’s whether we achieve our goals.”

Sticky ideas are designed by individuals, but after delivery, they are at the mercy of the audience, who may modify or misremember the message. However, the original idea can still be thought of as successful if its core idea is not lost.