33 pages • 1 hour read
Chip Heath, Dan HeathMade to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Key Figures
Themes
Index of Terms
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaThemes
Everyone Can Craft Meaningful Ideas
Made to Stick’s most ambitious argument is that anyone can design an influential idea once they understand the factors that constitute stickiness. Chip and Dan Heath believe that the SUCCESs framework they built is robust enough to make any message memorable, as long as all the elements are applied properly. None of the steps to crafting a sticky idea are easy: the core idea needs to be simple and accessible; the expert must not fall prey to the “Curse of Knowledge”; the imagery needs to be concrete and believable; the story must have an element of unexpectedness and mystery; and the whole must evoke an emotional response. Nevertheless, the Heaths firmly believe that by revealing the anatomy of influential ideas, Made to Stick enables anyone with creativity to deliver powerful messages regardless of their personal level of expertise.
The Heaths structure Made to Stick according to the rules of their SUCCESs framework to demonstrate its accessibility and efficiency. Every chapter begins with a story that grabs the reader’s attention. Every chapter also includes an interactive idea clinic that encourages readers to test out the validity of the arguments proposed. These elements actively replicate the set pattern of sticky ideas that the Heaths promote: The language is simple and accessible to lay audiences, the anecdotes are engaging and often emotionally compelling, and the theories attempt to justify their own credibility by inviting readers to become external sources of authority.
The book itself serves as an example and a test of the Heaths’ concepts in that they utilize their own techniques throughout the text to make their concepts sticky. Each chapter provides basic information delivered in a friendly manner that sometimes uses humor or colloquial language the reader can connect with and relate to. All the concepts discussed are illustrated with multiple anecdotes that help clarify and concretize the brothers’ message. Some of the stories even provide the element of surprise, as the Heaths choose stories that are unusual or unexpected for that particular section, such as the story of the Army dining hall being used as an example of someone appealing to transcendent motivation. Even the Table of Contents is written in an unorthodox way; quick statements of what is to be found in each chapter, such as “Flesh-eating bananas” in Chapter 4 or “The day the heart monitor lied” in Chapter 6, pique curiosity and encourage the reader to read through what they might be initially tempted to skim. Presenting the text as a meta-example helps the reader to see how the framework can be put into action and provides an example of the whole that contains all the individual pieces of the concepts introduced in each chapter.
The Importance of Finding and Retaining a Core
Made to Stick argues that all successful messages have a core maxim that crystallizes the essence of an idea. This “core” is likened to the Commander’s Intent (CI), a US Army strategy to have a clear but broad goal or direction for each mission that is concise enough that it cannot be misinterpreted by soldiers, captains, or other officers but flexible enough to allow individual units the freedom to reach that goal on their own terms as situations on the ground change rapidly.
The core of ideas communicated within companies must replicate the functionality of the CI, guiding decision-making at all levels of a company without stifling employee creativity. A well-crafted business message enables companies to run smoothly, defeats decision paralysis, and provides common ground for employers and employees to communicate. Chapters 2 and 6 provide a concrete example of this principle in action. Nordstrom, a department store chain, has a clear and concise CI: to provide the best customer service in the industry. To drive this point home, the company promotes stories about exemplary employees going above and beyond for their clients. These anecdotes feature employees going to unexpected lengths, giving concrete examples of how Nordstrom goes past “good” to “best” customer service.
A clear and concise core can also bypass some of the challenges of sticky messaging: Its particulars can easily become distorted or misinterpreted in the audience’s mind. To prevent ideas from morphing into unrecognizable shapes, creators must design and reinforce a core, so even misremembered details replicate the main point. For example, Sherlock Holmes is a very sticky character concept; although the phrase most people attribute to him—“Elementary, my dear Watson”—does not actually appear in the stories, it gets across Holmes’s core identity as a brilliant detective accompanied by a trusted but less perceptive assistant.
Must Ideas Be Sticky?
One purpose of Made to Stick is to indirectly answer an important question: Why must ideas be made sticky? Chip and Dan Heath make it clear that well-crafted ideas hold tremendous power since they have the capacity to influence people’s decisions, actions, and outlooks. The Heaths’ SUCCESs framework is designed to allow idea creators a certain level of control over their audience’s behavior: Using it, teachers can pique student curiosity, businesses can make advertising more effective, nonprofits can convince donors to contribute to a cause, and the military can enhance internal logistics and unit cohesiveness. Without stickiness, ideas are quickly forgotten or disregarded as unimportant. Therefore, if someone wishes information to be retained, ideas must be sticky.
The Heaths prize the power of influence, citing proverbs as perfect examples of ideal messaging: They are deceptively simple but are able to spread across cultures and survive the test of time because they offer advice for problems characteristic of the human experience. Ideas that are near-universal and long-lasting are by nature influential and inspirational. In an ideal world, the Heaths argue, sticky ideas would have a similar effect, imparting expertise that informs future decision-making—for example, the way people who work in professions and fields that require split-second decision-making often share past experiences as narratives.
Stickiness is inherently a tool for learning and for persuasion. However, in celebrating the potential upside of very sticky ideas, the book does not consider the downside—the proliferation of sticky misinformation, propaganda, or other deceitful and untruthful advertising. In many of the anecdotal parts of the text, the Heaths discuss individuals needing or wanting their information to be retained so it then influences their audience’s behavior. The majority of the stories describe audiences who are largely unaware that they are being manipulated, which raises the question of how ethical the techniques presented in the book truly are. For example, Chapter 5 stresses that sticky messages have an emotional appeal and that encouraging an audience to think analytically will be less likely to result in the desired behavior. This is the epitome of an emotional appeal, a logical fallacy, which is often used to cover up a lack of logic or evidence. The Heaths encourage readers to focus on emotions over dry data to make their ideas sticky, but they do not discuss the parameters of an ethical use of emotional appeal. Made to Stick, then, joins a long tradition of questioning the ethics of marketing as a whole, which is a debate that has been going on since the beginning of human trading.
