Book Review: Made To Stick by Chip & Dan Heath

Every person has a message to deliver or instructions to give or a lesson to teach or a point to make but they aren’t equally effective at being remembered. In fact, from experience we know that the same message conveyed by several different people will be remembered indelibly or forgotten depending on the messenger not the message. Made To Stick explores why this happens and what can be done to make your ideas more memorable.

According to the authors, Chip and Dan Heath, the manner in which you convey your message is just as important as the message itself, if not more so. It can make the difference between leaving a lasting impression or generating haze. And let’s face it, the message rarely changes.

All parents encourage their kids to avoid drugs, drinking and smoking, to get a good education and to develop life skills. Why are some effective and others not?
Every employer provides their employees with up to date information on job related issues. Why does the lag time between lesson and learning differ from one company to the next?
All Algebra teachers are dealing with the same material. Why is one class motivated to excel and others bored with the whole thing?

Messages and purposes don’t vary significantly from one situation to the next but the methods used to communicate do. It’s the method that really makes the difference and that is the point of Made to Stick.

Chip and Dan identify what makes one idea stick while others fade and, interestingly, it has nothing to do with being truthful or factual. Urban legends, some of the most resilient bits of error, are good examples. They contain little truth but are very difficult to dispel.

The book teaches us that information gathering and dumping is not the answer and “truth” is not made of glue. The way we channel these life lessons, however, can make them very cohesive. Conducting hundreds of hours of research and drawing extensively from external academic studies Chip and Dan isolate six elements that make information impressionable enough to stick. Your message must be:

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
And stories are always more sticky than bare facts

The book includes both reference notes and an index and the new expanded edition includes a final chapter, “Sticky Advice,” which provides practical help for people struggling to effectively communicate their ideas.

Although primarily aimed at business and educational organizations the book is a must buy for parents, the first and most important communicator in every child’s life.

Buy the book inexpensively here.

Once you’ve read it, tell us what you THINK!AboutIt.