Made to Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Book Overview

Core Premise

Why do urban legends spread faster than your carefully crafted strategy doc? This book reverse-engineers the DNA of sticky ideas: the ones that survive contact with reality and actually change behavior.

The Authors

• Chip Heath: Stanford Professor of Organizational Behavior
• Dan Heath: Senior Fellow at Duke University

The SUCCESs Framework

graph TD
    A[Sticky Idea] --> S[Simple]
    A --> U[Unexpected]
    A --> C1[Concrete]
    A --> C2[Credible]
    A --> E[Emotional]
    A --> St[Stories]

    S --> S1["Find the core<br/>(not the core five)"]
    U --> U1["Break patterns<br/>Open curiosity gaps"]
    C1 --> C1_1["Tangible language<br/>Clear mental images"]
    C2 --> C2_1["Testable credentials<br/>Details convince"]
    E --> E1["Connect to identity<br/>Make people care"]
    St --> St1["Mental simulation<br/>Flight simulators"]

    style A fill:#7c3aed,color:#fff,stroke:#5b21b6
    style S fill:#06b6d4,color:#fff,stroke:#0891b2
    style U fill:#06b6d4,color:#fff,stroke:#0891b2
    style C1 fill:#06b6d4,color:#fff,stroke:#0891b2
    style C2 fill:#06b6d4,color:#fff,stroke:#0891b2
    style E fill:#06b6d4,color:#fff,stroke:#0891b2
    style St fill:#06b6d4,color:#fff,stroke:#0891b2

The SUCCESs Framework at a Glance

Six principles work together to make ideas stick: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories. Each principle addresses a different barrier to communication. Not all ideas need all six, but the stickiest ones typically combine several.

The Six Principles

1. Simple: Find the single core, not the core five things. Strip to essentials. Profound simplicity beats shallow complexity.

2. Unexpected: Break the pattern to grab attention. Open curiosity gaps the brain wants to close. Surprise maintains interest where predictability kills it.

3. Concrete: Make ideas tangible enough to touch. Use sensory language, not abstractions. Clear mental images stick; vague concepts slide off.

4. Credible: Build belief without authority worship. Use testable credentials (“try this yourself”). Statistics convince experts; details convince everyone else.

5. Emotional: Make people care, not just understand. Connect to identity and values, not just benefits. Meaning drives action; logic drives spreadsheets.

6. Stories: Inspire action through mental simulation. Show the path, not just the destination. Stories are flight simulators for behavior.

The Curse of Knowledge

The Biggest Barrier to Sticky Ideas

The Curse of Knowledge creates an empathy gap: once you understand something deeply, you lose the ability to imagine not understanding it. This is why experts write impenetrable documentation, teachers skip crucial steps, and strategies sound profound to executives but meaningless to everyone else.

Once you know something, you can’t unknow it. Experts forget the beginner’s confusion. You remember the answer, not the struggle. What’s obvious to you is alien to others, and you can’t see it anymore.

This shows up everywhere:

• Communication: Jargon as a status signal instead of clarity tool. Assuming context that only exists in your head. Skipping the “why” because it’s obvious to you.
• Teaching: Starting at step 3 because steps 1-2 seem trivial now. Speed-running explanations. Missing the connective tissue between concepts.
• Business: Documentation written for people who already understand the system. Strategies that sound profound but mean nothing concrete.

Key Case Studies

Ideas that stuck

• Kidney Heist: Concrete danger beats abstract statistics
• Southwest Airlines: “We’re THE low-fare airline.” Simple, testable
• “Don’t Mess with Texas”: Pride beats preaching
• Subway’s Jared Campaign: Concrete person, concrete results
• Truth Anti-smoking Campaign: Credibility through corporate documents, not lectures

Ideas that didn’t

• Mission statements: Abstraction soup with no flavor
• Corporate values: Words on walls that nobody remembers
• Strategy documents: 100 slides saying nothing concrete
• Training manuals: Steps without context or purpose

Practical Applications

Applying SUCCESs to Your Own Ideas

The framework works in practice: start with your core message (Simple), find what breaks the pattern (Unexpected), ground it in tangible examples (Concrete), give people a way to verify (Credible), connect to what they care about (Emotional), and show them the path through a story (Stories). Test by asking: can someone repeat this back and take action?

Putting it to work

Start with your core message (one thing, not everything). Know your audience: what do they already know vs. what do you assume they know?

Structure matters: setup, conflict, resolution. Show don’t tell when possible. Let people test the idea themselves.

Then verify: Can they repeat it back accurately? Did behavior change, or just agreement?

Research Foundation

Key Studies

The Tapping Study - Curse of Knowledge in Action

Researchers asked people to tap out well-known songs (like “Happy Birthday”) on a table. Tappers predicted listeners would recognize 50% of songs. The actual success rate? 2.5%.

The tappers heard the full melody in their heads while tapping. They couldn’t imagine the listeners only heard disconnected taps. This 20x prediction gap is the Curse of Knowledge measured in real-time.

Tapping Study: Tappers think listeners will get 50% of songs; reality is 2.5%. Once you know the melody, you can’t forget it. You hear it even in the taps.

Memory Research: Concrete details recalled 3x better than abstractions. Stories create mental rehearsal (you remember doing it, not reading it). Emotional spikes mark memories for long-term storage.

Decision Making: How options are framed matters more than content. People satisfice, not optimize. We’re predictably irrational.

Sources

• Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. Random House.