30 Books in 30 days – Remembering 15 years of the 1st Friday Book Synopsis – (Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath)

{On April 5, 2013, we will celebrate the 15^th Anniversary of the First Friday Book Synopsis, and begin our 16^th year.  During March, I will post a blog post per day remembering key insights from some of the books I have presented over the 15 years of the First Friday Book Synopsis.  We have met every first Friday of every month since April, 1998 (except for a couple of weather –related cancellations).  These posts will focus only on books I have presented.  My colleague, Karl Krayer, also presented his synopses of business books at each of these gatherings.  I am going in chronological order, from April, 1998, forward.  The fastest way to check on these posts will be at Randy’s blog entries — though there will be some additional blog posts interspersed among these 30.}
Post #19 of 30

——————–

Synopsis presented March, 2007
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath.  (Random House.  2007)

After the May, 2013 First Friday Book Synopsis, I will have presented synopses of three books by the brothers Heath:  this one, Made to Stick, and Switch, and then Decisive:  How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work (scheduled to be published late this month).  These brothers know how to communicate/write/collaborate.

Made to Stick was the first Heath brothers book I presented.  In the same year that I presented this book, I also presented my synopsis of Words that Work by Frank Luntz.  They are perfect companion volumes to each other, with plenty of overlap, but with enough differences that if you want to communicate more clearly, (and who doesn’t?), you should read both of these books.  (I have presented half-day seminars, weaving in the principles found in these two books – fully giving credit to the authors, of course).

Made to Stick revolves around six principles of clear communication:

1)             Principle 1:  Simplicity
2)            Principle 2:  Unexpectedness
3)            Principle 3:  Concreteness
4)            Principle 4:  Credibility
5)            Principle 5:  Emotions     
6)            Principle 6:  Stories

The book starts with the “kidney heist story.”  You know, the one where a man wakes up in a bathtub filled with ice, in a far-away land, and finds a note to call 911 because a kidney has been removed.  (No, it never has actually happened.  Snopes rules “false”).  That is a story that “sticks,” and they spend the book describing the ingredients that go into such a sticky message.  (Yes, they give credit to Malcolm Gladwell for the word and the concept, though the points are all theirs.  “We want to pay tribute to Gladwell for the word “stickiness.”  It stuck.”).

Here is some of what they say in the book:

It’s the nature versus nurture debate applied to ideas:  Are ideas born interesting or made interesting?  Well, this is a nurture book. 

Is it possible to make a true, worthwhile idea circulate as effectively as this false idea (the Kidney Heist story)?  (Their answer is yes – thus, this book).

Only some ideas need to stick…

So not every idea is stick-worthy.  When we ask people how often they need to make an idea stick, they tell us that the need arises between once a month and once a week, twelve to fifty-two times per year.  For managers, these are “big ideas…”   

One key is to edit, edit, edit…

To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion.  We must relentlessly prioritize.  Saying something short is not the mission – sound bites are not the ideal.  Proverbs are the ideal.  We must create ideas that are both simple and profound.  The Golden Rule is the ultimate model of simplicity:  a one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning to follow it. 

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”  (French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s definition of engineering elegance).

Emotions are critical – but, the right emotions, used in just the right way.

We are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions.

Sometimes the hard part is finding the right emotion to harness.  For instance, it’s difficult to get teenagers to quit smoking by instilling in them a fear of the consequences, but it’s easier to get them to quit by tapping into their resentment of the duplicity of Big Tobacco. 

And one of my favorite ideas is “the curse of knowledge.”  We assume our audience knows what we know.  That is “the curse of knowledge” – they do not know.  The Heath brothers recommend “the tapping exercise.”  Using your finger, “tap out” a song, on the desk or podium, that you know well, and ask the audience to identify it.  They generally cannot. They do not know what you know as you tap it out.

Our knowledge has “cursed” us.  And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind. 

To create interest, we use curiosity + story:

“Curiosity is the intellectual need to answer questions and close open patterns.  Story plays to this universal desire by doing the opposite, posing questions and opening situations…  Each Turning Point hooks curiosity.  The audience wonders, What will happen next? and How will it turn out?”  (Robert McKee, screenwriting guru).

And don’t forget to appeal to the self-interest of the audience:

We make people care by appealing to the things that matter to them.  And what matters to people?  People matter to themselves.  It will come as no surprise that one reliable way of making people care is by invoking self-interest. 

And you must remember this – once your message is sent forth, you no longer own your message…

In making ideas stick, the audience gets a vote.  The audience may change the meaning of your idea…  The audience may actually improve your idea…  Or the audience may retain some of your ideas and jettison others…  The question we have to ask ourselves in any situation is this:  Is the audience’s version of my message still core?  Ultimately, the test of our success as idea creators isn’t whether people mimic our exact words, it’s whether we achieve our goals.

In my synopsis handout, I included this, which I really like:

For an idea to stick, for it to be useful and lasting, it’s got to make the audience: 

1)  Pay Attention	(thus, be)	Unexpected
2)  Understand and Remember It	(thus, be)	Concrete
3)  Agree/Believe	(thus, be)	Credible
4)  Care	(thus, be)	Emotional
5)  Be Able to Act On It	(thus, be sure   to use)	Story

Here are your options.  If you have something to communicate, you can communicate in a way that your message will not stick.  That will come rather easily.  If that is what you intend, do nothing to get better at your communication.  You’ll “succeed” – your audience will not remember your message.

Or, you could want your message to stick, and then to achieve its desired outcome.  If that is the case, read this book, and start putting its principles to work.  It’s not easy, it takes practice – but it is doable.  Stick to it!

——————–

You can purchase many of our synopses, with our comprehensive handouts, and audio recordings of our presentations, at our companion site 15minutebusinessbooks.com.  The recordings may not be studio quality, but they are understandable, usable recordings, to help you learn.

(And though the handouts are simple Word documents, in the last couple of years we have “upgraded” the look of our handouts to a graphically designed format).

We have clients who play these recordings for small groups.  They distribute the handouts, listen to the recordings together, and then have a discussion that is always some form of a “what do we have to learn, what can we do with this?” conversation.  Give it a try.