You’ve probably heard the story about the guy who wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney. It’s a classic urban legend. It’s also completely fake. Yet, decades later, people still tell it. Meanwhile, you probably can’t remember the core takeaway from that PowerPoint presentation you sat through yesterday morning. Why? Chip and Dan Heath spent years obsessed with this specific frustration, eventually writing Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die to figure out why some concepts are "sticky" while others just slide off our brains like water off a duck's back.
Ideas aren't born sticky. They're made that way.
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The truth is, most "important" information is boring. We’ve been trained to be professional, which usually means being abstract, dry, and utterly forgettable. The Heath brothers argue that if you want an idea to survive, you have to strip it down to its most critical essence and then dress it up in a way that triggers human emotion and curiosity. It’s about the "SUCCES" framework—and yeah, they left the last "s" off to make it a mnemonic, which is a bit cheesy but, honestly, it works.
The Curse of Knowledge is Ruining Your Communication
There is a massive hurdle in your way: The Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it almost impossible to imagine what it was like not to know it. We start speaking in high-level abstractions and jargon because we’ve forgotten that our audience doesn’t have the same mental map we do.
Think about the "Tappers and Listeners" study conducted at Stanford. One group (the tappers) was asked to tap out the rhythm of a well-known song, like "Happy Birthday," on a table. The other group (the listeners) had to guess the song. The tappers were shocked—absolutely floored—when the listeners couldn't guess the tune. In the tapper's head, the melody was screaming. To the listener, it just sounded like erratic finger thumping.
This happens in business every single day.
Executives tap out rhythms of "strategic alignment" and "synergistic scaling," while employees just hear thumping. To break the curse, you have to get concrete. You have to stop using "corporate speak" and start using language that a middle-schooler can visualize. If you can't draw a picture of your idea, it's not concrete enough yet.
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Simplicity Isn't About Being Dumb
People hate the word "simple" because they think it means "dumbing down." It's not. In the context of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, simplicity is about finding the core. It’s about the "Commander’s Intent."
In the military, plans rarely survive first contact with the enemy. A colonel might give a 50-page briefing, but the most important part is the Commander’s Intent: "We need to take that hill so the enemy can’t use the bridge." If everything else goes to hell, the soldiers still know what the goal is. They can lose their map, their radio, and their unit, but they still know they need to take that hill.
Is your business goal that clear? Probably not. Most mission statements are a word salad of "excellence" and "integrity." Southwest Airlines mastered simplicity with one core idea: "THE low-fare airline." That's it. Every decision—whether to serve chicken salad or just peanuts—was filtered through that one sentence. Peanuts are cheaper. Peanuts stay.
The Power of the Unexpected
Our brains are designed to tune out the predictable. You don't notice the hum of your refrigerator until it suddenly stops or starts making a weird grinding noise. That's a "gap" in your expectation. To make an idea stick, you have to break a pattern.
The Heath brothers talk about the "Gap Theory" of curiosity. We feel a literal mental itch when there is a gap in our knowledge. If you want someone to listen, you don't just dump facts on them. You start by pointing out what they don't know. You create a mystery.
Remember the Nordstrom's "Nordie" stories? They aren't just saying "we have great customer service." They tell the story of the employee who gift-wrapped a package bought at Macy's, or the one who ironed a customer's shirt before a meeting. Those stories are unexpected. They create a "Wait, really?" moment that sticks much longer than a bulleted list of service standards.
Concrete Details are the Velcro of Memory
Abstract language is the enemy of retention. "High-performance" means nothing. "A laptop that can survive a 10-foot drop onto concrete" means everything.
In the book, they use the example of the "Pro-Life" vs. "Pro-Choice" debate or even health warnings. When the Center for Science in the Public Interest wanted to warn people about the fat content in movie theater popcorn, they didn't just say "it has 37 grams of saturated fat." Nobody knows what that looks like. Instead, they said: "A medium-sized popcorn at a typical neighborhood movie theater contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings—combined."
That is concrete. You can see the greasy plate. You can feel the heart palpitations. It's visceral.
Why We Believe What We Believe
How do you get people to trust an idea? You don't always need a PhD or a celebrity endorsement. Sometimes, you just need "internal credibility."
Take the "No-Loan" policy at some universities. They don't just show you a spreadsheet. They tell the story of a specific student who could only attend because of the policy. Or look at the "Sinatra Test." If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. If a small security firm can prove they handled security for the White House, they don't need a fancy brochure. That one fact carries all the weight.
You can also use "testable credentials." Remember the old Wendy's "Where's the beef?" commercials? They weren't just telling you the burgers were bigger; they were inviting you to go look for yourself. They gave the audience a way to verify the claim. That creates an immediate sense of honesty.
Emotional Resonance: Making People Care
People don't care about "the masses." They care about individuals. This is known as the "Identifiable Victim Effect." Research shows that people are much more likely to donate to help one specific girl named Rokia in Mali than they are to help "21 million hungry people in Africa."
Statistics actually decrease our emotional response. They trigger our analytical brain, which is the opposite of the part of the brain that feels empathy and takes action.
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To make an idea stick, you have to find the "WIIFY"—What's In It For You. But go deeper than just money or time. Look at Maslow’s Hierarchy. People care about belonging, self-actualization, and identity. Don't tell a guy that a certain fire alarm will save his life; tell him it's what a "good father" buys to protect his family. That’s an identity-based appeal, and it's incredibly powerful.
The Narrative Arc: Stories as Flight Simulators
Stories are the ultimate sticky tool. Why? Because they act as mental flight simulators. When we hear a story, our brains simulate the experience. We are "in" the story, solving the problems alongside the protagonist.
There are three main types of stories that work:
- The Challenge Plot: The underdog overcomes obstacles (think David and Goliath).
- The Connection Plot: People develop relationships across a bridge (The Good Samaritan).
- The Creativity Plot: Someone has a "Eureka!" moment and solves a puzzle in a new way.
Stories provide inspiration and "how-to" knowledge simultaneously. They bypass the skeptical filters we usually have up when someone is trying to "pitch" us an idea. You aren't being sold; you're being told a tale.
Actionable Steps to Make Your Ideas Stick
If you want to apply the principles from Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, don't try to do everything at once. Pick one communication goal—a big email, a presentation, or a pitch—and run it through this checklist:
- Find the Core: Strip your message down to one sentence. If you have three "key priorities," you have zero. What is the one thing they must remember if they forget everything else?
- Create a Mystery: Don't start with the solution. Start with the problem or a question that your audience doesn't know the answer to yet. Open a gap in their knowledge before you fill it.
- The "Squint" Test: Look at your slides or your writing. If you squint your eyes so you can't read the words, is there a visual or a concrete image that still conveys the message? If it’s just blocks of text, it won’t stick.
- Use the "Human Scale": Stop using big numbers. Instead of saying "1 Gigabyte," say "1,000 songs in your pocket." Relate your data to things people already touch, taste, and see every day.
- Identify the Hero: Find one person—a customer, an employee, or a historical figure—who embodies your idea. Tell their story instead of listing your features.
Ideas are fragile. Most of them die because we wrap them in layers of "professionalism" and "abstraction" that make them impossible to grip. By using the SUCCES framework, you aren't just communicating; you're ensuring that your thoughts actually take root in someone else's mind. It takes more effort to be simple and concrete than it does to be complicated, but the ROI on a "sticky" idea is infinite.