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In Made to Stick, the brothers Heath boil down the art of creating sticky ideas to two fundamental tasks: determining what your “core” message will be, and then sharing that core message in a way that connects with people. That’s it. There’s nothing all that complicated about it. In fact, the idea is so straight forward that many people miss the key concepts initially. Let’s take a look at them in a little more detail.
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Step one of creating “sticky” ideas is to determine the “core message” of your communication. In simpler terms – you need to understand and define the single most important message you’re trying to convey. Optimal word here? Single. As the Heaths state, “If you attempt to say three things, you end up saying nothing.” If your audience is going to remember only one thing from your message, what would you want that takeaway to be? That single overwhelming point has to be the focus of your message.
The term Heath and Heath use to exemplify that core message is “Commander’s Intent.” Borrowed from the US Army, the term “Commander’s Intent” refers to the overall objective of a particular military mission. In the Army, as the Heaths explain, there are literally thousands of details to be shared and orchestrated between dozens of divisions and platoons. The concept of the “Commanders Intent” was devised to ensure that no matter what you as a soldier were tasked with, you always had a crystal clear understanding of the overall mission objective. The Commander’s Intent could be as simple as “Get Platoon 345 onto Hilltop 24 and neutralize all threats”. Nothing confusing or ambiguous about that. If you’re a soldier, whether you’re in platoon 345 or not, you know the objective of this mission. Simple. Note the difference though between “simple” and “dumbed down.” The purpose of the Commander’s Intent is not to remove the complexity of the operation, but rather to provide an overall purpose to the activities of each soldier.
Visualize for a moment the last time you tried to communicate a particularly important message. What was it you were trying to share? Stop for a second. Don’t glaze over that question. Rather, spend a few moments actually thinking about it. “What was the message you were trying to share?” Can you explain it as cleanly as you’d like? Is there any room for ambiguity or misinterpretation? What was your Commander’s Intent?
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So, what is it that makes urban legends so memorable? Once a “Commander’s Intent” has been established, Heath and Heath explain, a message’s chances of stickiness can be greatly improved by subjecting it to what they’ve cleverly named the “SUCCES” criteria. (Yes, with only one ‘s’ on the end.) While the brothers openly admit the acronym is a bit gimmicky, it works as a remarkably strong tool for remembering the 6 principles of stickiness. In short, they are:
Run an urban legend against this checklist. (Heath and Heath use the infamous “Bathtub-full-of-ice-Kidney-Heist” legend as an example. If you don’t know the one I’m referring to, visualize one you do know.)
The checklist holds. Made to Stick, however, is not a book about urban legends. Instead, the book is truly focused on determining the inherent traits of a sticky idea so those traits can be harnessed and taught. Written as a companion text to Malcolm Gladwell’s landmark book, The Tipping Point, Made to Stick is a major accomplishment in its own right. Rich with humour, contemporary examples and tangible applications, Made to Stick contains the resources and tools to transform even the most potentially bland idea into one that makes an impact.
Chip Heath is the Thrive Foundation of Youth Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is the co-author of “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard,” which debuted at #1 on the “New York Times” and “Wall Street Journal” bestseller lists. The Heath brothers previously co-wrote the critically acclaimed book “Made to Stick,” which was named the Best Business Book of the Year, spent 24 months on the BusinessWeek bestseller list, and has been translated into 29 languages, the last of which was Slovak.
