Made to Stick

What do the following three statements have in common?
1. The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space.
2. Children must be careful what they eat on Halloween, to avoid poisoned or tampered foods.
3. You use only 10% of your brain.

Two things in common. First, they are all false. You can’t see the Great Wall from space. There are no known instances of Halloween candy tampering. And we use much more than 10% of our brain. And second, despite having no truth, the statements are all incredibly “sticky,” or memorable. I’ve heard each one dozens of times. They have endured for decades.

That’s the opening of Made to Stick, a book I read recently by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. They have studied this “sticky” phenomenon and derived certain principles that we might apply to many of our communications, be they marketing, leadership or interpersonal. Here's what "sticks": Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions and “Stories.” (Cheesy enough, these spell “SUCCESs,” well, sort of.) I know, they don’t sound very groundbreaking when listed professorially. But the Heaths spice up the concept with plenty of interesting examples and research. And while I’m not sure if I’m a “stickier” communicator having read the book, it’s at least caused me to think about the goal of stickiness.

Here’s an example. John F. Kennedy, in his famous 1961 address to Congress, laid out a bold and dramatic goal for the country: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” Sticky? You bet. Why? Well, it’s simple, unexpected, credible and concrete. And then we did it, just to Stick It to the Russians.