Made to Stick - Communication Styles
21
Made to Stick (Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die) Chip Heath & Dan Heath (New York, NY: Random House, 2007)
-
Upload
john-gillis -
Category
Marketing
-
view
113 -
download
2
description
This is a great book about how to get your ideas across, how to communicate, what to do and what not to do. An important book that will only grow in importance as future communications will have to be in nanoseconds and nanobytes. Great for presentations.
Transcript of Made to Stick - Communication Styles
Made to Stick(Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die)
Chip Heath & Dan Heath(New York, NY: Random House, 2007)
People with important ideas, like
business people, teachers, politicians,
struggle to make their ideas “stick.”
“Made to Stick” gives suggestions
for tailoring ideas in a way that makes
the ideas more effective.
If you want to spread your ideas,
work within the confines of the rules
that have succeeded over time.
A medium size “buttered” popcorn at a typical movie theatre contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-egg breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings – combined !
True Fact
Simplicity
Unexpectedness
Concreteness
Credibility
Emotions
Stories
Tappers and ListenersTappers tap out a song on a table . . . . . . Listeners try to figure out the song.
Listeners “get it” 1 time in 40. Tappers “predict” 1 time in 2.
“The Curse of Knowledge”Tappers are hearing the music inside their heads,so it’s obvious to them.Listeners hear only the taps.
The Basic Templates for Award-Winning Advertisements*
* Highly Creative Ads are More Predict- able Than Un- Creative Ones.
Extreme Consequences
Extreme Situations
Competition
Interactive Experiments
Dimensionality Alteration
Pictorial Analogy****
** Majority of the Winners
Simple
Intent versus PlanCommander’s Intent (CI)
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”(West Point)
Find the Core
Don’t Bury the Lead(Newspapers)
Simple is finding the core of the idea(Heath2)
If you say three things, you don’t say anything.
“It’s the economy, stupid.”Clinton ‘92
Message triage…
“A bird in the hand…”
Simple
“The single, most important thing that we must do tomorrow is…”
Unexpected
Made ya look!
Surprise gets attention…Interest keeps attention
The “surprise brow”
Curiosity causes a “gap,” an itch that needs a scratch
“Who did it?”
“What will happen?”
The basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern.
Concrete
To be simple – to find the core message – is quite difficult (It certainly is not easy). Crafting ideas in an unexpected way takes effort and applied creativity.
But being concrete isn’t hard. The barrier is simply forgetfulness – we forget that we’reslipping into abstract-speak. We forget that other people don’t know what we know.
It’s the “Curse of Knowledge.”
Concrete
Language is often abstract,but life is not abstract.
“The Tortoise and the Hare”
“The Boy Who Cried Wolf”
“The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs”
“sour grapes”
Concrete is memorable.The blueprint vs. the machine
It’s adifferent
thing tosee the
need first- hand.
Credible
The cure for ulcers was discovered in 1980.The cure was approved by the NIH in 1994.
The cure developers got the Nobel Prize in 2005.(The truth lacked credibility)
One BB in an empty metal pail (rattle) – “This is the Hiroshima bomb.”
Ten BB’s in the metal pail (clatter) – “This is the missile firepower on one nuclear submarine.
5,000 BB’s poured into the metal pail (roar) – “This is one BB for every nuclear warhead
in the world.”
Credible
Statistics don’t stick without a background story, an analogy, or particular vivid
details (often seemingly irrelevant) that paint the picture of credibility.
Folk legends (urban or not) acquire a good deal of credibility and effectfrom localized details.
It helps if the vivid details are truthful,compelling, human, and also symbolize the core idea.
Credible
Covey story: 37% of employees have a clear understanding of their company. 20% were
enthusiastic. 20% had a “clear line of sight” to the company goals. 15% felt enabled, and 20%
fully trusted the company.
“If a soccer team had these scores, only four of the 11 players on the field would know which
goal was theirs. Only 2 of 11 would care. Only2 of the 11 would know what position they play,
and 9 of 11 would in some way be competingagainst their own team.”
Stats Human
Metaphor
Mother Teresa said, “If I look at the mass,I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
But self-interest isn’t the whole story.Principles – equality, individualism,
ideals about government, human rights and the like – matter to people.
How Do
You Make
PeopleCare?
What’s In It For Me?
“…a desert chef describes her strawberry cake as “sexual and sensual” – two adjectives never before applied to Army food”
Emotional
The goal of making messages “emotional” is to make people care.
Stories
Stories are told and retold because they contain wisdom.
When children say “Tell me a story,” they’re begging for entertainment, not instruction.
The Un-passive Audience
People Visualize Stories
Spot the stories that inspire.You don’t have to invent them.
Chicken Soupfor the Soul.
Engage the “little voice inside the head.” (theirs, not yours). “Give it something to do.”
Stories as Simulation (tellpeople how to act).
Stories
The Challenge Plot(David and Goliath)
The Connection Plot(The Good Samaritan)
The Creativity Plot(The MacGyver Solutions)
Why not be direct? Hit them between the eyes? (Because they will get defensive.)
Engage them instead with a story, involve them in the idea, ask them to participate.
Made to Stick(Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die)
You don’t need to be a creative genius to cookup a great idea.
Just use the ideas that arealready out there. Spot thegood ones and make them stick.
In the average 1 minutespeech, 2.5 statistics areused. Only 1 in 10 studentstells a story.
63 % of the listeners remember the stories.Only 5 % remember any individual statistic.
Don’t “bury the lead” and get lost in a sea of information.
Stripping out information to focus on the core is not instinctual. You almost have to force yourself.
Don’t focus on the presentation instead of the message.
Stress 1 or 2 points, not 10. Remember the “Curse of Knowledge.”
Credible
Chip Heath is a professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He lives in Los Gatos,California.
Dan Heath is a consultant at Duke CorporateEducation. He is a former researcher at Harvard Business School and a co-founder of Thinkwell,an innovative new-media textbook company. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Extracted, excerpted, quoted, paraphrased, selected and otherwise handpicked verbiage for this PowerPoint presentation is from the book: Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath. Published by Random House in 2007.
(all communicators should have this book)
