Book Review: Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die was written by Chip Heath and Dan Heath who are brothers. Dan is a professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and Chip is a consultant to the Policy Programs at the Aspen Institute and co-founder of Thinkwell, an innovative new-media textbook company.

The book is broken up into the following chapters:

Introduction: What Sticks?
Chapter 1: Simple
Chapter 2: Unexpected
Chapter 3: Concrete
Chapter 4: Credible
Chapter 5: Emotional
Chapter 6: Stories
Epilogue: What Sticks?

Chip and Heath wrote this book after many years of studying how ideas stick.  The above six chapters are the principles that the brothers discovered are what makes ideas stick.  As mentioned in the book introduction, the authors said that this book is a complement to Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference . If you liked Gladwell’s book, then you should like this book as well.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is a very interesting read because the authors provide several real world examples of why and how certain successes (some we all know about) have stuck. The authors pick a good variety of examples that we can all relate to no matter our own interests and individual situations. Examples include:

•    Army commanders forcing simplicity into their battle plans
•    Nordstrom managers getting new employees to embrace high-customer service standards
•    Elementary school teacher who cured her students of racial prejudice
•    Texas persuading its truck-drivers to stop littering
•    Subway campaign with Jared becoming a big hit

The principles described in this book are important to understand for any ideas that you need to communicate to the marketplace, your boss, your children, etc.   Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die has enough good information that you should come away with some new thoughts about business and life.

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Comments

[A Coffey]

Seems the common denominator in all those points in the book is "experiences" with yourself and your work. I'll definitely check it out. Thx for posting it.

Ali Coffey, w/ client referrals blog

[Jason Jacobsohn]

Thinking through how and what makes an idea stick is important in addition to the experience.