The key ideas

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Chip Heath, Dan Heath, 2007

An invented story about a stolen kidney travels the world for years, while an important point in a meeting is forgotten within an hour. The Heath brothers examined legends, advertising, and company stories and found six traits that help an idea stick. They also identified the main obstacle that makes simple explanations difficult for the people who know a subject best.

Who it is for

For people who need to explain things: teachers, managers, writers, marketers, parents, and anyone whose ideas need to stay in memory as well as be heard.

Once we know something, it is hard to imagine what it was like not to know it.

What the book is about

A man on a business trip goes into a bar for a drink, and a woman he does not know buys him a cocktail. He wakes in a hotel bathtub full of ice. Beside him is a note: “Don’t move. Call 911.” The dispatcher asks whether there is a tube in his lower back. There is. One of his kidneys has been removed.

This never happened. But the urban legend traveled the world for years and was retold again and again. Meanwhile, important, truthful ideas from teachers, doctors, and managers are often forgotten within an hour.

Stanford professor Chip Heath and his brother Dan Heath asked why some ideas “stick” while others do not. Examining legends, advertising, proverbs, and company stories, they assembled six traits of such ideas. This is their framework based on observations and cases rather than a rigorous scientific law. But there will also be real experiments along the way.

Idea 1. Tappers and listeners

In 1990, Elizabeth Newton completed a Stanford dissertation based on a simple game. One person taps a familiar song, such as “Happy Birthday to You,” on a table. Another tries to guess the tune.

Before the guessing, the “tappers” were asked to estimate the listener’s chances. They expected listeners to guess about half the songs. Across the study, 120 tunes were tapped. Listeners guessed three, or 2.5%.

The explanation is that the tapper hears the melody in their head. The listener hears only strange tapping. Tappers find it hard to imagine how it sounds without the melody. The authors call this the curse of knowledge and see it as the main enemy of clear thinking.

An experienced accountant explains a report to a newcomer by saying, “It’s just a normal reconciliation,” and genuinely cannot understand why the newcomer nods with a blank expression.

The better you know a subject, the harder it may be to notice what the other person does not know. That makes it worth checking understanding with a question rather than relying on your own sense of clarity.

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About the author

Chip Heath is a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Dan Heath is his brother, a researcher and author. Together they also wrote Switch and Decisive.

All books by this author: Chip Heath, Dan Heath

Terms from the book

  • Commander’s intent
  • Curse of knowledge: The difficulty of imagining what it is like not to know what you know. A term from behavioral research that the authors use to explain why experts find simple explanations difficult.
  • Core idea: The most important point in a message, without which it loses its meaning. A concept in the authors’ framework.
  • Urban legend: An invented story passed from person to person as true. The authors study such legends as examples of ideas that stick.
  • Testable credentials: The authors’ term for credibility that arises when listeners can check a claim themselves rather than take it on trust.
  • SUCCESs: The authors’ checklist of six traits of memorable ideas: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. Their framework rather than a scientific law.

All terms

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