Made to Stick

Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

By: Chip Heath, Dan Heath

Narrated by: Charles Kahlenberg

Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The instant classic about why some ideas thrive, why others die, and how to make your ideas stick.

“Anyone interested in influencing others—to buy, to vote, to learn, to diet, to give to charity or to start a revolution—can learn from this book.”—The Washington Post

Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus news stories circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas—entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists—struggle to make them “stick.”

In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony—draw their power from the same six traits.

Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice.

Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas—and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.

©2006 Chip Heath and Dan Heath (P)2007 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Made to Stick summons plenty of brain science, social history, and behavioral psychology to explain what makes an idea winning and memorable—and the Heaths do the telling with beautiful clarity.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“Utterly compelling.”—Los Angeles Times

“Surprising and provocative.”—The New York Sun

Not amazing

I’m not sure whether the book is just dated or a bit too generic, but overall I wasn’t blown away by it. I feel like the framework isn’t as clear as I would have liked it to be coming out of the book.

Great book, highly recommend

Great book, I highly recommend for everyone interested in communicating ideas to read and apply.

The Curse of Knowledge

This book is a great guide to understanding where communication breaks down. It does a wonderful job of explaining how to create not only memorable but purposeful messages.

great information

I loved the stories, I loved the explanation, very enlightening. I'll have to listen again, it was a great read that can be applied everywhere.

Insightful, practical and interesting

Not just a book about how to make your ideas stick but how to better communicate with people. How to make people pay attention, understand and care about what you say. Very long book! But worth the time and highly recommended.

How to Communicate Effectively

This is not just a marketing book. It is a book on how to deliver presentations, how to write, how to teach, how to promote new ideas at work. The book forever changed the way I will do each of these things and I wish I could have read it many years ago.

Not as sticky a book as hoped

I really wanted to like this book. I have loved everything written by Malcolm Gladwell and by the author's own admission, it takes a lot of cues Gladwell's The Tipping Point. But, for reasons I cannot put my finger on other than to say that the observations and way they were presented were not themselves "sticky", I would call this a good read but not a great one.

Sticky

I have nothing to say about this book other than it is one of the best books I listened to in my life.

It sticks!

Do you want to be heard? Do you want to have a true impact on your audience? Then listen it!

A Must Read for any entrepreneur

I am an entrepreneur with an MBA degree. I believe that this is a must read for any business students or entrepreeneurs.

I listen to one to two business related books every month. This is the first time ever that I wrote a book review. I listened three times so far, and everytime, I learned more. The authors used very good examples throughout the book. The reasoning and presentation of the book are so simple and clear, it is an easy read for people of different levels.

I applied the key points and learnings from the book to my daily work of running a small business:
- Simple
- Unexpected
- Credibility
- Concrete
- Emotional
- Story

Thank you!