Thinking method · Heath & Heath, Made to Stick
Make an idea stick
Six properties that make an idea survive being retold. Anything you need other people to repeat accurately when you are not there.
Free — no account needed to read
Six properties that make an idea survive being retold.
The steps
- Simple — find the single core, and be ruthless about what goes.
- Unexpected — break an expectation so attention arrives, then hold it with a gap in their knowledge.
- Concrete — something a person can picture. Not "quality", but what quality looked like on Tuesday.
- Credible — a detail, a testable claim, or a source a listener can check themselves.
- Emotional — make it about one person, not a statistic.
- Story — give it a sequence someone can retell.
When to use it
Anything you need other people to repeat accurately when you are not there.
What it will not do
These make an idea memorable, not true. A wrong idea sticks just as well — which is worth knowing in both directions.
Where it comes from: Heath & Heath, Made to Stick. Described in our own words.
The module it belongs to
- Argumentation — Build and evaluate arguments