The book opens on page 3 with a compelling story about kidney harvesting. It is a hoax, but brilliantly illustrates the point of why some stories stick. For fear of violating copyright, I will not reprint the story here, but instead use one relayed to our CEO.
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Some people who feel wronged by another's actions may take
extreme measures to extract revenge
A colleague of ours has a friend that is a successful attorney. Let's call him Richard. Richard recently returned from a great vacation to the Colorado Rockies.
As he sat in the board room discussing his vacation sunburn and laughing about his adventures, Ed, the senior partner, walked in and quietly moved to the head of the table without saying a word.
Slapping his hand on the boardroom table to get everyone's attention, Ed, blurted out “We are Ruined!” The anger and frustration in his face left little doubt how serious he was.
He let the full weight of his words settle on the room, Ed took a deep breath and continued.
Richard, on the other hand was wishing he could breathe.
“Ok, here's what happened. . . . Richard you weren't here but our network was hacked late Thursday night. So, we hired an IT service to help us restore the system. As it turns out, the guy we hired was a disgruntled ex-employee of that Internet firm we sued last year. He is actually the guy that hacked the system. He showed up early Friday stating he was from the IT service we contracted.”
Ed's face got beet red. Richard still couldn't breathe.
“After this lowlife got access to our network, he downloaded all our case files and posted all them on a blog, along with all of our Social Security numbers, salaries, bonuses and so on.”
“I found out because Judge Harper called me and asked me what the hell was going on here that we would lose that kind of information.”
“Oh, and just for fun, this guy wiped our hard drives clean then took our back up tapes and cooked them in the microwave.”
“The only good news I can report is we can retrieve all our files off his blog. But, every pending case is compromised and we can expect be sued by many of our clients.”
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In their research Chip and Dan identified 6 principles that make stories stick. When you think of these 6 principles, remember SUCCES.
In brief the characteristics are:
Simplicity: The message must be “proverb like” simple in its meaning, simple to understand but not necessarily abbreviated, dumbed down or a sound bite. They give the example of the Golden Rule as being a profoundly simple statement that people spend their lives trying to follow.
Example: Some people who feel wronged by another's actions may take
extreme measures to extract revenge.
Unexpectedness: People learn more and remember the unexpected. When A=B day in and day out, there is nothing to wake up the brain, and get past the gate known as Broca's area. This region of the brain, positioned near the ear is a powerful filter for most types of neural information. Broca filters by screening out everything “it knows.” If it can see the end coming, it's not interested, it doesn't care, and doesn't pass along the information.
A plot twist or unexpected outcome interests Broca, and when Broca is interested, information gets passed along.
Example: A story of success and promotion turns into a tragedy about
ruination. Curiosity isaroused . Why did the business fail.
Concreteness: The extent to which a message will mean the same thing to everyone in our audience is determined by the concrete imagery used. Think of some urban legends you have read. Computer hard drives wiped clean and computer set on fire by rogue virus. Razor blades in apples. Concrete imagery anchors the message in our minds.
Example: Disgruntled ex employee, backup tapes cooked in microwave, red
faces, inability tobreathe, slapping the desk, bonus check, “trip to the Rockies.”
Credibility: The more credible the message, the more it sticks. Credibility often comes in the form of references, guarantees, try it before you buy it.
Example: Use of proper names, Judge Harper, “A colleague of ours” - Slight
credibility building,but weak.
Emotions: If people are going to care about a message, they need to feel something. To varying degrees we are empathetic creatures. Building enough emotion in the characters we describe, helps build emotions , particularly if the circumstances fit within the experience of the audience.
Example: Richard's breathlessness at hearing his dreams are dashed, Ed's
anger an frustration at the ruination of the company, Richard's lightness and
laughter at describing the vacation.
Stories / Story Like: People remember stories far better than facts and data. Stories provide and enriched learning experience. The Bible is based on stories and parables to convey the messages. People who work in highly stressful and dangerous jobs learn from the experiences of others through stories.
Example: The author could have listed dozens of statistics about hackers, and
security breaches.The story bypasses all that and teaches the lesson through
the drama of its events and characters.
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This brief summary barely touches on the key points of the Made To Stick. Chip and Dan Heath have provided so many useful anecdotes and lessons that it would be impossible to review them all without rewriting the book.
If you get a chance, pick it up. Once you have read it, their message will stick.
Hey, great post, very well written. You should post more about this.