What Sticks: Why Some Ideas Work

I just read the pre-publication version of this book for the second time, and just like the first time, my reaction was “This is one of the most important business books ever written.” What Sticks is written by a Chip Heath and Dan Heath, who are brothers, and will be published by Random House early next year. Chip is a professor at the Stanford Business School, a social psychologist by training, and a broad intellectual who is interested in everything and really cares about using his work to make life better. He is also the most engaging speakers I’ve seen, mesmerizing in a no-nonsense sort of way. IDEO’s Tom Kelley is the only person I’ve seen in recent years who is similarly engaging and inspiring. I don’t know Chip’s  brother Dan, but Chip tells me he is a sharp Harvard MBA and is now managing executive education programs at Duke. Chip also gives Dan a lot of credit for the book’s engaging writing style.

“What Sticks” is just as useful and just as evidence-based as great books including Robert Cialdini’s Influence, Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, and Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s Freakonomics. I love how the Heath brothers dissect false stories and myths, (like “you only use 10% of your brain”) to show what kinds ideas spread and persist, and what kinds don’t. The book focuses squarely on using this research to help you design your own messages that will stick and affect what people actually do.

One of my favorites is their analysis of the success of the “Don’t Mess with Texas” anti-littering campaign. The Heath brothers show us how, while warm and cuddly appeals to stop litter had failed in Texas, this simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, and emotional message – which had a toughness that appealed to conservative rednecks, not just liberal tree-huggers – quickly became a favorite bumper sticker, was known and could be recalled by 73% of Texans just a few months after the campaign was launched, and roadside litter declined in Texas declined nearly 30% within a year. The campaign was so effective that the state abandoned other expensive anti-littering campaigns, and five years into the “Don’t Mess With Texas” campaign, roadside litter had decreased 72%.

And it isn’t just that the Heath brothers tell such great stories, they show how you – as a manager, a marketer, an organizational change agent, or a politician – can craft new messages, and evaluate and alter your current messages to have the greatest impact. What Sticks is an example of  evidence-based management at its finest, as it draws on the best knowledge that behavioral scientists have generated and then goes the difficult extra step of showing all of us how to apply it.

This book deserves to be on the best-seller list all next year and, as an added bonus, Chip Heath is my candidate for the next Malcolm Gladwell. Of course, the future is impossible to predict, but you really owe to yourself to buy the book and to hear Chip talk about it.

Comments

[haig]

Just found a video lecture by him on the same topic @ googleVideo if anyone is interested.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8287470526814162856&q=Chip+Heath

[Scott Underwood]

Some time ago I heard Chip Heath speak and got to read a few early chapters of "What Sticks." Like the stories they describe, their description of the mechanics behind the messages we remember is itself a "sticky story" that I'm still repeating almost two years later.

Of course I immediately ordered the book just now! Thanks for the pointer.