Are You Sticky?

I tell people at my 2-hour event, Secrets of Impact & Influence, that when they’re in front of a room, they want to turn on the brains of their audience members. They want those brains lighting up like Christmas trees, because that much activity indicates that lots of learning is going on. And learning means remembering—something every speaker wants from their audiences. I could say all of this another way, too: You want to be “sticky” when you speak. You want what you say and how you say to be remembered.

It’s no surprise, then, that I eagerly plowed through a new book, “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die,” by brothers Chip and Dean Heath. Both men have extensive educational background; one is a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, and the other is a consultant at Duke Corporation Education. Since much of the techniques I teach are based on those discovered through educational science, I was intrigued to find out what they had to say.

The Heath brothers have determined that six qualities of communication make for “sticky” ideas—which they define as ideas that are “understood and remembered and have a lasting impact...” They go on to say, “…they change your audience’s opinions or behaviors.” They don’t refer to that as “influence,” but that’s certainly what it means to change opinions and behavior.

Sticky=
Understood
Remembered
Impactful
Influential

When you’re on stage, it’s critical that you are sticky—which is not about having perfect “platform skills” that are typically taught, such as, “Make eye contact. Use moderate hand movements. Stand up straight. Project. Practice.” In fact, the brothers tell an interesting story.

Chip Heath teaches a “Making Ideas Stick” class at Stanford, in which he has his students give a one-minute persuasive presentation. Stanford students, as the authors point out, are quick thinkers and good communicators. No one ever gives a poor speech. The students listening to the speakers rate them on how impressive the delivery was, and how persuasive. Of course, the most polished speakers get the highest ratings. No surprise, right? But then, sometime later, Chip asks the students to write down every single idea they remember from each (quite good) speaker’s presentation. “The students are flabbergasted at how little they remember,” the authors write. “Keep in mind that only ten minutes have elapsed since the speeches were given. Nor was there a huge volume of information to begin with…And yet the students are lucky to recall one or two ideas. Many draw a complete blank, unable to remember a single concept.”

The authors continue: “Almost no correlation emerges between ‘speaking talent’ and the ability to make ideas stick. The people who were captivating speakers typically do no better than others in making their ideas memorable.”

Surprised? Don’t we all aspire to be smooth, polished speakers? Don’t we recognize them in an instant, and appreciate them?

But what good is a smooth, polished speech if none of it is remembered?.

So, how do we make our communication understood, remembered, impactful and influential? Sticky?

The six qualities of memorable communication unveiled in the book are as follows:

1. Simple: Communication is focused on a main point. A core idea, the most critical essence, is stated succinctly. The authors offer the example of journalistic prose, where the first sentence (the lead) contains the most essential elements of the story. The most talented speakers often “bury the lead.” The authors write, “The more we reduce the amount of information in an idea, the stickier it will be.”

2. Unexpected: Common sense, the authors say, is the enemy of sticky messages. Surprise your audience. Violate what they already know.

3. Concrete: If your audience can examine your idea with their senses, it is concrete. This often boils down to specific people doing specific things. Concrete means images, details, tangibles, specificity. Nothing vague, nothing abstract. The idea of “subtraction” is abstract. Having six balls on a table and taking away three is concrete.

4. Credible. You need to be believable. What will help?
a. Citing authority sources
b. Being highly descriptive, with lots of details
c. Offering examples
d. Testimonials
e. Statistics
f. Having no agenda, nothing self-serving in your communication

5. Emotional. People take far more action (and of course remember a communication more) when they’ve been moved emotionally. Interesting studies were conducted where audiences were asked to analyze data before making a donation. Their donations were dramatically less than those who were thrown into “feeling” prior to making a donation.

6. Stories. Stories, the authors point out, naturally embody most of the other five qualities of sticky communication. They are almost always concrete. Most of them have emotional and unexpected elements. The hardest part is making sure they revolve around a core point. Stories inspire, and perhaps because of that, are almost always remembered.

So, what do you think? Are you sticky when you’re in front of an audience? Check yourself against these six criteria, or have someone do it for you. Your job up there is to be understood not impressive. To be remembered more than polished. To be impactful more than perfect. And to influence. Once you’ve mastered all of these, you’ve become “sticky”—the signature of a true leader.