Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

4.6 | 5,038 ratings

Price: 11.81

Last update: 01-11-2025

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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.

Michael Carman

One of the best non-fiction books I've read - six stars out of five

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2013

I don’t usually write reviews of books, even good ones, but Made to Stick is so good I feel the need to make an exception.

It is, quite simply, one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read – definitely in my top five, possibly top three.

I won’t reiterate the main content: I can see other reviewers have done that. But I will say that the power of the book’s ideas combined with its clear, readable and lively presentation (“let’s skip now to another timeless and beautiful domain of expression: accounting”) make for one helluva package. This is one of those few books where I’ve bought both the hard copy as well as the Kindle version. That’s how good it is.

While it’s still early days for me in applying the very practical lessons in Made to Stick they hold great promise in yielding high impact in thought leadership, providing learning, and marketing effectively. One example: I recently drafted an article for submission to a training magazine that has previously published half a dozen of my articles. Before I submitted it however, having just finished reading Made to Stick I ran the article through the author's checklist and made some changes (notably, creating some story-like case studies on which to hang the article, filling out my examples more concretely, and ensuring the core, simple idea came through clearly) and then submitted it. The editor’s response - on the same day I submitted it - was “…I wasn’t going to edit this today but once I started reading I could not stop…” As I say, very promising…

There’s tremendous breadth in the areas you can apply the lessons in from Made to Stick: my interests range across learning and development, strategy, and marketing, and Made to Stick applies powerfully to each of these. But there are applications across all of business, government and not-for-profits, as well as if you’re a parent, an employee or anyone wanting to make an impact!

One of the book’s real gifts for me was in sensitising me to my audience’s ‘higher’ motivations, rather than just baser or more selfish appeals (the authors refer to this as ‘getting out of Maslow’s basement’). This nicely reflected my underlying – but hitherto undeveloped – approach, enabling me to speak more authentically and forcefully, with greater resonance for my readership and clients.

Another of the book’s great gifts for me was in teaching how to correctly use mental visualisation to solve problems and improve performance, in a nice and much-needed contrast to the pop-psychology and self-help gurus (The Secret – this means you!). This is a good thing to get at any time of the year, but especially when setting goals for the new year. And all of Made to Stick’s assertions are soundly backed by credible and solid academic research. Who would have thought you’d get all this in a book about communicating more clearly!

The other terrific aspect of Made to Stick is its legacy in inviting people to look for stories in their own lives and experience. Stories play a key role in making ideas sticky - they’re concrete, credible and more memorable than straight facts: ‘facts tell, stories sell’. The authors emphasise that you don’t even have to create stories at all; rather, become a story spotter: just recognise when life is giving you the gift of a story to use. Nice.

I may sound like I’m on commission for sales of Made to Stick (regrettably this is not so) but I am very enthusiastic about what this compact and considered book has to offer.

Here’s my sticky recommendation: buy not one, not two, but three copies of this book: one for work, one for home, and one to keep in the glovebox of the car (so you can read it at the red traffic lights). And then join with me in lobbying the Gideons to place a copy in every motel room…

Robert I. Sutton

Research Based Ideas That Work

Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2007

The Heath brothers have written what I believe is a modern management masterpiece. I how them and so I have to confess I am biased, but at the same time, I know lots of other authors, and rarely review their books. Why do I think this is one of the most important management books you can own?

1. The ideas are evidence-based. Note that Chip Heath is a world class social psychologist. In fact, his dissertation adviser was Amos Tversky, who would have won a Nobel Prize had he lived (this is not speculation, his co-author Daniel Kahneman won the prize in 2003 for their joint work.) As such, theor recommendations are all grounded in some of the most rigorous and well-grounded principles in the behavioral science literature. In a world where anyone can be a management expert -- including Tony Soprano -- it is essential to have ideas that are valid, yet rare.

2. The book is completely readable and understandable. It bewilders me when people complain that a management book is too approachable -- especially one that his ideas that are so sound. And the reason there are so many stories to go along with the evidence is that -- as the best evidence shows -- people remember stories, not statistics.

3. The final and most important thing about this book is that the ideas are more quickly and readily applied than any management book I know. When I just quickly go through the principles with managers or Stanford students, they move to application with impressive speed. Things like, if it isn't simple, you will lose your audience. Things like, no matter how rigorous your evidence, people need to hear stories that underpin the data. Sound obvious? Then why do so few people do it, and why, then, when they hear the Heath's arguments, do they then start doing it? We have also had Chip come into our classes at the Stanford Institute of Design on creating infectious action. These are applied classes where MBA and Engineering students are asked to create ideas that spread and stick: I have seen them apply the ideas immediately to doing things like spreading the Firefox browser and helping people just out of college start saving money earlier.

As I said, I admit my bias openly, as I know Chip and like him and have talked to Dan on the phone. But at the same time I know and like lots of academics and management experts, but most of their ideas are either hard to apply or aren't based on sound research -- or I can't understand what they are saying. I expect that this book, in addition to the impressive initial bang, will be become a standard text in marketing, organizational behavior, advertising, and a host of other college classes.

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