Sticky ideas are understandable, memorable, and effective in changing thoughts and behavior.
The Curse of Knowledge keeps our ideas from being sticky.
The Heath brothers give us six qualities of sticky ideas. They’ve given us a cute little acronym to help them (ahem) stick: SUCCESs
Simple–the core message that is compact and profound. It functions more like a proverb than a sound bite.
Unexpected–get your audience’s attention and hold it by using surprise and mystery.
Concrete–make your idea understandable and memorable by breaking it down into terms that can be imagined by the senses.
Credible–help your audience believe and agree with your idea by using appropriate testimonies, statistics, and examples.
Emotional–get your audience to care about your idea by using specific examples of someone in need or by appealing the audience’s self-interest or sense of identity.
Stories–get people to take action by telling the right stories.
A final word from the Heaths on stories:
Stories can almost single-handedly defeat the Curse of Knowledge. In fact, they naturally embody most of the SUCCESs framework. Stories are almost always Concrete. Most of them have Emotional and Unexpected elements. The hardest part of using stories effectively is making sure that they’re Simple–that they reflect your core message. It’s not enough to tell a great story; the story has to reflect your agenda.
The Heaths have taken this advice to heart. They tell some great stories and give some great examples to flesh out each of these six principles.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
I agree about the story theory on making things stick.. most of the things that I remember from your sermons from years past are the stories, analogies, and metaphors..(I really liked the comparison of our relationships to windshields)
I agree that we need to find ways to articulate our message that are more adhesive in nature. Most of my growing has been done though by the Grace of God that has not allowed many of the shallow, infantile truths that I have held, to stick. It is in the accumulation of the knowledge and a molding together of these many small truths that have been shaped into a constantly growing larger Truth.
My experience is that, what I once thought of as the curse of knowledge, may not be such a curse afterall. It is God allowing us to grow as we are in conversation about who He is and the work He is doing through us, who are made in His image.