Made to Stick,

Why is that?

That’s the question their book — which most have probably heard of by now — answers.

To make an impact, your idea has to stick. A “sticky” idea is one that is understood and remembered, and has lasting impact. A sticky idea changes the audience’s opinions or behavior.

How do you make your ideas sticky? They give six points. Here they are, from my notes on the book:

1. Simple. This gets people to understand.
2. Unexpected. This gets people to pay attention and maintain interest.
3. Concrete. This gets people to understand so they remember.
4. Credible. This helps show that your idea is true.
5. Emotions. This gets people to care.
6. Stories. This gets people to act.

The rest of the book unpacks each of those ideas. It is well worth a read if you haven’t already.

Related posts:

• 5 Principles for Starting a Presentation Well
• 4 Steps to Good Decision Making
• 9 Core Principles of Writing

1. Before the audience will value the info you’re giving, they have to want it. Demand has to come before supply.
2. Therefore tease, don’t simply tell, by opening knowledge gaps and filling them.
3. “Great presentations are mysteries, not encyclopedic entries.”
4. “Curiosity must come before content.”
5. Don’t structure your presentation by asking “what’s the next point I should make” but “what’s the next question I want them to wrestle with.”

And, here are a few great points on using data well:

1. Don’t lead with the data — that leaves it abstract, and doesn’t move people emotionally. Tell a story about an individual first, and then say “our research suggests that there are 900,000 stories like this, in Mumbai alone.”
2. “Data are just summaries of thousands of stories — tell a few of those stories to help make the data meaningful.”

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1. Don’t preamble—parachute in.
2. “The first mission of a presentation is to grab attention.”
3. A preamble is a laborious overview of what’s going to be covered. Don’t start with this. Don’t follow the “tell them what you’re gonna tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.” Steve Jobs doesn’t present this way. Ronald Reagan didn’t present this way.
4. Example: Rebecca Fuller presenting on tactile museum exhibits. She parachuted in by shutting off the lights and saying “this is what it’s like for a blind person in most museums.” It wouldn’t have improved here presentation to say “today I’m going to give you an overview of the challenges faced by the visually impaired in most museums.”
5. “If you bring us face to face with the problem, we don’t need a lot of upfront hand-holding.”

The most important point: parachute it. “Telling them what you’re going to tell them” usually reduces interest.

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“Questions attract thoughts and new ideas. Asking questions creates a learning mindset.”

Plus, it’s the right thing to do. Being interested in others — reflected in asking questions — is part of treating people well.

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I haven’t written up anything on negotiation, but if I ever do it will be very close to what Alex wrote. He covers some of the key principles, which include:

1. Separate the people from the problem
2. Focus on interests instead of positions
3. Base things on objective criteria, not subjective preferences
4. Think win-win rather than win-lose (or, as some people actually do, lose-win)
5. Brainstorm creatively to identify mutually beneficial solutions
6. Know your best alternative to a negotiated agreement

This approach is called principled negotiation, as opposed to positional negotiation, and was perhaps most clearly set forth by Roger Fisher and William Ury years ago in their book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.

In positional negotiation, each side states a more extreme position than it really has, planning on progressively giving up some ground until they meet in the middle. This is a poor approach to negotiation and is based on win-lose (or lose-lose) principles. It often causes people to become entrenched in their position, blinding them to better solutions that satisfy both parties and interests. And it often harms relationships. Yet it is what most people think of when they think of negotiation.

Principled negotiation is a more human approach, while also being more effective. It separates what each side really wants (their interest) from the specific way they currently have in mind of getting there (their positions), and seeks to create solutions to problems that benefit everyone in some way. This is possible because there is often more than one position that will solve someone’s ultimate interest. Yet often times we come into a negotiation unable to see these because we aren’t distinguishing the ultimate aim (interest) from the specific way we have in mind of getting there (position).

Principled negotiation also proceeds on the basis of objective criteria, rather than subjective judgments about “the way things should be” and what each party simply wants in the abstract.

And instead of each side coming with their positions defined ahead of time and progressively giving up ground, both sides brainstorm options for mutual gain together, with the aim of identifying options which satisfy both interests (remember here the distinction between position and interest). Each side is not progressively giving up their positions to meet in the middle; they are stepping up to a higher horizon and brainstorming options that will meet the underlying interests of both.

The outcomes of principled negotiation are:

1. Building of the relationship (rather than harming it, as is often the case in positional negotiation)
2. Satisfaction of the reasonable interests of both sides
3. Reasonable resolution of genuine conflicts of interest

I think that positional negotiation is very much in line with the fact that as Christians, we should be about the interests of others all the time, not just sometimes.

So even when negotiating with others, we don’t set aside the biblical commands to be pursuing the welfare of others. Yet, when others see things differently, pursuing the interests of others does not necessarily mean setting aside the legitimate interests that we want to see accomplished. The way to reconcile both of these realities is not to give up on what we think should be done, but to proceed in a win-win fashion, aiming to come up with a solution that satisfies the interest of both sides, on the basis of objective criteria.

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“Making an idea contagious isn’t a mysterious marketing art. It boils down to a couple of simple rules.”

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Edward Tufte’s The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within is a fantastic — and humorous — article on the abuse of PowerPoint. I highly recommend checking it out.

In it he talks about how PowerPoint is commonly misused, how to use PowerPoint right, how to avoid the boring use of bullet points, and how bad PowerPoint deserves part of the blame for the Challenger space shuttle disaster back in 1985.

The one problem is that the article is not available online for free. However, an abbreviated version called PowerPoint is Evil appeared in Wired a few years ago. It’s worth checking out; and if you’re interested, you can obtain the entire article at Amazon.

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The conclusion [in a presentation] should not summarize your arguments; rather, it should appeal to the audience for its understanding, its action, and its approval — whatever it is you want the audience to do or think.

So don’t fall into the trap of telling your audience what you’ve already said. Summing it up is a surefire way to kill any enthusiasm your presentation may have generated. So forget about a summary; instead, tell your audience what it should think or do.

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Consider using the GAP filter for your tweets.  That doesn’t mean put on GAP clothing before you tweet, but rather ask this question: “Is my tweet Genuine, Accurate and Positive?”  The bottom line is Be Careful What Tweet, it may end up on the front page of a newspaper or worse.

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Just about anyone in the professional world is, in effect, a professional speaker. Every single idea in the history of the business world had to be explained to at least one other person before it got approved, funded or purchased by anyone else. Call it what you like–sales, marketing, pitching or presenting–but I know the history. Despite dreams of a world in which the best ideas win simply because they should, we live in a world where the fate of ideas hinges on how well you talk about what you’ve made, or what you want to make.

….

From my studies of innovation history (which led to my best-seller, The Myths of Innovation), I know that the difference between relatively uncommon names like Tesla, Grey and Englebart, and household ones like Edison, Bell and Jobs, has more to do with their ability to persuade, convince and inspire than their ability to invent, create or innovate.

One potent thread in the fabric of reasons why some ideas take off and others don’t is the ability entrepreneurs have to explain to others why they should care. The bigger the idea, the more explaining the world demands. Yet these skills are constantly trivialized in many organizations, leading to dozens of great ideas being rejected, and their creators wondering why lesser rivals with weaker concepts are able to capture people’s imaginations and pocketbooks.

….

I see too many inventors and executives who see speaking about their work as the least important thing they do. And it shows. To the detriment of the quality of their ideas, their presentations are the spotty lens through which those ideas will be seen. Without dedicated effort, those lenses distort and betray what it is they truly have to offer.

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Implication: This includes a willingness to be influenced by others. If you are generally unaffected by what other people say, you aren’t listening.

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Peter Drucker points out that this has it backwards:

Too many think they are wonderful with people because they talk well. They don’t realize that being wonderful with people means listening well.

This is within the grasp of everyone. It is not easy, but everyone can do it.

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Oscar Wilde said that “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

It turns out that Oscare Wilde was wrong. Talking about the weather is not lame. It’s actually a really good idea.

Here’s why:

1. The weather affects everybody.
2. Talking about the weather leads into a whole lot of other subjects. But if you never get started with a “basic” topic like the weather, you might not get a conversation going at all — and thus you’ll never get to other more substantial topics at all.

I first came across this realization in a chapter from The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable, edited by Seth Godin. The book is a collection of insights from 33 different minds. I’m not sure who wrote the chapter “Talking About the Weather,” but they said it well:

Until I was thirty-five years old I thought talking about the weather was for losers. A waste of time, insulting even. No one can do anything about the weather anyway. I believed that any comment that doesn’t offer new insight or otherwise advance the cause of humanity is just so much hot air….

Then something happened. Alone for the first time in a long time, living in challenging circumstances, experiencing a cold winter in New England, I noticed the weather. It affected me deeply and directly, every single day. Slowly it dawned on me that the weather affected everyone else, too. Maybe talking about it wasn’t totally vacuous after all.

I started with the cashier at a gas station….Years of cynicism made me almost laugh as I said, “Sure got a lot of snow this year so far.” “Yep,” was her reply. Then she said, “I could barely get my car out of the lot, be careful driving!”

Talking about the weather was easy, even effortless. An entree to at least one person on the planet who apparently cared about me, at least enough to share her small challenge and want me safe on the road. Wow.

Next I tried it at work. It turned out to be even more effective with people I already knew. Talking about the weather acted as a little bridge, sometimes to further conversation and sometimes just to the mutual acknowledgment of shared experience.

Whether it was rainy or snowy or sunny or damp for everyone, each had their own relationship with the weather. They might be achy, delighted, burdened, grumpy, relieved, or simply cold or hot. Like anything of personal importance, most were grateful for the opportunity to talk about it.

Then something else happened. As talking about the weather became more natural, I found myself talking about a whole lot more. Cashiers and clients and suppliers and colleagues all over opened up about all kinds of things. I found out about people’s families, their frustrations at work, their plans and aspirations.

Plus, I found out that the weather is not the same for everyone! And it’s only one of many factors dependent on location that you’ll never know about without engaging in casual conversations.

For a businessperson, there may be no better way to make a connection, continue a thread, or open a deeper dialogue. Honoring the simply reality of another person’s experience is an instant link to the bigger world outside one’s self. It’s the seed of empathy, and it’s free…. Talking about the weather is a baby step on your way to making change.

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Small talk experts claim that when you first meet a person, you should avoid unpleasant, overly personal, and highly controversial issues.

Wrong! Don’t listen to these people! Nothing has contributed more to the development of boring chitchatters everywhere. The notion that everyone can be everything to everybody at all times is completely off the mark. Personally, I’d rather be interested in what someone was saying, even if I disagreed, than be catatonic any day.

There’s one guaranteed way to stand out in the professional world: Be yourself. I believe that vulnerability—yes, vulnerability—is one of the most underappreciated assets in business today. Too many people confuse secrecy with importance. Business schools teach us to keep everything close to our vest. But the world has changed. Power, today, comes from sharing information, not withholding it. More than ever, the lines demarcating the personal and the professional have blurred. We’re an open-source society, and that calls for open-source behavior. And as a rule, not many secrets are worth the energy required to keep them secret.

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