SUCCESs Model (Made to Stick)
Chip and Dan Heath's six traits of ideas that stick, from their book Made to Stick. It is a checklist for shaping one key message so an audience understands it, remembers it and acts on it.
When your sessions feel disjointed or participants lose focus
Your meetings or sessions need better pacing, clearer transitions, or more engaging sequences to keep participants engaged.
Sharpening the key message of a talk, announcement or campaign; coaching speakers whose content is accurate but forgettable.
Simple
Strip the message to its core, the one thing the audience must remember.
Unexpected
Break a pattern or open a curiosity gap so people pay attention.
Concrete
Use images, examples and specifics people can picture, not abstractions.
Credible
Give people a reason to believe: a vivid detail, a statistic made human, or a claim they can test.
Emotional
Make them care by linking the idea to something they value.
Stories
Wrap the idea in a story that shows people how to act on it.
Creates natural rhythm and momentum that keeps energy high throughout.
Use it in the preparation block of a talk, or as a working activity to sharpen the key message of a presentation, campaign or announcement before the running order is fixed.
- 1Vary the pace between high and low energy activities
- 2Use clear transitions between sections
- 3Build complexity gradually throughout
- 4End with actionable takeaways
- Talk and keynote preparation
- Change and strategy messages
- Speaker coaching
- Internal communication
- Find the core message
- Surprise to gain attention
- Make it concrete
- Let people test the claim
- Tell a story people can act on
- A checklist for a message, not a running order for a whole talk
- Not every idea needs all six traits
- Watch for the curse of knowledge: experts struggle to make their own message simple