Make it Sticky

I posted this on Access Elevation but because I haven't posted at all this week and it is my original content I wanted to put it here as well. Besides, I think it's a good post! Check it out.

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I read a book about 5 months ago that has really been helping me out recently. The book’s title is “Made to Stick” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. The basic premise of the book is that it is our responsibility to make the ideas we want to communicate sticky.

Here’s an example of a sticky idea that Chip and Dan point out:
The candy-tampering Halloween criminals, that every parent fears, who slide razor blades into apples and poison candy bars…Yeah, they don’t really exist. Well, maybe they exist now, but the whole thing started because of an inaccurate and unfounded rumor surrounding a kid that overdosed on his uncle’s heroine stash around Halloween in the 60’s.

The reason the rumor didn’t get squashed and eliminated is because, frankly, it’s sticky. There are elements of the story that we all want to believe and it sticks to us.

I’m being challenged right now, because somehow I’ve got to figure out how to make the things I need to communicate stick like the candy-tamperers. In other words, it is our responsibility to make sure that the message we are trying to communicate sticks.

So if I’m trying to encourage my small group leaders with a milestone we have just crossed in our small group numbers I have two options:

1) I can give it to them straight:

"We have 1,000 people in groups."

2) Or, I can make it sticky:

"We have 1,000 people in groups. Last year at this time we only had 1,000 people in our whole church."

"At 1,000 people in groups, we now have 10 times the number of people in groups as we had last year at this time."

"If each person enrolled in an Elevation small group were to walk a mile the collective distance covered would span from Raleigh, NC to Tulsa, Oklahoma…1,000 people goes a long way to accomplishing our vision of initiating and sustaining life change through community."

You get the idea – that is, if I made it sticky enough…