Oh Wait! Did it Work?

If you are reading this, then my plan to get your attention did work.

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash

As a new Product Manager, I recently attended a Sales training where our Marketing manager took three sessions. We launched couple of new products, we refreshed some of our existing products to our Sales and Solution architects group. I thought the session went really well. After these sessions, I had my first ever customer interview as product manager. I interviewed four customers who are already paying for our product. One major point stood out from these sessions. Customers had very different idea on what our product can do for them. They didn't know the full capabilities of our product which we thought our marketing materials conveyed.

This same situation happens many times in our day to day life too. Remember playing charades where you think you have given all the right clues but your friends couldn't figure it out? You just started learning a musical instrument, you thought you are playing the best tune and your family is telling you to just stop the noise? Sounds Familiar? This is the phenomenon of “Tappers and Listeners”. As a tapper you have the knowledge of what you are tapping. This knowledge makes it impossible for you to imagine what its like to not know this information. This is the Curse of knowledge which our authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath talk about in their book “Made to stick”.

When I look back at our Sales training and my interview with customers, I now realise that whatever we are telling our customer is not sticking with them. Time to make our sales materials Sticky.

How to make an Idea stick is basically what is covered in this book. Its not a formula, but a checklist. The authors breakdown this framework with various real life examples. I believe that is what makes this book sticky. Some stories in this book are those which I will probably be telling my team in future. They have stuck in my brain. Two things that stood out from the book for me personally,

1. Commanders Intent- In 1980s the US Army invented a concept called “Commanders Intent”. This was because, no matter how we meticulously plan every step of what we do in a war, we can never anticipate fully an enemy’s move. The CI is high level intent. No plan survives contact with the enemy. If we put in business context, No sales plan survives contact with customer. Its hard to make our plan/idea stick in unpredictable, chaotic environment. You can miss to execute a plan, but cannot lose the ability to execute an intent. When I put this from a Product manager perspective. We have to explain our vision for the product to Engineering, Marketing, Sales team, Customer and other stakeholders. If we don't give proper vision to our Engineering, they have to keep coming back to us to verify every step they take. This is where having a simple clear Intent can do wonders. If you want to build a tool for better customer on boarding, don't tell the team to give you a world class software. Even though that is your intent, it doesn't make sense to others . Instead try telling them “Give me a software with which I can on-board a customer in two days and zero defects”. This is an intent which entire developers can use to make decision while working on the product.
2. The “Gap Theory” of Curiosity- Ever stopped to wonder why we feel curious about few things than others? In 1994, George Loewenstein, a behavioural economist provided an explanation for this. He says Curiosity happens when we have a gap in our knowledge. This gap causes pain. Its like an itch that we need to scratch. To take away the pain, we need to fill the gap. This theory is used by people in many places in our daily life. You may probably realise now why I have a weird title for a book review. One place where you see this a lot now a days is in YouTube video titles. They are painful to go through without clicking. Wonder why a stupid video has millions of views? Someone had a sticky idea for a title which hits our natural curiosity instinct!

The Principle for Sticky ideas as described by our authors is simple, your idea should be Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories (SUCCESs).

This is not a rocket science, but its not something that comes to us naturally as well. We need to be aware and diligent to make them stick. I personally believe we can use these concepts not just at work, but in our everyday life situations as well. This is a skill which will help all of us communicate in a better way. At the end of the book you will see how this principle of sticky ideas actually link to a communication framework. In a business world, whether you are in Engineering trying to work with a team or in a functional role talking to customers and other stake holders, this book is for you. Read it and use it in your next presentation. You will see a difference in the way you think and talk.