I recently read a fantastic book on effective communication called Made to Stick. This book will help you to organize your thoughts with clarity, to speak with such precision that the other person clearly understands your message. But not only that, but also to motivate them to do what you want because you were persuasive and influential. The book consists of six principles. In this analysis, I will summarize five principles that I have personally found useful.

First principle: The unexpected. The first factor of effective communication is to attract attention; the other is to keep it. To attract attention, you need to present your message in an unexpected way. People think in patterns; our brain is a guessing machine, always trying to predict what will happen next. The key is to break that pattern and then fix it. For example, according to statistics, deer kill more people than sharks in the United States every year. Now you might say, "What? How is this possible? How can such a beautiful creature kill more people than sharks?" This information is unexpected because it is contrary to the image in your mind. Most likely, you will want to hear the rest of the story. Well, the rest of the story is that deer do kill more people because they cause a lot of car accidents. So, to apply this principle to your message, you need two things: first, identify the essence of your message; second, discover what's counterintuitive about that core message and communicate it in a way that breaks your audience's pattern. The hardest part is finding the essence of your message. In another lesson, I will explain how to do this.

Second principle: Simplicity. The formula for simplicity is this: simple equals substance plus compactness. Simple doesn't mean simplifying your message; it means determining the essence of your message and delivering it compactly. First, I'll explain how you can find the essence of your message, and then I'll explain how to make it compact. Getting to the point: Journalists have a method for doing this called the inverted pyramid approach, where they deliver the most important part of their message first, and only then add supporting details. Journalists know they only have 5 to 10 seconds to grab their audience's attention. That's why they deliver the essence of their message first, and then add the rest of the details. Another way to find the essence is to use a method called "command target". Imagine you're in the middle of a war and you can only telegraph one message before the connection is lost. What would that be? The inverted pyramid approach and command goal are great methods because they force you to eliminate everything and focus on the single most important thing and nothing else. Once you've found the essence, the next step is to make it compact. Here are two tactics to keep your message compact:

First, use "memory flags" and connect with your audience's existing memory. For example, let's say you survey your team and find out that only 37% know the goal you're trying to achieve. This makes you very upset and you decide to meet with your team and explain the seriousness of the situation. When you present, instead of saying that only 37% of our team knows our goal, you can say, "We are a soccer team with 11 players. However, seven players, including the goalkeeper, do not know which side to attack. Only four players do; the remaining seven players have no idea." Using a football game as a flag has a greater impact because employees can easily understand how bad a team can look with seven players who don't know which side they are attacking and which side they are defending.

Another tactic: Analogies. Dean Sherman was an algebra teacher who often got the question, "When are we actually going to use this in real life?" Dean says, "At first, I was really nervous and making all sorts of excuses for why they should take algebra seriously. But now I'm like, 'Never. You're never going to use this in your life.' But here's the thing: You don't go to the gym and lift weights because one day someone will stand you in the middle of the street and ask you to lift. You lift weights because you want to be strong and healthy. You do it so you can lift one day your grandchildren without pain. You do it so you can carry your groceries. You practice math to improve your ability to think logically to become a lawyer or a doctor or an architect." This analogy is very effective because it helps you understand why you study math. Plus, if you noticed, the opening sentence is unexpected and breaks the pattern: "Never. You will never use this in your life." So to sum it up: Simple equals substance plus compactness. Use inverted pyramid approach or command goal methods to find the essence, and to make the essence of the message compact, use analogies or "memory flags".

The third principle: Concretely. Specifically, it means that the more people can see, feel, smell and hear something, the more real it seems. Experts often become abstract because they have so much knowledge. Abstract ideas are difficult to understand and remember, and are therefore open to different interpretations. Which do you think is easier to remember: the bicycle or the injustice? If I tell you that movie theater popcorn contains 20 grams of fat, that doesn't mean much to you. But instead, if I say that movie theater popcorn has more fat than bacon and eggs for breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak for dinner combined, you'll be more likely to avoid popcorn in the future, which is the essence of effective communication : get people to take action. You don't just want them to understand your message; you also want them to take action. You don't want your kids to just understand the importance of math; you also want them to learn it. If you work in a corporate environment, you've probably heard terms like mission, vision, synergies, strategic initiatives, etc. Many experts in companies use these kinds of fancy words in their presentations, which lulls the audience to sleep. Experts suffer from a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge. According to this phenomenon, when we know something, we forget how hard it was not to know it. We forget how hard it was to be a beginner. Our knowledge has cursed us and we cannot put ourselves in the shoes of our listener. There is a famous experiment called the Tapper and the Listener. In this experiment, they took a group of people and divided them into two groups: tappers and listeners. Tappers were given a list of famous songs, such as "Happy Birthday". Each tapper was supposed to tap the rhythm of the song to the listener by tapping on the table. The listener's task was to guess the name of the song based on the beat that was tapped. Before the listeners guessed the name of the song, the experimenter asked the tappers to predict the chances that the listeners would guess correctly. Tappers predicted that the chances were 50%. However, in reality, listeners guessed the song correctly only 2.5% of the time. This is the curse of knowledge. This is one of the reasons why your teachers think they have explained the material well, but in reality they have not. This experiment is repeated daily between managers and employees, teachers and students, marketers and customers, writers and readers. So to summarize this third principle, to make your message concrete, use words or phrases that are easy to feel, see or hear. Always remember the curse of knowledge and avoid using abstract words.

The fourth principle: Stories. A boy named Jared had a serious weight problem. By his third year in college, Jared had ballooned to 192 kg. He was wearing a size 6 XL, which is the largest size. His decisions in life were controlled by his weight. When he enrolled in a class, he did not base his choice on the professor or class time like most students. He based his choices on whether he could fit into the chairs in the classroom. When most people worried about finding a parking spot close to campus, Jared worried about finding a parking spot without a car already parked next to it, because he needed an extra spot so he could fully open the door and get out. His father, a general practitioner, warned him that his weight might not allow him to live past 35.

But by spring break, Jared decided to change his life by following a strict diet of his own making. He once ate a Subway sandwich and liked it so much that he decided to create a diet based only on Subway sandwiches. Following the Subway diet, he lost almost 45 kg in three months and continued to lose more and more weight. After losing a significant amount of weight, his body allowed him to start his fitness routine. He started walking as much as he could and avoided using public transport and escalators. When Jared's article was published, his transformational story became a national phenomenon in America. The article described how obesity affected Jared's daily life and how Subway, a fast food restaurant, helped him transform his life. The article ends with a quote from Jared saying, "Subway helped me save my life and start over. I'll never be able to make it up." This is the first time a fast food chain has been recognized for positively transforming someone's life in such a profound way. Jared's story went so viral that everyone wanted to talk about him on their platform. In 1999, Subway's sales were stagnant. In 2000, sales jumped 18%, and another 16% in 2001. In comparison, at the time, other fast-growing smaller fast-food chains were only growing at a rate of 7% per year. Jared's story serves as an inspiration to people struggling to lose weight. It is a story of perseverance and determination and shows how this huge man lost 111 kg on a diet of his own making. The story provides good motivation for anyone who is struggling to lose just a few pounds and needs a boost of inspiration. If you're skeptical about using stories to get your message across, here are four key reasons that will change your mind.

The first reason: The success of Jared's campaign serves as a reminder that people are often more interested in hearing real inspirational stories than statistics or marketing campaigns. A story has the power to connect with people on a personal level, making it more powerful.

Another reason: When we hear a story, we don't just hear it; we are already experiencing it. The story not only conveys information, but draws us in and makes us feel what the main character feels, such as fear, insecurity, courage, etc. We almost feel that the things that happen to the character are also happening to us.

The third reason: The message you convey through a story lives much longer. People remember stories even after several years. For example, after reading this analysis, you won't remember most of the things you heard, but Jared's story will probably stick with you.

Fourth reason: You don't have to have your own stories, or you don't have to make up stories. You just need to be able to recognize the good stories that already exist around you. For example, Jared's story was discovered by one of the managers.

Fifth principle: Emotional. Mother Teresa once said, "If I look at the masses, I will never act; if I look at one, I will." The researchers wanted to test this idea and see how people respond to charitable contributions for an abstract cause versus an individual. They offered participants $5 to fill out a survey, and received an envelope with a donation request letter, giving them the opportunity to donate some of their money to Save the Children, a charity that focuses on the welfare of children around the world. The researchers tested two versions of the request letter. The first version included statistics on the problems children face in Africa, such as the food shortage in Malawi that affects more than 3 million children. And the other version was about a young girl, Riya, from Mali. Riya is desperately poor and faces the threat of severe hunger and starvation. The letter explained in detail how her life would change for the better if they donated. On average, people who read the story about Riya donated $2.38, twice as much as people who read the statistics, who donated $1.14. Most people seem to have something in common with Mother Teresa: one individual surpasses the masses.

But the research does not end here. The researchers gave both groups of people Riya's story, but this time, before reading the story, one group was asked to do some arithmetic tasks, while the other group was asked to describe some feelings, such as describing the feeling when they hear the word "baby." When people were primed to feel the emotion before reading the story, they paid $2.34, the same as before. However, another group that read the same Riya story but was primed to do the math gave only $1.26. These results are shocking. Simply doing random calculations reduced people's donations, despite the fact that they had read the same emotional story of Riya. It seems that when we put on our analytical hat, we react differently, even if the story is emotional. So the bottom line for you is this: First, when delivering your message, create empathy for certain individuals; don't address the masses. Second, help people take off their analytical hats and put on their emotional ones before you get your message across. What you do or say before you deliver your message can have more impact than the message itself. Psychologist Robert Cialdini has an excellent book on this topic called "Influence". In the book, Robert concludes that if I can redirect your attention to, say, usefulness, fairness, or romance before I deliver my message, then you become a useful, righteous, or romantic person at that point. In other words, by using persuasive tactics, they can change your identity in that particular situation. I can change who you are. I can change how you perceive yourself and how you perceive me and my message.

If you want to know more about persuasion tactics, read the analysis of the book "Influence" It is a detailed analysis of the book I just mentioned.