Chip Heath on Making Numbers Count

Description

Most people glaze over when a statistic goes by. In this Expert Series course, Chip Heath explains why: numbers are a second language for everyone, and anything beyond a handful has to be translated before it means something. The lessons give you the translation methods. You’ll learn to round a number so it fits in working memory, turn an abstract quantity into something a listener can picture, shrink a national total down to one person, map long odds onto a familiar scale, and attach feeling to a figure the way Florence Nightingale did. The last lesson covers why large numbers leave people numb and how expressing them over time brings them back.

Heath presents all nine lessons on video. Each one adds worked examples and flashcards, plus short checks in which you pick the clearer of two ways to state the same number.

About the expert

Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and coauthor, with journalist Karla Starr, of Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers. In the opening lesson he describes how a student’s challenge pushed him from avoiding numbers in his teaching to studying how to make them stick. He had earlier written a book on sticky messages with his brother, Dan Heath.

What you’ll be able to do

• Explain why numbers fail the tests of a sticky idea and how a story fixes that
• Use perspective phrases (“to put that in context”) to give a large number a familiar reference point
• Round and simplify figures so they fit within the limits of working memory
• Restate an abstract number as something a listener can see or feel
• Apply the Rule of One to turn a total or an average into a single person’s story
• Give long odds and skewed distributions a familiar dimension so the size of the gap registers
• Express a large number as a process over time to counter psychological numbing

Who it’s for

Anyone who has to present figures to people who are not specialists: managers reporting results, analysts, fundraisers, teachers, and anyone writing a proposal or a pitch.

What’s inside

9 lessons, self-paced:

1. Introduction
2. Numbers Are Everyone’s Second Language
3. Making Numbers Easier to Understand
4. Taking Numbers From Abstract to Concrete
5. The Rule of One
6. Mapping Numbers on Familiar Dimensions
7. Evoking Emotion With Numbers
8. Combating Psychological Numbing
9. Conclusion

What you get

• 365 days of access from the date of purchase
• A certificate of completion when you finish the course
• Your place is saved, so you can stop and come back whenever you like
• Works on a computer, tablet or phone

You can also get this course, and every other course in the library, with All Access for $99.99 a year.