What is PeopleAnalyst?

PeopleAnalyst is the front door for people-analytics research: 205+ works indexed and profiled, 40+ citation-grade findings extracted, and peer-reviewed behavioral science translated from academic to actionable — the missing manual for the people analytics you always meant to do.

What is people analytics?

People analytics is not a dashboard. It is behavioral science and statistical inference applied to workforce decisions — a discipline with its own methodology, spanning measurement, organizational design, talent, leadership, and analytics craft.

Why does AI in HR need measurement science?

AI is being deployed in high-stakes people decisions — hiring, performance, attrition — without the measurement science to evaluate whether it works or whom it harms. Construct validity, effect sizes, and criterion validity are the vocabulary for asking an AI vendor the right questions.

How is the research made accessible?

The evidence is indexed and searchable: 205+ works, 40+ citation-grade insight cards, and 8 research arcs, so the right finding reaches the right decision at the right time.

What separates good people measurement from assertion?

Good measurement has a method: construct validity, reliability, and effect-size interpretation are not optional — they are what separates evidence from assertion.

library / lib258e7acd6f24dba0

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Chip Heath, Dan Heath · 2007

In a sentence

Some ideas survive and thrive while others die, and the difference lies in six learnable principles that make ideas 'sticky'—understood, remembered, and capable of changing behavior.

Made to Stick reverse-engineers why certain ideas—from urban legends to brilliant teaching moments to world-changing public-health campaigns—lodge in our minds and change our behavior, while equally important ideas evaporate. Drawing on Chip Heath's decade studying naturally sticky ideas and Dan Heath's work on effective teaching, the Heaths distill six traits captured in the acronym SUCCESs: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories. They show that stickiness is not a gift of natural creative genius but a craft anyone can learn, and that the chief obstacle is the 'Curse of Knowledge'—the difficulty experts have imagining what it is like not to know what they know. Packed with vivid case studies (movie popcorn, the Kidney Heist, JFK's moon mission, Subway's Jared, 'Don't Mess with Texas'), the book offers a practical checklist that managers, teachers, activists, and anyone else can use to make their ideas matter.

The four lenses

Science
Statistics
Systems
Strategy

The model

A framework model in which a design lever (finding the core) plus six message-design traits (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Story) produce psychological and behavioral states (attention, understanding/memory, belief, caring, ability to act) that lead to the outcome of idea stickiness, while the Curse of Knowledge moderates (impairs) the application of these traits.

Finding the Coredesign lever

The design activity of stripping an idea to its single most critical essence through forced prioritization, akin to a Commander's Intent or newspaper lead, so the most important insight shines and guides decisions.

Simplicity (Core + Compact)design lever

The trait of a message being both core and compact—profound yet succinct, like a proverb—so that it is easy to remember and useful for guiding decisions without being a mere sound bite.

Unexpectednessdesign lever

The trait of violating audience expectations with surprise to grab attention and opening curiosity gaps to maintain interest, breaking and then repairing the audience's guessing machines around a core message.

Concretenessdesign lever

The trait of expressing ideas in terms of sensory information and specific human actions rather than abstractions, so meaning is shared, memorable, and able to mobilize existing knowledge.

Credibilitydesign lever

The trait that makes an idea believable through external sources (authorities/antiauthorities) and internal sources (vivid details, relationship-revealing statistics, Sinatra-Test examples, testable credentials).

Emotional Appealdesign lever

The trait of making people feel something—through individual focus, association, identity, and higher-order motivations beyond narrow self-interest—so that belief is converted into caring and willingness to act.

Story Usedesign lever

The trait of conveying ideas as stories that provide simulation (knowledge of how to act) and inspiration (energy to act), drawing on Challenge, Connection, and Creativity plots.

Curse of Knowledgecontextual condition

The psychological tendency, once we know something, to be unable to imagine what it was like not to know it, which consistently confounds our ability to craft simple, concrete, and emotionally resonant messages for others.

Audience Attentionpsychological state

The psychological state in which the audience notices and stays focused on a message, triggered by surprise (getting attention) and curiosity gaps (keeping attention).

Understanding and Memorypsychological state

The psychological state in which the audience comprehends a message and can recall it later, supported especially by concreteness and simplicity (the Velcro theory of memory hooks).

Belief / Agreementpsychological state

The psychological state in which the audience accepts an idea as credible and true, produced by external and internal credibility devices.

Caringpsychological state

The psychological state in which the audience feels emotionally invested enough to want to act, produced by emotional and identity appeals (the Mother Teresa effect: looking at the one).

Ability to Actbehavioral pattern

The behavioral readiness state in which the audience knows how to act and is energized to do so, produced especially by stories that simulate and inspire.

Idea Stickinessoutcome metric

The outcome in which an idea is understood, remembered, and has lasting impact—changing the audience's opinions or behavior—and ideally spreading on its own merits without resources to support it.

How they connect

find the core → predicts simplicity
simplicity → influences understanding memory
unexpectedness → predicts attention
concreteness → predicts understanding memory
credibility → predicts belief
emotional appeal → predicts caring
story use → predicts ability to act
attention → predicts idea stickiness
understanding memory → predicts idea stickiness
belief → predicts idea stickiness
caring → predicts idea stickiness
ability to act → predicts idea stickiness
curse of knowledge − moderates simplicity
curse of knowledge − moderates concreteness
curse of knowledge − moderates emotional appeal

A candidate measure

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die — derived measurement candidates

Finding the Core

presence of a single core statement (rater-coded); ratio of core to peripheral content; decision-guidance value of the stated core