To put my opinions into context, I’ll start by saying that I enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s first two books: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
I love challenging conventional wisdom and thought — which is why I love a good conspiracy theory — and I think that is exactly what Gladwell does brilliantly. I might have my opinions that fly in the face of convention, but he actually backs his up with stats, facts, and true (and always entertaining) stories.
I didn’t even realize he had a new book out until I read What is Matador Reading and Listening To?, where Michelle Schusterman lists Outliers: The Story of Success.
Anyway, I promptly found it at the local library, except I was 12th in line which meant I was looking at about a year. So I bought a copy. First off, buying books in Australia is an expensive affair. Amazon.com lists this at $16 — I paid $26. And that’s relatively cheap!
I was hooked from the beginning. Malcolm Gladwell is the type of writer that makes things seem so obvious. You end up thinking, “why didn’t I come up with that?”. As the title suggests, he digs into successful people’s lives and uncovers the conditions that helped make them successful*. He debunks the myth that talent and intelligence are all you need to be a success and points out other important factors like the environment/culture you grow up in and even the year (and month in some cases) in which you were born.
My favourite chapter was a discussion about airplane crashes and the role that the pilots’ background and culture probably played in the tragic accidents — issues about co-pilots not asserting themselves to their superior captain, or problems communicating properly with air traffic controllers.
It certainly didn’t hurt that he started off using hockey players to illustrate some of his points (I am Canadian, after all). Aside from the “why didn’t I think of that?” moments, he brings up factors you wouldn’t even have thought could correlate to success, and by using examples, studies, and statistics, he presents a solid case that we need to re-think what it is we’re doing in our own personal endeavors to reach our goals. He also points out pitfalls in some of our society’s institutions that could be used by those in power who can make a difference, if they wanted to make a difference.
I highly recommend this read, even if you didn’t enjoy his first two books. Two from the Matador team didn’t, but they liked this one.
*We all have different ideas of what success is. In the book’s context, he profiles people who have reached the pinnacles of their chosen professions, from professional athletes to entrepreneurs.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Carlo – I know you don’t have to answer this, but what is our birth month supposed to have to do with our chances for success?
You’ll have to read it to find out!
Nah…I’ll tell you…(if others want to wait for the read, stop reading HERE)
It has to do with pro athletes, specifically hockey players, but it probably also applies to other sports. When kids join up for teams/leagues they are signed up depending on the cut off date. Malcolm showed that the overwhelming majority of professional all-star players were born in Jan/Feb. Assuming a cut off date of Dec 31, this means they were the oldest kids in their age group.
Obviously this doesn’t matter a whole deal when you’re older, but when you’re a little kid, those months can mean a big difference in terms of your physical size and maturity. What happens – in a sport where size matters – is the bigger, more mature kids get selected for all-star teams and such, which sets them on a very different path in their career. They are given opportunities that the younger, smaller kids in the same group won’t get and this very much affects the development of the athlete.
He also talks about how it makes a difference with public schools- you’re put into kindergarten at a cut-off age too, and kids who are more developed, physically and mentally, have an advantage of being the older in their grade. It’s like a snowball effect- the older ones do great in early grades, get picked for gifted programs, are given more opportunities, and leave the younger kids in their grade in the dust.
Interesting stuff.
Right! Thanks for pointing that out Michelle. Interesting stuff indeed.
I’ve gotta say I didn’t enjoy Outliers (and I waited months at my library to get a copy), though I liked Tipping Point and Blink and I tend to enjoy Gladwell’s pieces in The New Yorker. Perhaps his style doesn’t seem novel to me anymore, but I think what didn’t work for me about this book was the way Gladwell takes a single anecdote and uses it to generalize in order to define a cultural phenomenon. The chapters also didn’t seem cohesive to me. Like you, my favorite chapter was the one about the pilots, but in the larger scope of the book, it didn’t quite fit. I agree with his thesis: success is often less about one’s innate abilities and more about external variables, but his narrative strategy and his logic didn’t work for me this time.
Am I the only one who thinks he goes into the subtlest, most unimportant detail about a mildly important fact concerning his current unnecessary anecdote to prove an only tangential point… in order to fill space?
Probably not…but can you give me an example or two? Just curious.