Outliers

Outliers
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (2008)
ISBN: 9780316017923
pages: 285

genre: popular nonfiction
subgenre: business writing

4.5 (out of 5) STARS

Annotation: The general population tends to believe that successful people exist only because of their intelligence, ambition, and hard work, but Gladwell argues there is more to a successful person than meets the eye.

Summary: Gladwell presents a strong argument that there is more to success than just hard work and intelligence. It is important to look at many factors surrounding a successful person.

Part one of the book is entitled: Opportunity. Many people become successful because of opportunities that are presented in their lives. For example, Bill Gates went to a High School that had a computer lab and he was able to spend as much time on the computers as he desired. This was not common at the time. Also, in Canada hockey players are chosen to participate in competition leagues at a young age. A pattern emerged that the oldest, biggest players tended to be picked. The competition league then offered extra practices, better coaches, etc. So by the time the boys were grown, the older boys were, of course, better hockey players than those born later in the same calendar year. Access to computers or hockey rinks or any other such thing is required to make a successful person.

Another important aspect is not just access but many hours of access. The magic number seems to be ten thousand hours. Those that are above and beyond in their field of expertise have clocked at least ten thousand hours doing what they do. In fact, if you practice an instrument for ten thousand hours, you will be successful. It really does not matter your original ability or natural gift, at ten thousand hours, you are an outlier in that field.

Part two of Outliers is entitled Legacy. As much as it seems politically incorrect, it does matter where you are born, your heritage, and your race. One such example illustrated is Korean pilots. Different cultures experience different power distance index (PDI). America has a low PDI. Korea, on the other hand, has a high PDI. Power and status are very important. Korean pilots for many years had very high plane crash statistics. The other Korean officers in the cockpit would never contradict or express concern to the pilot. This lead to many fatal plane crashes.

On a more positive note, Asians tend to be quite successful in math. There are two main reasons for this. First, many Asian languages are much more conducive to learning and understanding math. The language itself lends itself to success. Second, many Asian cultures cultivate rice. Rice growers tend to share many traits in common such as being extremely hard working. Whereas, children from other cultures give up on math, Asians are not afraid to work hard and then succeed in math.

Thus “the outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all” (pg. 285).

Evaluation: Malcolm Gladwell is an accomplished author. His arguments are well thought out and well written. Some nonfiction tends to be dry and difficult to read, but Gladwell’s book reads nearly like fiction. After each point he is able to show evidence often with stories about people that make the reading enjoyable.

I particularly enjoyed the section about how everyone who clocked ten thousand hours in any field would be an expert. I love to quilt and have roughly estimated that I have put around five thousand hours into the craft. I think my quilting looks quite nice, personally! To be successful quantity is as important at quality, or maybe, better said, the quality will improve as the quantity increases. But there must be quantity.

The second section of the book about legacy was very important because we like to believe we are completely individual and although we may not be an island we can distance ourselves from our past. However, Gladwell argues this is not the case.

“I realize that we are often wary of making these kinds of broad generalizations about different cultural groups – and with good reason. This is the form that racial and ethnic stereotypes take. We want to believe that we are not prisoners to our ethnic histories” (pg. 170). I would like to add we may be held prisoner may our own individual family and generational patterns of living.

“But the simple truth is that if you want to understand what happened in those small towns in Kentucky in the nineteenth century, you have to go back into the past- and not just one or two generations. You have to go back two or three or four hundred years” (pg. 170).

Although we may always admire outliers, now we know there is more than meets the eye.




Malcolm Gladwell

More to read by Malcolm Gladwell:
The Tipping Point
Blink




"In the Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell changed the way we understand the world. In Blink he changed the way we think about thinking. Outliers will transform the way we understand success.”

Additional readings:
Bonjour Laziness by Corrine Maier
The Starbucks Experience by Joseph Michelli