Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell
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Book Reviews of Outliers: The Story of Success
Book Review: Anecdotally Interesting, Predictively Useless
Summary: 2 Stars
Overview:
This book centers on Malcolm Gladwell's attempts to understand success. It belongs in the same genre as a wide variety of books, dubbed "Infotainment" that attempt to simultaneously inform and entertain. As with crossover vehicles, all-in-one office machines, and two-in-one shampoo-conditioners, this means that it doesn't particularly succeed at any of these goals. He manages to make a few entertaining and insightful points, but the vast majority of the book is trying to do too much, with too little, all at the same time.
What's Right:
Mr. Gladwell does a good job of illuminating the fact that successive rounds of specialization, selection, and training can turn a slightly above average person into a superstar. He also does a good job of presenting the cases in such a fashion as to make you go, "Oh! Wow!" Which is great, if you are talking down to a reader.
What's Wrong:
Being able to turn people into superstars is a pretty nifty trick. But it doesn't just happen. It takes a lot of work behind the scenes. It takes a lot of things going right. Many have asked, in light of this book, "How many outliers are we losing?" My answer is probably none. Every system, including the one to train outliers, has a saturation point, where it can no longer hold any additional people. If we double the number of hockey seasons, for example, in an effort to catch the talent in the second half of the year, we also have to double the number of rinks for them to practice on, the number of top coaches (magically) that train them, and the number of opportunities that they have (again, magically). This is clearly not possible in the great majority of cases. By taking special training and giving it to everyone, the impact is diluted. Instead of having twice as many hockey stars, we would have none. That would be the quickest way to destroy the sport. Look at Nascar, as an example. (That is tongue in cheek. A joke.)
The author states at many times that there are factors that come down to luck that determine whether a person will be successful or not. Even Malcolm Gladwell, however, is forced to admit at several points in his book that this is simply not true. Yes, the Beatles and Bill Gates were great. No, they didn't do it on their own. But, there are thousands who likely had the same opportunities and failed to capitalize on them.
Many have made much of his disastrous simplification of complex socioeconomic situations and trends, so I won't flog a dead horse. (Much. If he is going to do something like this, he really needs statistical support to demonstrate that there are not more children being born at the beginning of the year in Canada, for example, or that Korean airlines don't have pilots that really are worked harder, longer, etc.) That said, I think that it is important to point out a few problems with his goals beyond this oversimplification. For example, Malcolm Gladwell can explain success, in retrospect. But he can't predict it.
As he mocks the IQ testers and their inability to do more than select a random sampling of successful people, despite their successive rounds of targeting the Termites, I mock his retrospective analysis. Sure, being born in the 1930's in New York meant that you had a good chance to be a successful laywer. Being born in the 1950's meant that you had a good chance to be a successful computing pioneer. So what. What does it mean if you were born in the 1990's? What type of endeavor, prospectively, should you engage in to maximize your potential? Malcolm Gladwell can't tell us. No one can. His prediction tools are limited and almost useless. As such, no real recommendations can be made using this book as a tool. Anecdotally, it is a really amusing analysis. Predictively, it is as useless as the prophecies of Nostradamus.
What's Trite:
During a book club discussion of this book, a couple of people stated that this challenged several popular American myths, like the fact that "Individual success is determined by hard work, guts, and intelligence", and that, "as people succeed on their own, they fail on their own." But this simply isn't true. We, as a society, no longer want to believe that hard work is why some are successful while others fail. We desperately want to believe that it is luck. We didn't fail because of a lack of work on our part, or (gasp) our own insufficiencies. Rather, we simply didn't have the opportunities that others did. This is a classic example of the trend in America for the past 100 years to diffuse responsibility to others and to equally deny accolades.
According to Bill Wadman's review in "Time" magazine, "[Outliers] makes geniuses look a bit less special and the rest of us a bit more so." I think that Bill Wadman is probably close. Everyone wants to feel special. This is the genesis of terms like "social intelligence", used by Gladwell in this book, that have no meaning and are completely farcical. Yes, intelligence is a good thing (in the conventional sense). It is not the necessary and sufficient personal trait to make up a worthwhile human being. Stop calling it social intelligence! Feel special for the skills that you have developed and your innate skills. Don't degrade the specialness that others have just to try to lift yourself without doing any work. Get off the couch, put down the Wii Remote, and go DO something. Become special. No one is born special.
Moreover, Americans want to believe that we are all equal, and that given the same opportunities, everyone will be equally successful. But this is untrue, as well. We are not all equal, obviously, as the intelligence and imagination tests illustrate in this book. We are all different. Ignoring those differences is stupid. While the consequences of considering them may be uncomfortable, the consequences of ignoring them are likely to be catastrophic.
The last problem that I will mention, although hardly the last problem, is that the book seeds to inform, but it really doesn't succeed. Mr. Gladwell consistently talks down to the reader, considering him or her little more than a child to be led by the hand through the magical candy factory. At the end of the tour, your belly is full, you have had your share of sugar, but you are no better for it. Instead, if you pay attention, you feel a little sick, because you've consumed so much and got so little.
Conclusion:
Read this if you like to speculate on armchair sociology. But, recognize that there are glaring, gaping problems in this book. The lack of statistical analysis means that any of the claims are anecdotal, at best. (As someone in my book club pointed out, probably from somewhere else, Malcolm Gladwell is little if not the Master of the Anecdote.)
Grade: B-
Harkius
Book Review: Book Review on Outliers
Summary: 5 Stars
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell is a must read. This book focuses on many different stories of success along with the factors that helped individuals become successful. Most people believe success depends on the intelligence of these individuals; however, Gladwell makes a very strong argument that success depends more on other factors that surround the individuals. For example, success depends on the year they were born, the time of year they were born, opportunities that were presented to them, and even their family history. Gladwell also proposes a new rule for success: the 10,000 hour rule.
Malcolm Gladwell is a successful writer. According to his website, [...], "He is the author of four books, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, (2000), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), an Outliers: The Story of Success (2008) all of which were number one New York Times bestsellers. His latest book, What the Dog Saw (2009) is a compilation of stories published in The New Yorker" (Gladwell, 2010). Malcolm Gladwell has written many books on complex thoughts. After reviewing the titles of his other books it seems the trends in this book may have been revealed to him through his research.
One main idea Gladwell suggests in his book is the 10,000 Hour Rule. This rule states that in order for people to truly master their profession, they must complete 10,000 hours of practice. One example Gladwell uses to explain this rule is the story of one of the most famous rock bands, the Beatles. Before the Beatles became famous rock stars, they were invited to play at a club in Hamburg, Germany. Playing at the club involved doing eight hour shows, sometimes seven days a week. Within two years the Beatles were able to complete over 10,000 hours of practice together as a band. Without the amount of practice the Beatles had received at Hamburg, they would not have been as successful. Gladwell makes it a constant theme that in order for an individual to be successful, he or she needs to get at least 10,000 hours of practice. In order for people to get enough practice, there needs to be opportunities and outside help from others.
Gladwell starts his book with an example of successful Canadian hockey players all being born in the beginning months of the year. He uses this example to show that success can depend upon an individual's birth date. For this specific example, the cut-off date for hockey players in specific age groups is December 31; therefore, having a birthday in January would give players an advantage. At a young age, being 11 to 12 months older is a huge advantage. The players who are more physically matured would be picked to play on the hockey team over the younger players. Once being picked to play on the hockey team, these players have more time to practice, which means they will have a better chance to advance in the sport. It also means that these players will complete their 10,000 hours of practice before the younger kids who were not picked. Gladwell continues to explain that success in school and other sports depends on an individual's birthday when a cut-off date is involved. While reading this book, I could relate to this example. I played soccer growing up and in the league I played in the cut-off date was in September. My first year of travel soccer was very hard. Most of the other girls were older than me because my birthday was in August. I received very little playing time because I was smaller and became very discouraged.
Another factor that success is dependent upon is the year that an individual was born. In this book, Gladwell shows a list of the seventy-five richest people in human history. Following this list, Gladwell explains that about 20 percent of people on this list were born in the United States during the nineteenth century. Gladwell continues to explain that given the year these people were born, they were the perfect age to take advantage of the changes that America was going through during the industrial revolution. The year a person was born plays a significant role in determining if an individual will be a successful outlier.
Opportunities are a major part of becoming successful. Gladwell explains that people are not successful on their own, and they need to be given the opportunity to become successful outliers. An example Gladwell uses in his book is the story of Bill Joy. Bill Joy went to the University of Michigan, which happens to be one of the first universities to have a computer lab that used time-sharing. He was lucky enough to live in the North Campus where the Computer Center was located. Because he had access to a computer, Bill Joy was able to have 10,000 hours of practice before other student his age which helped him become one of the few expert programmers. Gladwell also gives the example of Bill Gates. When Bill Gates was in the eighth grade he had joined a computer club at school where he had access to a computer. During that time period, most colleges still did not have computer labs for students to have access to computers. Bill Gates had an amazing opportunity to use and master a computer at such a young age.
Another point Gladwell talks about in his book Outliers, is that success depends on a person's family. Qualities that are instilled in children by their parents often determine the amount of success that their children may achieve. These qualities include independence, problem solving, and social skills. Gladwell also explains that a child coming from a wealthy family has a better chance to be successful. My uncle is very wealthy and has spent a great deal of money helping his son pursue a career in hockey. From the time my cousin was little, he has had the opportunity to purchase the best training and the best equipment. Because his family could afford it, he was able to travel and play on some of the best teams in the country. Therefore, being introduced to the best hockey coaches he is now playing on one of the junior national teams, and will be going to Michigan State on a full scholarship for hockey.
Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success is a great book. This book gives insight to the reasons people achieve great success. Outliers explains the importance of practice and opportunities that are given to individuals in order to be successful. This book also explains that certain factors for success are uncontrollable by the individual including birth date and family financial status. Everybody should read Outliers: The Story of Success to be able to understand the factors involved for individuals to achieve success.
Book Review: The Less Visible Sides of Success with Some Detailed Examples
Summary: 4 Stars
Early advantages plus talent plus lots of practice plus a good social heritage plus a large opportunity help people succeed. That's this book in a nutshell as described in a series of New Yorker style articles. As told, the story is much more entertaining than that, but I want you to get the essence. Mr. Gladwell knows how to pick and spin a story to make it appealing and intriguing, and he has done well on those dimensions here.
The book will inspire people to want to help others accomplish more. Any parent, any teacher, any coach, or anyone interested in improving society will find something stimulating here.
Let me give you a quick overview:
1. Mr. Gladwell draws his inspiration for this book from the studies of Roseto, Pennsylvania by Dr. Stewart Wolf and sociologist John Bruhn that established how social factors can improve or harm health. Mr. Gladwell wants to similarly expand our vision of what affects success beyond the sense that "raw talent" and "privilege" help.
2. Mr. Gladwell uses the birth dates of athletes to establish that annual cutoff dates for teams benefit those born closer to the cutoff date. This principle also affects school children. As a result, the older children in a cohort do better and get more attention. Mr. Gladwell proposes having more anniversary dates so that more youngsters will get early access to help and attention.
3. Mr. Gladwell tells us the background of Bill Joy, one of the great computer programming geniuses of all time. In the story, he points out that mastery of most disciplines requires 10,000 hours of practice. Mr. Joy got that practice at a young age because he had access to time sharing on a mainframe when most programmers didn't. The practice point is buttressed by a study of violinists that correlates how much they practiced to their ultimate success. Then, Mr. Gladwell pulls in the Beatles and Bill Gates as examples to support his point. He also looks at the frequency of accumulating large wealth to notice it is concentrated in one time period in one country.
4. From there, he gives us the sad story of a genius who hasn't been able to use his life for very much other than to win on a television game show, Christopher Langan. Mr. Gladwell goes on to argue that you have to be talented enough to succeed, but that talent level falls far below the genius level.
5. Mr. Gladwell next points out that parenting matters. Mr. Langan had little help there, but many privileged youngsters get enormous assistance which provides direct help and makes them more assertive.
6. Joe Flom is profiled next to describe his background before becoming the head of a major New York Law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. Great emphasis is placed on his being Jewish, so he couldn't work in the "white shoe" firms that didn't want to get their hands dirty with hostile takeovers; being born when takeover lawyers could do well; and being born into a family with a social heritage of prospering in the garment trade (a very exacting business that rewarded hard work and attention to detail).
7. Mr. Gladwell expands on the idea of a sociological legacy in part two, beginning with the apparent roots of Southern family feuds (think of the Hatfields and the McCoys). He next takes a look at how such social patterns appear to have affected airline safety (with a close look at Korean Air and an Avianca plane that crashed when it ran out of fuel). He then jumps across the globe to argue that the Chinese language's structure of words that involve numbers and the work involved in cultivating rice explain the advantages that many Southern Chinese students have in math over students in other parts of the world.
8. The story moves into its prescriptive stage in describing the results of an experimental public school in the South Bronx that helped youngsters get the structure and discipline they need to succeed . . . with very good results.
9. The book concludes with a look at Mr. Gladwell's Jamaican roots and how those contributed to his success.
Mr. Gladwell is such a provocative and intriguing writer that it seems rude to make any suggestions for possible improvement. However, I will be so bold as to comment on the ideas and the evidence.
1. Mr. Gladwell doesn't seem to take liking the task into account as a success factor. Most of us could eat chocolate candy until 10,000 hours had occurred. But how many of us like any other task that much that can be turned into a valuable form of human achievement? Without such liking, I suspect that much success won't occur. Self-discipline in the absence of liking will just lead to early burnout.
2. Mr. Gladwell seems a little confused about the contribution Bill Gates has made to software. Mr. Gladwell tells the Gates story as though Gates is another Bill Joy. Gates is more of a corporate strategist than a programming success. The famous programs on which Microsoft's success was based were drawn primarily from the work of programmers who weren't even at Microsoft.
3. In the airline crash examples, there is also a lot of research about how crews in all countries defer too much to the captains. Although that research is mentioned in passing, I felt like Mr. Gladwell was overstating his point. The issue in the Avianca crash was strongly related to not speaking American-style English with comfort. I think the book would have been stronger without the airline crash examples.
4. When you are writing about success (even as "outliers"), it makes sense to spend a little more time thinking about what you want to focus on. This book jumps from looking at geniuses who do things that benefit everyone (like Bill Joy) to people who just happen to make a lot of money (Joe Flom). If Mr. Gladwell had stuck with Bill Joy-type examples, I think this book would have been a lot more helpful.
5. If these points are so important, wouldn't it make sense to have the bulk of the book prescribe what to do differently? Mr. Gladwell doesn't take that part very seriously. As a result, the book is more entertainment than call to action.
6. By stringing together a series of article-style chapters, the book ends up being a bit choppy to read and follow.
I do recommend you read the book, and I hope that Mr. Gladwell will write a follow-up book that is prescriptive.
Thank you for much food for thought, Mr. Gladwell!
Book Review: THE HIDDEN ADVANTAGES BEHIND SUCCESS
Summary: 5 Stars
Is Malcolm Gladwell just stating the obvious when he says really successful people achieve their success through a series of advantages? He labels such people as "outliers," a use of the word not sanctioned by the English dictionary. He's not interested in run-of-the-mill kinds of success, but of really huge kinds of success, like Bill Gates or The Beatles. Let me begin by saying that I found this book fascinating, and made my way through its 285 pages rapidly, eager to see what was on the next page, in the next chapter. The book is full of new perspectives and ideas to savor over time.
Gladwell introduces us to the "10,000 hour rule," by which someone who can put in 10,000 hours at their craft, especially when there are barriers to others getting that many hours, gain a significant advantage. He discussed how Bill Gates, as a teen-ager, had access to real time (as opposed to punch cards) programming, and how the Beatles played clubs in Hamburg Germany where the music was non-stop and they played 8-hours stretches. Practice makes perfect.
He also visits Chris Langen, a 200 IQ genius who grew up in extreme poverty and never finished college. He tells us about a long-term study of high IQ people like Langen that showed they are not more successful than other people. According to the author's analysis, it DOES take a certain level of intelligence to make it in our society, but beyond a certain IQ (about 120), the advantage of greater intelligence disappears. IQ tests only test a kind of logical intelligence, but it seems there is also a kind of practical intelligence that comes from exposure to people, places and things. If you grow up in an environment of low stimulation, with few opportunities for interaction with people or visits to a variety of places, you will be lacking in the kind of intelligence needed for success. Poor Chris Langen. Gladwell compares him to Robert Oppenheimer, who was also a genius, but came from a wealthy home. Their stories could not be more different.
He also talks about the role of cultural legacy in success, and attributes various kinds of dysfunctional behavior to cultural inheritance. For instance, the famous feuds of mountain people (like the Hatfields and McCoys) are traceable to their ancestry in the hills of Scotland, where they had to be aggressive in protecting their sheep. Koreans make lousy airline pilots because their extreme adherence to respecting those of higher status keeps co-pilots and flight engineers from telling the captain when something is wrong and needs immediate correction.
These observations are all very interesting, but once I was finished with the book, I began to wonder if what we have here is an entertaining book full of ideas, but not a complete theory of success. I was especially interested in what the author says about Bill Gates, since my husband and I were also involved in the very early software business, and we knew many other people who had a classic "garage business" (or, since we live in Michigan, a "basement business"). Yes, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard because he knew the picture of the Altair on the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975 meant the time was right for small computers to become more than a hobby. Gates wrote a version of the BASIC language for the Altair, working with his buddy, Paul Allen. They founded Microsoft and were for a number of years, a computer language company. Gates was smart enough to always license (rather than sell) his languages, and that made him lots of money that let him move on to the next wave of computers.
But Gates was not the only entrepreneur out there, nor was the Altair the only machine (but it was the first). My husband David Welsh wrote a word processor for the Radio Shack TRS-80 and we sold it all over the world through ads in computer magazines. At the peak of its popularity, the TRS-80 had so many entrepreneurial programmers that the premier TRS-80 magazine, 80 Micro, was a hundreds-of-pages fat thing, bulging with ads. There were magazines for the Apple, Commodore, and other microcomputers, all full of ads for programs written by eager, talented enthusiasts. But only Bill Gates and Steve Jobs survived and are today moguls of a huge industry. What happened to everyone else?
(David and I wrote a book about our experiences - "Priming the Pump: How TRS-80 Enthusiasts Helped Spark the PC Revolution." The real story of microcomputers involves lots of people who did not get rich. The book is available on Amazon.).
In my mind, Bill Gates succeeded because of many of the factors cited by Malcolm Gladwell, but also because he had what many of the rest of us lacked, and that was the vision to see that software could be a huge industry. He not only had the skill and talent as a programmer, but he also had business acumen. And by the way, while Gladwell makes a big thing out of successful people having the opportunity to go to college, Gates not only dropped out of college, but his parents supported him in that choice. Gates' father was an attorney who helped him with advice on how to deal with the companies that wanted to use his BASC in their computers. How many parents would have let their son drop out of college to pursue something as iffy as creating a language for a "toy" computer (pretty much what the IBM crowd thought of the Altair)?
Yes, Gates had lots of advantages, but he was able to see the future in a way that most of us couldn't. Did that arise from another of those hidden advantages? Maybe books he'd read about how new technologies develop? Maybe trips to museums that traced the history of technologies? Maybe his father shared his ideas and his help was why this young man was able to craft such good deals with the likes of Radio Shack, and later, with IBM?
I think Outliers is a five-star book because it makes you think, and it is entertaining enough so you keep reading. Reading it will not turn you into a success, but it will give you some ideas about how people like Bill Gates got to be Bill Gates. You can start looking at successful people in a new way, wondering where their advantages came from and how those advantages worked with their own passion and talent to get them to the top.
Book Review: An interesting, but incomplete study of super-achievers
Summary: 4 Stars
In Outliers, Malcolm explores the information he has gathered on what makes people excel. It goes back to the age-old question from psychology - what makes people the way they are - their genetic or the environment - and the answer is both and much more.
I couldn't help but remember a study mentioned once by Tonny Robbins, in which motivational researchers asked two brothers, one of whom has become a successful business man, and the other man alcoholic - both had a father who was an alcoholic, and both man gave the same answer "What else could I become with a father like that." This too may be simplistic, because we really don't have information about how they were individually treated, or any other events in their lives that influenced them to think and act in ways that shaped their life path.
Malcolm begins with a story about a specific group of early Italian settlers in America, who despite of being overweight and eating unhealthy food, lack of exercise, smoking and other unhealthy habits, had much longer lives and better health than average Americans. Apparently the key element that made their bodies and immune system resilient is that they lived with a sense of belonging to the close-knit community where they deeply cared for each other.
Malcolm then proceeds with the study cases of people involved in music, sports, computers and other areas of human achievement and the conclusion is that while talent is most-certainly helpful, regardless of what talent one may have, nothing beats good old hard work. Frankly speaking, this is no groundbreaking revelation, and if you're looking for any self-help tips that you may get from this book related to what you can do to make the most out of your life, just remember the old adage - "follow your passion and be willing to roll up your sleeves and get your fingers dirty". If you want to know how many hours you need to put into your work to become a world class expert in anything - the magic number is 10,000 hours, which roughly translates into about 10 years if you're working on developing your skills 20 hours a week, 5 years if you're investing 40 hours a week, and perhaps 2.5 years if you are truly madly and deeply passionate about what you're doing and work at it 80 hours a week.
Malcolm then continues that just because you're following your willing to follow your passion and work hard, that doesn't guarantee you'll succeed unless you have an opportunity. Here though he brings up the element of upbringing, where the super-achievers he picked grew up in supportive environments that enabled them to put them into what they were passionate about. This is true up to a point - it was true for Bill Gates or for Mozart, and for all practical intents or purposes, none of us will become either Bill Gates or Mozart, but each of us do have our own talents and abilities, our passions which we can develop if we are willing to put in the hours to develop them, and more importantly, from my experience, whether the opportunity is there or not - successful people create the opportunities even if they had none. I like to think of North America as a "land of opportunity" and when I compare the opportunities for success here to those in let's say Eastern Europe and never mind other impoverished countries in the world - everyone in North America should be wildly successful, but they are not. And there are many of those who grew up in environments where they didn't have much opportunity to follow their passions and talents who came to North America and created more successful lives than those who grew up in the "land of opportunity". Thomas Stanley explores countless stories of self-made millionaire in his book "The Millionaire next door". These guys started from scratch. They adopted habits, a lifestyle that enabled them to make something out of their lives.
And then there's a famous Viktor Frankl's, a Holocaust survivor, who escaped from a concentration camp, and who described his experience in the book "In Search of meaning". It's not that the opportunity landed in his lap - he created it. And on that note, I would like to mention another characteristic of exceptional people that is not mentioned in the book Outliers. The characteristic may be an offshoot of passions, but it's having the guts to follow your heart, to do what you feel driven to do even if everyone else in the world thinks that you're crazy or that what you want may be impossible.
It may be very interesting to read stories about the upbringing of people who had something you didn't have, but it doesn't really have any practical value - unless, perhaps you were to work with your subconscious and re-imprint your mind with all those experiences and with all that nurturing and support that would've made a dramatic change in your life, but was missing from your life while you were growing up. Dr. Milton Erickson describes one case at great length in his book "The February Man". Then again, hypnosis and NLP techniques for boosting one's potential and filling the gaps, are not the topic covered in this book, and may or may not be your cup of tea.
If you are interested in modeling excellence, a more practical book would be Robert Dilts' "Strategies of Genius." Actually, there are 3 volumes.
The next topic covered in this book is the influence of one's IQ upon the success. While the information provided points in the direction that one's IQ is important up to a certain point and it makes no more difference in terms of one's success in life - this issue brings to my mind the question of different kinds of IQ, of different kinds of intelligences required to excel in different areas of life, which then leads me back to the basic question of what is Malcolm's definition of "success" - since his book is a book about "success". For some people it may be excelling in one particular area of life, while for others it may be living a fulfilling and purposeful life, and perhaps excelling in the experience of inner peace, love, joy and happiness. Or is success here measured more by how many hearts, minds or lives you manage to stir and influence with your life ...