Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell
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Book Reviews of Outliers: The Story of Success
Book Review: Thought-provoking Story of the Role of Chance, Opportunity, and Heritage in Being "Successful"
Summary: 4 Stars
In Outliers, Gladwell attempts to disprove our fascination with the classic from rags to riches stories, and explains that the extraordinary people we love to cherish were not just simply based on pure ability and hard work, but rather through a combination of chance, cultural heritage, and their initiative in taking advantage of the opportunities that were presented to them and practising until they gained unique skills no one at their time could match.
Despite this seemingly mundane premise, Gladwell takes what may seem like facts found in a game of Trivial Pursuit and intertwines them into larger stories that are as astonishing as they are engrossing. By firstly pointing out seemingly unrelated but fascinating topics from sports to law to computer science in the beginning, yet showing us in the end how they somehow remarkably fit as a whole, this book is storytelling at its best.
Outliers is a difficult book to categorize - is it a historical reflection of how successful peopl came to be, a sociological theory, a career advice guide, or a sensational story based the facts and intrigues of what goes on around us? The truth, as it always timidly is, is a bit of everything. Yet, as with his other work, Outliers is ridiculously intriguing, insightful, and most of all, thought-provoking and strangely inspirational.
In the first chapter, Gladwell sets the pace and premise of the entire book by showing us that the brilliant hockey players we adore may not be a
product of just pure innate ability - but rather a crucial flaw in the way the youth development system works, and that the day you're born may actually be the most important factor in whether you'll make it as a professional hockey player or not.
From then on, he takes us through success stories of brilliant lawyers and software geniuses like Bill Gates and Bill Joy and dissects them to show moments of incredible luck where they were given the opportunity to make their now renowned success possible.
In the second part of the book, Gladwell takes us from rice paddies to flying airplanes and shows how historical and cultural heritage are the cause of the characteristics we have come to stereotype today and how they directly affect the outcome of our day to day lives. Can the agricultural background and language difference between Asia and the Western world be the cause of why Asians are so much better at Math? Gladwell thinks so, and he presents a compelling case.
Along the way, as Malcolm Gladwell throws in other facts like the required amount of hours of practice needed before you can really be an expert on something (10,000), and the three factors of what makes work meaningful (autonomy, complexity, and clear relationship between effort and benefit), it should be realized that Outliers is not a definite how-to book of being successful. In fact, there will be several points in the book that will cause you to pause and wonder whether Gladwell is taking too much advantage in being able to cherrypick the facts to benefit his story. However, it is this thought-provoking experience that adds to the overall quality of the book.
In the end, Outliers is about explaining the importance of realizing your roots, of cultural identities that may be unfortunately stereotyped, but are there for a reason and how you can and should take advantage of it. Whil dispelling many of our social misconceptions, it also proves that there is a place for the ethics of hard work. Under its seemingly mythbusting purpose of deraveling our fantasies of extroardinary people (outliers), it somehow turns into an inspirational book on how we can look back and acknowledge our inherited strengths and weaknesses, and how to make use of what we have and take the chances that come our way, as how to take the current flaws and extend them to create opportunities to others.
As there are certain parts that require more than a small suspension of belief to continue to feel involved in the story, I give this book four stars not because it is not an enticing read, but rather because of personal standards. On the other hand, while this book will not change your life, it is very possible it can be your call to action. If you're already a fan of Malcolm's style, this is yet another must read page-turner. If not, I urge you to at least try the first chapter first. A throughly enjoyable and enriching experience.
Book Review: Incredibly entertaining but Entirely Specious
Summary: 2 Stars
"Outliers" is an incredibly condescending book, actually offensive to most of his questioning readers; in fact his 'groundbreaking work' is simply an entertaining book of anecdotes.
I have to admit that I was psyched to read this book, having much enjoyed "Tipping Point" and finding much insight into the past few decades' analyses of such trends and of how people succeed, especially those of "innate leaders." However, this book is a disappointment in most ways, and I found myself arguing with him in the margins constantly while reading.
For one, the basic premise seems to be that all Americans (perhaps all people?!) are enamored with the success of the "self-made man" (this book completely leaves out one of the most important factors of all: one's gender).
He bases his argument from the start upon the assumption that we (Americans) view all success as being from talent. This is so painful to anyone who has lived during the past century. the "self-made person" is so riveting to us BECAUSE IT IS SO RARE!
His arguments, backed up with very little data and some truly bizarre anecdotes might have been news in 1900, but he idea that "NURTURE" (environment, connections, opportunities) can be just as important as "NATURE" (or genes, talent, ambition, etc.) is simply a no- brainer from the start.
Well, yes, he is right: Environment is important (along with the languages one speaks, the background culture, one's family life, etc.) in creating so-called Outliers.
WE KNOW THAT!
why do parents hold back a young kid in kindergarten...
why do parents try to get their kids into the best elementary and high schools, into the best music and athletic programs, overschedule their time, move into 'good neighborhoods', and struggle financially to get their children into 'Big Name' schools where the kids may have netwoorking, mentoring, and other opportunities that might lead them to success.
No news here.
Also, what is success? This may seem simplistic, but one cannot write an entire book about it without being clear of its parameters. Gldawell certainly does not seem to equate success with "happiness" or a productful, useful life - one factor of success that Americans moreso than other nations have in their Bill of Rights as a valid goal to reach for.
Is it just $$? It is still not clear to me.
Then, I was disappointed at Gladwell's bizarre examples (often using only ONE statistic or data point!) to support some of his theories. E.g., sorry, but I don't believe he even scratched the surface when looking at "Asian" talent in mathematics by discussing Chinese work hours in rice paddies - especially when he bases his comparison upon one (controversial, b/c non-historical) book that discusses the life of farmers in one area of Flanders in 1844. That is NUTS! You have to be kidding us...there must be something more here...
In high school, I would have been sent back to the drawing board with an order to gather more research and revise my conclusions-- by any teacher who read such an argument...
Where are the documenting sources? and in what way are you comparing these 2 very small samples? It's comparing monkeys to oranges. His arguments simply do not stand up to any sort of analytical analysis...
And the BIGGEST disappointment for me was that Gladwell HAS uncovered some interesting trends and examples and theories that are worth exploring. But "Outliers" seems like a band-aid applied to a problem when the author decided that real research, and re-thinking, and revising theories, and all that time-consuming data an real scientific analysis just wasn't worth his time.
I am concerned that this book is garners so many positive reviews among various online reviewers (and even among some professional book reviewers). Very concerning for a bestselling book that is a font of specious arguments, mass disinformation, and which advocates an incredibly easy and non-reflective way of looking at our world and trying to find the "causes" behind the "effects." Yikes.
Its only value that I see is in the questions he brings up about WHY such trends seem to happen... which indeed, are worth studying. But in a real, thorough, and non-biased way. Alas, poor Gladwell... Another sloppy (self-help?) book centered on key questions that lack real, believable, actionable, or proven answers.
Book Review: Interesting, but Kind of Empty
Summary: 3 Stars
Malcolm Gladwell knows how to tell stories and capture people's attention. He is so good at it that one is tempted to think that OUTLIERS is a better book than it is. Extremely enjoyable to read, one can easily mistake the pleasure of reading it for something more substantive and meaningful. But a closer look finds it to be rather hollow.
In OUTLIERS, Gladwell explores why some people become the super-achievers. The Bill Gates, The Beatles, people like that. Far from coming out of nowhere through sheer grit, determination, talent and intelligence, such outliers are products of particular environments that, upon closer examination, allow untapped skills to flower in ways that they would not absent such environments. Gladwell's examination of the small, combined factors that allow such outliers to rise is indeed interesting reading.
But take a closer look. Did anyone really doubt that, even for the super-achievers, environment, culture and a myriad of discrete life circumstances was irrelevant? Seriously, would we have expected Bill Gates to be where he is if he did not have access to a computer at a young age? Would we have expected The Beatles to have hit the top without lots and lots of practice? Gladwell does not present his main thesis as completely original, but he downplays significantly just how much of his stories are simply detailed studies of things we really did know all along.
Certain of his critics have pointed out that Gladwell can cherry pick his examples to meet his topic. But he can also pick his perspective to make things appear more dramatic than they really are. A personal example. My dad was a bombardier during World War II, an extremely dangerous job. If an enemy plane took out the bombardier, the plane could not drop its bombs with precision on the military target. Fighter pilots therefore shot for the bombardier, who had the distinction of being in the most exposed part of the plane, the bubble at the front. Of the, maybe 50, bombardiers in his original squadron, my dad was one of two that made it to the end. What an incredible coincidence that I am here! Man, really a stroke of luck.
But look at it two other ways. One, if I were not here, you would not be reading this. My dad's survival only seems like a long shot because I was born and can tell you about it. Two, and perhaps more important, is that the vignette loses a lot by focusing, not on me and my existence and working backwards, but starting at the beginning and looking at the big picture. World War II was very big, with an awful lot of people dying during it. Simply given the numbers, it is not surprising that some discrete group, a bombardier squadron, an army troop, a village, suffered near total destruction, with only a couple of survivors. If those survivors ever had kids, it no longer jars us to maybe encounter one. Gladwell often takes the present snapshot and works backwards, creating a picture that seems more incredible than it is.
It is just not that surprising that in a world of billions, certain individuals, highly intelligent and talented to begin with, will, through happenstance, find themselves in just the right conditions to become an outlier. In fact, it would be exceptionally surprising if this were not the case. After all, if some event is a billion to one longshot, we should expect six to seven such events to occur every day on this planet. Gladwell simply sidesteps the point that all of us are the product of thousands, perhaps millions, of individual factors coming together in our past. We are all special, not in the Lake Wobegon manner in which every child is above average, but simply by being products of factors unique to any one person. It is simply mundane to point out that, given the numbers, some of us will fall far outside the average on some definable outcome.
Yes, some of Gladwell's practical suggestions are worth taking seriously. We should focus on those cultural factors that hold some back while letting others succeed. But at other times, and this is especially true when he discusses the myriad factors that allowed his own mother to obtain an education, Gladwell advocates a degree of social engineering that would make Maoists blanch. In the end, OUTLIERS is quick, witty and entertaining. It does not, however, provide much in terms of anything original.
Book Review: Meandering Speculations on the Obvious, Posing as Sociological Analysis
Summary: 3 Stars
Malcolm Gladwell appears to have found a unique niche in the American literary world, a frizzy-haired faux-naïf who reveals in a friendly, non-threatening way the secret mysteries of the modern world as mere trifles of clever insight. Never mind the lack of academic rigor, or his propensity for allowing a good anecdote to suffice as proof of a generality. Or, as we used to say with intended irony in undergraduate engineering, drawing conclusions from a limited sample of one.
OUTLIERS continues Mr. Gladwell's literary career of stating the obvious. This time, he tackles the question of success, without of course defining what "success" is other than somehow being as famous as Michael Jordan, Mozart, the Beatles, or Bill Gates. Nevertheless, in Mr. Gladwell's considered worldview, success is just barely a product of intrinsic ability. Rather, it is the product of effort, the result of achieving a semi-mystical 10,000 hour barrier that constitutes for Gladwell the admission ticket for that success/fame. Anyone can be a Beatle or a Bill Gates, as long as they have the rudimentary skill set and the perseverance to reach that 10,000 hour goal. Along the way, though, it apparently helps to be the lucky product of one's environment - being born in the right month or the right country, in the right year or to the right parents, into the right community or religious group. How is one to recognize this socio-parental context and maximize whatever future advantages it confers? Aye, as they say, there's the rub.
Gladwell's book opens with a discussion of the singular lack of heart disease found in an Italian-American community in Roseto, Pennsylvania, arguing that their confounding experience was the result of the isolated community context the residents had transplanted from their home country. This somehow paves the way for talking about professional Canadian hockey players, a disproportionate share of whom were born in the early months of their respective birth years. Their birth dates made them the oldest and (on average) physically fastest and strongest in their particular age cohorts, hence enabling them to achieve places on traveling teams and all-star groupings. This fortuitous accidents of birth gave them in turn more playing time, better coaching, and more and better competition as they strove toward their magical 10,000 hours.
These opening chapters set the stage for a wandering journey through the careers of Mozart and the early Beatles as well as those of information technologists Bill Joy (Unix and Sun Microsystems) and Bill Gates, then on to an unsuccessful fellow with a genius IQ named Chris Langan and finally to bankruptcy lawyer Joseph Flom. Thus ends the first half of OUTLIERS, having accomplished little more than demonstrating the old adage that "Luck is the intersection of preparation with opportunity." Hardly a devastating revelation that both elements are necessary.
In the book's second half, Gladwell switches to the coincidence part, placing it in a sociocultural context by arguing that one's cultural legacy influences one's behavior. He scurries from the Hatfields versus the McCoys in rural Kentucky to Korean airline pilots to Asian students' success in mathematics. The author's discussion of this last topic is particularly indicative of his flights of speculative fancy. First he argues that "rice societies" are more dependent on mathematical thinking than "wheat societies." Then he decides that the Western world's math deficiencies are the result of the way we name our numbers, not as efficient or straightforward as the Chinese method. After that, he decides that Asian students are just more persistent in attacking and trying to solve math problems. Does one of these characteristics take precedence over the others? Do they derive from one another? Is there research to back up any of these claims? Don't hold your breath, at least not while reading OUTLIERS. Supporting research would only burden the author's light, colloquial touch.
One finishes OUTLIERS with the feeling of having been fleeced, like spending $795 for a "Success Seminar" only to walk out having been told nothing but the obvious. The speaker may have been dynamic and entertaining, perhaps even a success in his or her own right, but was it really worth the time and money to leave feeling so cheapened?
Book Review: Good insights and thought-provoking: what more do we want?
Summary: 5 Stars
Gladwell's thesis seems to be, "It is hard to understand why some people or groups succeed or fail more than others. Often the answer lies not in their innate talent and intellect, but in cultures they absorbed in their early youth. And sometimes the differences are due to being in the right place at the right time."
As it happened, I had just heard a talk by mystery author Val McDermid a few days before reading this book. McDermid said, "There are many authors as talented and hard-working as I am. They just didn't have the luck I did."
She's right. You can look at almost any life and find an episode that resembles the premise of the movie, Sliding Doors: something either came along or didn't come along at the right time. Or you made one fatal decision and your life shifted irrevocably to a new path.
Academic research recognizes this possibility through several theories, such as chaos theory and life course theory. Published career research has documented the influence of serendipitous events on career paths.
One key event is your date of birth. Gladwell describes a lawyer who was born into an era of low birth rates. This lawyer experienced advantages, such as smaller classes and less competition, not available to his father who was born two decades earlier. I was reminded of research I read a long time ago, comparing success of men drafted into World War II at older or younger ages. Those who joined the military at a young age benefited from the experience; those who joined later saw a lifetime loss of earnings. The differences wasn't due to ability or talent, just their birth date.
I was a little disturbed by Gladwell's interpretation of Chris Langan's failure to meet expectations based on talent. Langan, the man with the IQ of 200, claims he was forced to leave Reed College because his mother wouldn't sign the financial aid form. At Montana State, a professor became defensive when Langan challenged the style of teaching calculus. The administration refused to honor Langan's request to change to afternoon classes so he could get transportation to attend.
As a former college professor, I find these situations extremely plausible, regardless of Langan's social skills. Even in a private school, administrators can be surprisingly rigid. Financial aid officers live in their own worlds.
Gladwell says professors would enjoy engaging with a talented student, but often lower division students are not engaging with experienced professors. They deal with teaching assistants who are struggling with their own professional identity. Fortunately, many universities now have freshman seminars to allow interaction with senior faculty, who would have not only the motivation but also the ability to mentor a struggling student. And a request to change classes after an official registration date will almost always be denied.
Ironically, if Langan had been identified as coming from a disadvantaged population (such as inner city students who get scholarships to prep schools) he would be less of an outlier. These students struggle and I understand that some schools now have special mentoring programs. I know people whose children turned down opportunities to attend elite schools because they wouldn't fit in.
When I read some negative reviews, I often wonder if we're reading the same book. Outliers is not targeted to an audience of research psychologists, although the author does cite academic research throughout the book. You can criticize the way Gladwell interprets the findings of the research. But you can also go through an academic psychology journal and second-guess the authors' interpretation of their data in many published articles.
Are there more rigorous accounts of these phenomena? Sure. Could the book have addressed some counter-examples? Definitely. But it's still a high-quality, thought-provoking read.
Gladwell doesn't write self-help. He presents ideas. Hopefully these ideas will help us understand why large-scale policies work or don't work. If we're in a position to influence change, we can use them. Meanwhile, we can have a lot of fun reading and discussing what Gladwell's written. And if you're motivated to go deeper into social psychology because the book is too light, even better.