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Outliers: The Story of Success

by: Malcolm Gladwell
en

9780316017923  9780316024976  9781846141218  0316017922  031602497X  1846141214 

Outliers: The Story of Success
By Malcolm Gladwell

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. iant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples—and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps—Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential.

From Weekly
In Outliers, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) once again proves masterful in a genre he essentially pioneered—the book that illuminates secret patterns behind everyday phenomena. His gift for spotting an intriguing mystery, luring the reader in, then gradually revealing his lessons in lucid prose, is on vivid display.

Outliers begins with a provocative look at why certain five-year-old boys enjoy an advantage in ice hockey, and how these advantages accumulate over time. We learn what Bill Gates, the Beatles and Mozart had in common: along with talent and ambition, each enjoyed an unusual opportunity to intensively cultivate a skill that allowed them to rise above their peers. A detailed investigation of the unique culture and skills of Eastern European Jewish immigrants persuasively explains their rise in 20th-century New York, first in the garment trade and then in the legal profession.

Through case studies ranging from Canadian junior hockey champions to the robber barons of the Gilded Age, from Asian math whizzes to software entrepreneurs to the rise of his own family in Jamaica, Gladwell tears down the myth of individual merit to explore how culture, circumstance, timing, birth and luck account for success—and how historical legacies can hold others back despite ample individual gifts. Even as we know how many of these stories end, Gladwell restores the suspense and serendipity to these narratives that make them fresh and surprising.

One hazard of this genre is glibness. In seeking to understand why Asian children score higher on math tests, Gladwell explores the persistence and painstaking labor required to cultivate rice as it has been done in East Asia for thousands of years; though fascinating in its details, the study does not prove that a rice-growing heritage explains math prowess, as Gladwell asserts.

Another pitfall is the urge to state the obvious: No one, Gladwell concludes in a chapter comparing a high-IQ failure named Chris Langan with the iantly successful J. Robert Oppenheimer, not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone. But who in this day and age believes that a high intelligence quotient in itself promises success? In structuring his book against that assumption, Gladwell has set up a decidedly flimsy straw man.

In the end it is the seemingly airtight nature of Gladwell's arguments that works against him. His conclusions are built almost exclusively on the findings of others—sociologists, psychologists, economists, historians—yet he rarely delves into the methodology behind those studies. And he is free to cherry-pick those cases that best illustrate his points; one is always left wondering about the data he evaluated and rejected because it did not support his argument, or perhaps contradicted it altogether. Real life is seldom as neat as it appears in a Malcolm Gladwell book.

From Booklist
Gladwell, author and journalist, sets out to pre an understanding of success using outliers, men and women with skills, talent, and drive who do things out of the ordinary. He contends that we must look beyond the merits of a successful individual to understand his culture, where he comes from, his friends and family, and the community values he inherits and shares. We learn that society’s rules play a large role in who makes it and who does not. Success is a gift, and when opportunities are presented, some people have the strength and presence of mind to seize them, exhibiting qualities such as persistence and doggedness. Successful people are the products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy, and success ultimately is not exceptional or unattainable, nor does it depend upon innate ability. It is an attitude of willingness to try without regard for the sacrifice required. This is an excellent book for a wide range of library patrons. 


Contents

  Introduction: The Roseto Mystery

  Part One: Opportunity
   1  The Matthew Effect
   2  The 10,000-Hour Rule
   3  The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1
   4  The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 2
   5  The Three Lessons of Joe Flom

  Part Two: Legacy
   6  Harlan, Kentucky
   7  The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
   8  Rice Paddies and Math Tests
   9  Marita's Bargain

  Epilogue: A Jamaican Story

  Notes
  Acknowledgments
  Index


Summary: Butterflies and Success
Rating: 3

Gladwell gets us to think and that, in itself, is worth the price of admission. It really is time for us to explore the essence of that mysterious term "success". Like a beautiful black butterfly success is alluring, intriguing, and hard to capture. Does making lots of money constitute success? Is being the President of the United States the key to success?

I agree with Gladwell that culture, circumstances, timing, birth order, and luck are all part of the stew of success. However, there is more, much more. We are complex, multi-layered beings who come from long lines of complex, multi-layered beings. Who we are comes from the original organization we all joined, the family. It is here we learned about justice, creativity, favoritism, conflict, and love. We take what we learn and add an overlay from the culture and the times into which we were born.Then we sprinkle it with personal, community or world crises and voila, a real human being takes shape and makes decisions about what really matters and what constitutes success.

What Gladwell leaves out, and why I was disappointed with the substance of the book is a depth discussion about the loyalties and legacies that can put a stop or a go on our "successes". Once we can begin to explore the patterns from our past, the family as well as the cultural legacies, traditions , and attitudes we inherit from our ancestors we can gain a clearer understanding of why there is so much power to repeat rather than stand on the shoulders of the past. This goes so far past I.Q. of any number, so far past the month of birth, so far past good or mediocre schooling, and these deeper legacies and loyalties require a more thoughtful account than this book offers.

At least the dialogue has begun and for that, "good job, Gladwell."

Sylvia Lafair PhD author "Dont Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns that Limit Success".

Summary: Aviation errors stopped me cold.
Rating: 2

I was happily reading along until I got to the Korean Air crash in Guam and that stopped me cold. As a former USAF aircraft commander and Airline Transport rated pilot and instrument instructor, I was shocked as Gladwell essentially attributes the crash to subordinate communication hesitancy born of Korean culture.

Gladwell takes his authority from "an NTSB [crash investigation] black-box expert, a PhD psychologist" Brenner who was on the investigation team. He apparently is not a pilot (p. 210 - some are engineers, some pilots, but some psychologists). Brenner describes a 'difficult' VOR/DME approach at Guam which he calls "a pain in the a$$, complicated and takes a lot of coordination". He goes on to say that the airliner was cleared for that approach, that is the VOR/DME approach because the glideslope was not working. Then he quotes the Captain as simply saying "We're doing a visual approach". Gladwell chimes in at this point (p.211) with a glaringly inaccurate description of a VOR . Brenner is back with "if you follow the VOR down, it takes you directly into the hill".

Let me rebut the last paragraph: VOR/DME approaches are not difficult to an experienced instrument pilot. Solo pilots do them often. That's one. And in point of fact, the VOR/DME approach was not cleared by anyone (two). Another approach was planned and flown (ILS - localizer only)/DME. Subtle but big difference. The Captain's briefing was not the one sentence as Gladwell leads you to believe: It was the first sentence in a larger briefing. (three). VOR's do not lead you down into the ground (four). Not even VOR/DMEs.

From here Gladwell launches into a series of descriptions of Korean etiquette and partly attributes the crash to "one of the most critical moments of the flight": passing references to the rain by the copilot: "don't you think it rains more in this area?" [this sentence was uttered a full 18 minutes before the crash]. And anyone who has ever flown into Guam will tell you. Yes it does rain alot. Further, Gladwell extends the copilots comment to 'mean': "Captain. You have committed us to visual approach with no backup plan, and the weather outside is terrible. You think that we will break out of the clouds in time to see the runway. But what if we don't? It's pitch-black outside and pouring rain and the glide slope is down". Not a single phrase (except the last) rings true. The backup plan was use of the charts (see later) - "What if we don't?" Is Gladwell saying that the copilot just got out of high school? "It's pitch-black outside?" No it isn't, they can see the island lights, stars are out. "Pouring rain?" Please. No experienced pilot thinks or talks like this.

None of this sat well with me, so I decided to read the accident report itself (dutifully recorded in the book endnotes). These reports, by the way, are exhaustive and issued with finality a year or so after the actual crash. They are very interesting reading (for pilots anyway) and are completely accessible online. If your eyes are glazed over at this point, all you have to know is that accident report did not agree with the book's 'expert' description nor did it come close to verifying Gladwell's guesses.

What the report says (in contradiction) is:

1) The Captain briefed a visual approach but added the navigation radio setup (ILS Primary in #1, VOR in #2) which extended the briefing considerably. He also had in front of him the instrument approach charts for the airport. He had been briefed by his company on the dangers of the fatal hill; he had flown there a month before as Captain in the 747 and had flown 7 times before as a 727 Captain. The briefing included general visual profile altitudes. This was 30 minutes before the crash.

2) They tracked the rain squalls on radar and were aware of them and went around some rain clouds on the way in. They did fly into rain before the crash (the sound recorder could hear the wipers come on after the Captain commanded them on).

3) The aircraft was "cleared for ILS [localizer] approach. Not VOR/DME. There is not much difference here between the two as far as a pilot is concerned, but the accident report clearly and unequivocally states the type of approach they were cleared for. If an 'expert' gets even one major detail wrong it throws off the credibility - but here we're talking several incorrect details.

4) The Captain (who was flying the airplane) thought for a while the glideslope was working (it was not) but when he realized it was not [it might have looked like it was] he clearly said out loud that he should not fly below 1440 feet - which is exactly what the ILS approach chart specified. If he had done what he just said, they would have glided over the hill with 800 feet to spare. In fact, he did not level off at 1440 feet as he should have - the flight recorder clearly shows this. He kept descending until it was too late. And no one called him on it - and not because they were deferential Koreans, but because they were not paying attention. The co-pilot and engineer (still running the before landing checklist) were not involved in the approach. In fact the Captain insisted they look outside for the runway. Standard procedure, but still the copilot should at least be monitoring the aircraft position to confirm compliance. The fact remains, the Captain flew the airplane into the hill, accidentally, but he was in full control of the aircraft at the time. Well, unless he was asleep - a possibility that the accident report does not address.

5) A man happened to be on the ground on that hill as the airplane passed very low directly over him and crashed a second later. His comment? "The stars were out" It was perfectly clear, no rain.

The point of all this is that for me, the book's factual and logical conclusions are suspect. I know this one section was mostly bogus since it talked about things I know about. It's a shame because the writing is fun and the subject interesting.

Summary: Snap
Rating: 5

Excellent. As interesting as Malcolm Gladwell's other works. The audiobook has the added benefit of the author's captivating prosody and intonation. You will learn something new and be entertained.

Summary: Amazing
Rating: 5

While I enjoyed Tipping Point and Blink, Outliers is now one of my favorite books. The concepts and examples discussed seem to come up at every party or meeting I've been at in the last few weeks. I can't stop thinking about the lawyers, or the pilots, or the athletes or the computer gurus or even the Beatles! Gladwell's theories make so much sense about why certain people don't merely succeed, but truly flourish. It is empowering to think about the qualities of hard work. It is also confirming to ponder why certain people - through luck and circumstance - have opportunities few others will ever experience. I wonder how Gladwell can top this one!

Summary: A Formula for Success
Rating: 4

Malcolm Gladwell does it again. As in his earlier books, The Tipping Point and Blink, he rounds up research from a variety of sources to support an intriguing idea. In this case, he questions why it is that some individuals rocket to success, while others, with seemingly equal potential, achieve much less. He posits that an "outlier," someone who achieves at a level outside statistical norms, really owes his success to a variety of factors that are not in his control.

As he marches through a series of case studies and summaries of research, the author delivers the argument that the very successful benefit from opportunities as diverse as birth dates, parenting styles, and cultural legacies. In all cases, though, he points to the value of cumulative hours of work undertaken by his high achievers, whether he is talking about Bill Gates or the Beatles. While we assume that great success is bestowed upon those with outsize intelligence or ambition, Gladwell marshalls research and examines biographies to show how his selected "outliers" actually developed.

As the book progresses, the reader looks for, but does not find, any evidence or argument against Gladwell's chosen thesis. Nonetheless, the research he presents is intriguing and endlessly debatable. Outliers would make a great selection for a book discussion group.

Gladwell is an excellent writer, and he pulls the reader into his argument using fascinating and readable examples. While the ending is a bit indulgent, this short book, overall, is well worth your time.