Outliers

It has been a few months since I read Malcolm Gladwell's, Blink, and I decide it was time for his next book. In Outliers, Gladwell poses a provocative question: 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."


Outlier is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August where the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be outlier. And while we have a very good understanding of why summer days in Paris are warm or hot, we know a good deal less about why a summer day in Paris might be freezing cold. In this book the focus is on people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.


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 descendants 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.


Gladwell’s writing is clear and colloquial throughout, and his chapters are deftly structured, each one introducing new material while simultaneously reiterating and amplifying what came before. He broke down trends like no one else in The Tipping Point, and was single-handedly the most convincing voice for trusting your gut reactions (in an age of numbers, facts, and analysis no less) in Blink; this guy knows how to research, and better yet, put the nuggets of wisdom he's found in psychology and science into terrifically engaging and palatable text. In short, Mr. Gladwell's writing--his earnestness, optimism, and persuasiveness--never ceases to impress me.


As it was with the Tipping Point and Blink, Outliers is another attempt to make us think about the world a little differently. The hope with Tipping Point was it would help the reader understand that real change was possible. With Blink, it was to get people to take the enormous power of their intuition seriously. Outliers is meant to make us understand how much of a group project success is. When outliers become outliers, it is not just because of their own efforts. It's because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances, and that means that we, as a society, have more control about who succeeds, and how many of us succeed, than we think. That's an amazingly hopeful and uplifting idea

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

One of the first books I read for my 'Journey Through Literature' was Malcolm Gladwell's, The Tipping Point. Having thoroughly enjoyed it, I decided to read his second book, Blink: The power of Thinking Without Thinking. Gladwell has a dazzling ability to find commonality in diverse fields of study, as he displays again in this entertaining and illuminating look at how we make snap judgments about people's intentions, the authenticity of a work of art, even military strategy. Blink incorporates numerous interesting and profound examples that demonstrate the behavior of snap judgments, and like The Tipping Point, is a showcase of Gladwell's ability to recognize interesting things, and then bring them into conscious awareness so we actually realize these things are happening. Gladwell elegantly educates his readers through dissecting and simplifying the intricacies of fascinating but little-known fields, like professional food tasting, and shares his findings through great journalism and storytelling, making Blink a joy to read.


Blink is about rapid cognition, the sort of snap decision-making performed without thinking about how one is thinking, faster and often more correctly than the logical part of the brain can manage. Gladwell campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the tennis court, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of behavior. The key is to rely on our adaptive unconscious, that provides us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea. Gladwell's conclusion, after studying how people make instant decisions in a wide range of fields from psychology to police work, is that we can make better instant judgments by training our mind and senses to focus on the most relevant facts—and that less input, as long as it's the right input, is better than more.


Gladwell is also careful to examine the flip side of this phenomenon: the times when "thin slicing" misleads us or gives us the wrong results. For instance, he presents examples where the mind works based on biases that don't necessarily enter the realm of conscious thought, but are nevertheless there, such as age, race, and height. The secret is knowing which information to discard and which to keep. Our brains are able to perform that work unconsciously; when rapid cognition breaks down, the brain has seized upon a more obvious but less correct predictor. Gladwell examines how race and gender affect car dealers' sales strategy, the effect of height on salary and promotion to top corporate positions, and unjustified police shootings of civilians to demonstrate that our unconscious biases have genuine and sometimes tragic consequences. He also examines how the wrong thin slice, in focus groups or in a single-sip test of soft drinks, can lead businesses to mistake consumer preferences.


Throughout the book, Gladwell introduces us to many people, and their stories and experiences of snap decisions. He has a talent for bringing these narratives to life, almost like a novel, and not only does he make these examples interesting and personal, but he keeps coming back to the handful that he has selected to incorporate into Blink. This makes it mush easier to follow what he is saying, having been introduced to the story already, and it keeps a clutter of examples from fogging up your mind.

I have always loved learning about a wide variety of topics, and reading Blink was another opportunity to not only learn something interesting, but learn something that effects me everyday. We have all heard someone, if not ourselves, say "I just knew", or "I had a feeling". This book explains the science behind that "feeling", and shows us what amazing things our mind is capable of doing, even when we are not consciously controlling it. Gladwell incorporated a few examples of the tests used to determine an individuals association with age, gender, or race, which is one of the things that continues to stick out in my mind, for I am largely a hands on learner. My tip for Blink, is go to www.implicit.harvard.edu. to test and compare your own stated beliefs with your unconscious beliefs. This is also a great way to learn a bit more of what the book is about, and may help you decide it it's worth reading for you. 

  

The Tipping Point

Here we are at week two. A different book, different genre, different author. This week I read The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. It is a non-fiction book about what makes things "tip", and turn into epidemics. When I say the word 'epidemic' I am not only referring to some kind of flu or virus, but using it as a much broader sense of the word, referring to something that spreads rapidly and extensively affecting many individuals at the same time. This could be anything from a fashion trend, to a message, to the suicide epidemic in Micronesia that Gladwell talks about in one of his chapters.


Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behaviour, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the empty tables of a new restaurant. These are social epidemics, and the moment when they take off, when they reach their critical mass, is the Tipping Point.


In The Tipping Point, Gladwell introduces us to the particular personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children's television, direct mail and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious, and how to start and sustain social epidemics.


The Tipping Point is an intellectual adventure story written with an infectious enthusiasm for the power and joy of new ideas. Most of all, it is a road map to change, with a profoundly hopeful message, that one imaginative person applying a well-placed lever can move the world.


This is the kind of book that you have to read at your local cafe or coffee shop. For years I have been going to this little place called Remedy, near Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. Not only do they serve the best homemade Chai Lattes and great Indian food, but it's near a trendy part of town, whose streets are bustling with people from all different walks of life. I love going there to read and being surrounded by so many types of people. You look up and see students cramming for a test, or families sharing a piece of pie after ballet class, or friends talking animatedly about their struggles and achievements in life. It's amazing going to a place where everyone appears so different, but is sharing in the same great experience. When you are surrounded by many different people, the words and ideas that Gladwell is trying to get across about epidemics really begin to come to life. You are able to look up from your book and physically see what he is talking about.

While walking around my favorite two story Chapters store on Whyte Ave, trying to pick out a book, I noticed 'What The Dog Saw'. I picked it up, first intrigued by the title, and then by it's Content. I was going to purchase it before I realized that it was actually the third book that Gladwell had written. Then began my search. Where was the first book? What would it be about, and would it sound just as intriguing? And then I found it! 'The Tipping Point'. Although Gladwell's three books are not a series, I thought it would be best to read them in order, and follow along with his train of thought over the course of the years he was writing theses splendid books. So my tip is to follow suit, and read first 'The Tipping Point', then 'Outliers', followed finally by 'What The Dog Saw'.