Latest read: Outliers: The Story of Success

I’m not sure why it took so long to read Malcolm Gladwell‘s latest book Outliers: The Story of Success but I’m sure glad its just as enjoyable as his books The Tipping Point and Blink. As defined scientifically Outliers is an observation that is numerically distant from the rest of the data.  Gladwell not only shares compelling stories regarding outliers, but shines in conveying the impact of globalization for math students, airline pilots and more importantly control tower operators in NYC.

Gladwell shares that “The Story of Success” is really interesting when you dig deep into statistics. Gladwell addresses this with hockey players.  Yes, hockey players.  There is something amazing about playing a game on ice. Hockey requires speed and grace.  The fact that its not played on grass, sand or wood makes you wonder if there is “one talent” shared by the best hockey players in the world.

Researchers found that great players actually all fall within birth dates ranging from January to April for hockey and even for most soccer teams.  And as Gladwell points out the best hockey players like Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretsky, Steve Yzerman, Mario Lemiux and Dominik Hasek all have birth dates that allowed them to play against kids a year younger than them — and to no surprise they were handpicked (at some early stage) to further develop their skills.

Gladwell has taken an interesting angle regarding “success” in what some might even call perfection.  Gladwell tells the story of Bill Joy who not only happened to be at the University of Michigan at the right time (to study computing) but more importantly, took the time to spend countless hours learning and programming when he received access to the mainframe at school.  Actually Gladwell adds up those hours in his chapter called “The 10,000 hour rule” and points out that ‘talent’ can be achieved in 5 years when you practice 5.5 hours everyday.  Once you cross that measurement you have positioned yourself for success. Joy invented BSD Unix and Java.

The same 10,000 hour rule even applied to The Beatles who “had to play for 8 hours” in a strip club in Germany before crossing the Atlantic and ultimately rock n roll fame.  Can you imaging some chap telling his wife he saw them play for hours and hours…funny, but true.  Wonder what the impact would have been in America if word had gotten out about how they perfected their music?

In the chapter “The Trouble with Geniuses Parts 1 & 2” Gladwell shares ultimately a lesson on the need to “fit” into today’s complex world of professional and personal relationships.  The story of Robert Oppenheimer who went on to invent the atomic bomb serves as one example of the life of a genius. Did you know Oppenheimer tried to murder his academic mentor?  Yes murder.

But Oppenheimer was able to “get away with it” due to his ability to speak to the heart of theoretical physics.  After protracted negotiations it was agreed Robert would be put on probation.  In contrast Gladwell shares in part 2 the story of another genius raised by a mother who forgot to fill out his student loan paperwork, his inability to share his passion of physics to his academic adviser and ultimately his dismissal from school.  He never returned to college.  Gladwell eloquently shares how the little things add up in life.

Gladwell shares in great painstaking detail the story of two plane crashes that were the result of cultural differences in the chapter entitled “The Ethnic theory of Plane crashes” that will make you shake your head in disbelief.  Hundreds of lives lost due to the inability of pilots, flight engineers and air traffic controllers to understand that cultures outside the US actually play a role in questioning the chief pilot (authority) regardless of mistakes made during flight.  Tragic lessons to be learned and applied in today’s globalized world.

One of my favorite chapters “Rice Paddies and Math Tests” shares the understanding that culture dictates success.  Students in Asia score higher in math tests vs. American students.  Why? Simply because Asian families have worked long, difficult hours in rice paddies for hundreds of years.  The idea that a math question can take 20 minutes to solve is no problem for Asian students. American students, on the other hand begin asking for help after 30 seconds.  Its somewhat shocking to see how far American students have fallen in test scores in math and science against students from countries all over the world.

Today the top 98% of American high school students when compared to their counterparts in math rank just 24th in the world.  Does this make you worry?  It should.  Many great lessons from Outliers.

Tags: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, Globalization, Success Stories, Tipping Point, Blink, genius, education, reading, trends