Book Review: Outliers

--- Malcolm Gladwell

In author's words, Outliers is The Story of Success. The story of what typically makes outliers outliers. The story of what makes a person, a society, an organization, a genre of people more successful than others. Rather, it is to emphasize the point that IQ and talent, though necessary (but not sufficient), may not always create outliers, historically. It brings out very interesting patterns from and analysis of otherwise innocuous methods and processes, which typically we take for granted as fair.

The book comprises of success stories from a bunch of independent areas researched by the author (and of course, references from works of several others), with a common theme i.e, to understand outliers.

Is there any relation between one's birth month and one's chances of making it to the national soccer team in a South American country (where people believe that national soccer team comes out of pure meritocracy) ? Yes, there is. No, it is not the work of stars. It is us. The answer is simple. The same dilemma many parents would have faced, while sending their kids to school. This year or next year ! A few months early for this year. But, a few months late for next year (After all, one doesn't plan the month of birth of one's kids, in accordance with the admission criteria of local schools). The decision made at that point may be making or marring a kid's chances to be an outlier right from there, as he would be competing with a bunch of kids either younger to or older to him (mind you, the advantage for an older kid at that age could be 25-30 %, due to the probable one year age difference among kids at that age, and the outlier there will get the best training in class and never need to look back). The author has all the statistics to put forward this theory.

Ten thousand hour rule. What is the difference among a world famous guitarist, a popular guitarist in a live music band in your favorite down-town restaurant and a guitar instructor of a school in the next block. Ten Thousand Hour rule answers several similar questions. This rule states that after a certain point, more than inherent talent, what makes a true outlier is practice. Not just some practice, but Ten Thousand Hours of practice. Author has statistics and proofs from fields as diverse as music (Mozart), software programming (Bill Joy) etc.,

Then comes one of the most hyped up things, particularly when one is still in school. IQ. Analytical Intelligence and Success. How are they related and how are they not related. The question whether IQ helps in success or not is, of course, a no-brainer. The question here is whether is that necessary or necessary and sufficient. Author discusses an elaborate study called Termites done by Lewis Terman which has several interesting things from the field of Analytical Intelligence Vs Practical Intelligence as take away.

Concerted Cultivation is another interesting theory that is discussed with examples from lives of a couple of personalities (accepted as outliers). It is generally accepted that opportunities are everywhere and one just has to look around and grab. Concerted Cultivation is about, what parents and their parenting style has to do with the emergence of outliers, and how it is not nature, but nurture, that results in outliers.

Finally, the book is not only about successes but failures as well. In this already flat world, we are getting more and more exposed to the role of cultural differences in getting things done at work. A sneak peak at how far these differences go, by doing analysis of why a particular airlines had very high number of crashes compared to any other airlines, reveals something called Power-Distance Index(PDI) and how is it different in western and eastern countries. Simply put, PDI is about hierarchical culture, where subordinates are very submissive to authority. How did it lead to more plane crashes in a particular country makes an interesting read. Apart from that, there is transmitter oriented and receiver oriented communication, again tied to countries and cultures, that too aids in making or breaking things. It seems, in some cultures the onus of communicating a point lies with the transmitter and in some, it lies with the receiver. If receiver has no clarity about the culture of transmitter (or vice-versa), the communication can never be as intended.

One important thing to note at the end is, this effort is not to undermine or downplay the impressive (unimpressive) role played by the discussed outliers at several stages of their life, by attributing their success (failure) to unfair practices (though hitherto unknown) or opportunities provided by their parents or some social and cultural differences. This is to expose the path that lead to these outliers, which may help many to act better when faced with similar or even not so similar situations.