Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
I found an excellent summary online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29 which you can look over to supplement this summary.
Outlier:
1. Something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body.
2. A statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample.
“This book is about outliers, about men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary…And in examining the lives of the remarkable among us…I will argue that there is something profoundly wrong with the way we make sense of success.” (p 17-18)
Part I Opportunity
“We do owe something to parentage and patronage,” people don’t become successful in a bubble or because of who they are alone. Advantages in the form of “opportunities and cultural legacies allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” (p 19)
Selection, streaming and differentiated experience:
It is not the best and the brightest who rise to the top. It is those who get a head start, those who are able to practice longer and get more experience based on determinations made about them which are often not related to being the best but maybe just being the oldest. Also known as “accumulative advantage” one advantage leads to another and another ultimately leading to more success than you would have had otherwise. (p 15-31) “Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others to the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write off people as failures” (p 32).
10,000 Hour Rule: Talent vs. Preparation
While initial talent may draw you to an activity, practice will determine your level of success. Not just any preparation, but 10,000 hours of practice (single minded, repetitive, consistent) will make the real difference in your level of success. To be at the top, you must not only work harder but work “much, much harder” (p 37-39). Reaching 10,000 hours of practice in anything automatically weeds out those who have to do it alone or have to spend time focusing on other things like a job. You need extraordinary opportunities to achieve 10,000 hours as a young adult in any discipline (p 41-42).
Geniuses: ultimate outliers?
“Intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated” (p 90) in fact, you don’t have to have the highest IQ to be the best of the best. You just have to pass the threshold- the point at which anything higher will be as likely as another to succeed. Same goes for the college you attend, it doesn’t have to be Harvard, it just has to be as good as The University of Illinois (p 83). Not only does your IQ number mean very little once it is over, say 130, but practical intelligence is even more important! Practical intelligence is “knowledge that helps you read situations clearly and get what you want” (p 101) and without it you will not succeed. The good news? This skill can be taught! The bad news? This skill must be taught and too often it is differences in income and class that lead to those without wealth missing out on this critical skill as well as other advantages (p 101-112). Conclusion? Maybe we should be teaching these skills so that more people are offered the opportunity to succeed!
The Myth of Luck: (p 121-129)
A possible definition of luck is what happens when “what started out as adversity ended up being an opportunity” (p 128). Pretty lucky right? Wrong. “That word luck fails to capture the work and the efforts and the imagination and the acting on opportunities that might have been hidden and not so obvious” (p 129). It wasn’t luck, it is in fact people taking “advantage of the circumstances that came their way” and they are then prepared when the tide suddenly shifts and their skills become in demand (p129). Luck is more involved with when you were born- small or large generation? Beginning or end of the year? Before or after major generational defining events like war, The Great Depression, or perfectly timed with a revolution like the Technology Revolution (p 129-139).
Origins of Success:
When mapping out family trees, they found that those professional Jewish Doctors and Lawyers all came from families that worked in the Garment Industry after coming to America. Experiences growing up with parents that immigrated and work so hard day in and day out just to have work that is meaningful (autonomy, complexity, and link between effort and reward) taught them that “through your own powers of persuasion and initiative you” can get what you want out of life. Even take your kids to Carnegie Hall (p 149-153).
Part II Legacy
Cultural Legacy a.k.a. Social Inheritance:
“Whatever mechanism passes on speech patterns probably passes on behavioral patters as well” (p 175). “Each of us has his or her own distinct personality. But overlaid on top of that are tendencies and assumptions and reflexes handed down to us by the history of the community we grew up in and those differences are extraordinarily specific” (p 204). This means just as the region you are born in and how people talk where you grew up can affect how you talk, and the way they behaved and the way their ancestors behaved probably influence how you behave as well. Why does that matter? Well…you can turn everything around if you acknowledge the importance of your cultural legacy (p 175-182).
Conclusion: So what is the point?
“We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth…To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of luck breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success…with a society that provides opportunities for all” (p 268) for the outliers Gladwell describes did not achieve success all on their own. “They are the products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances….critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all” (p 285).
