Book Review Outliers The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell may be the bestselling writer of The Tipping Point and Blink. His latest book, Outliers, has been on the best seller list of The New York Times for eight straight months, since it was published in November 2008. Gladwell's engaging and journalistic writing style and his talent for simplifying complex issues, I really believe, are his secrets of success. And they are why his books are both controversial and popular. His latest book is no exception.

Outliers attempts to explain the secrets of successful people; it proposes that intelligence (IQ) alone is not a warranty of success in life. However, this view can be an already well-known fact that has been established through the early 1990s by way of a host of academic studies which discovered that success indeed requires additional competencies, known as emotional intelligence (EI). Unfortunately, axonnsd does not expound on, or even make reference to, the growing body of literature on EI.

Instead, Gladwell targets other significant and equally important ingredients of success. In fact, his book naturally complements the EI studies and explains the "secrets" of success from a different perspective: by taking into account the personal, environmental, and cultural contexts of success.

In this book review, I will highlight the primary secrets of success included in Outliers starting with the benefit (or luck) to be born at the proper time of the entire year. One example Gladwell highlights is that of Canadian hockey players and Czech soccer and hockey players that are born through the first half a year of a year and have a distinct benefit of age and maturity over their teammates. This is due to the eligibility cutoff age of January 1 in those countries. As Gladwell explains, "A boy who turns ten on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn't turn ten before end of the entire year - and at that age, in preadolescence, a twelve-month gap in age represents a massive difference in physical maturity".

What about the entire year of birth? That, too, explains the implications of being t here at the right time, at the right age. Gladwell cites the Silicon Valley tycoons who have been born between 1953 and 1956 and were thus at an ideal age in 1975 to make use of the personal computer revolution. Here are the names and years of birth of many of these successful men: Paul Allen (1953), Bill Joy (1954), Scott McNealy (1954), Steve Jobs (1955), Eric Schmidt (1955), Bill Gates (1955), and Steve Ballmer (1956). Gladwell later argues that NY lawyers born in the first 1930s also had a significant advantage when the boom in the number and size of corporate mergers, hostile takeovers, and litigation occurred through the 1970s, mainly as a result of relaxation of Federal regulations.

Gladwell proposes that it's the "10,000-hour rule" of effort and practice which is why many people achieved success. axonnsd provides examples of Bill Joy's contributions to UNIX, Java, and the Internet; Mozart's masterwork was composed when he was twenty-one, although he started writing music at the age of six; the Beatles and their Hamburg connection with playing music eight hours each day, seven days a week between 1960 and 1962; and Bill Gates who devote thousands of hours of computer programming starting at the age of thirteen. Not only is it smart, these people achieved success by investing in 10,000 hours of practice before becoming outstanding at what they did.

Two other "secrets" are discussed at length in Outliers: culture and education. Gladwell compares the safety record of airliners in the 1990s, and notes that the Colombian captains (Avianca) and Korean captains (Korean Air) in certain cases could have averted plane crashes if their cultures permitted subordinates (copilots and flight engineers) to speak out and warn the captains of impending disasters. Both of these cultures place a high value on power distance, meaning that subordinates defer with their superiors even though these superiors may in fact be in the wrong. In brief, subordinates were reluctant to speak out due to fear and/or respect; a very dangerous cultural "dimension" when one is flying a passenger plane! In place, Gladwell argues that it does matter where you're born and what culture you're raised in.

Citing culture again, Gladwell attributes the high scores on mathematics tests in countries such as for example China, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan to the strong work ethics and the demanding nature in those countries of the all important wet-rice agriculture. Here again, Gladwell fails to mention that rice can be grown far away, such as for example Philippines and Indonesia, whose populations are not necessarily known for high scores on math tests. Gladwell also does not mention the Protestant ethics of hard work which may have contributed to the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution, or the fact that growing tobacco used to be as demanding as employed in the rice paddies.

Finally, Gladwell links the standard of education to success. He cites the longer days and hours of high schools in Japan and South Korea, "the school year in america is, on average, 180 days long. The South Korean school year is 220 days long. JAPAN school year is 243 days long". Finally, Gladwell mentions the vast advantages and opportunities supplied by KIPP Academy middle schools that have been started in the South Bronx, among the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. Students at KIPP excel at mathematics and reading, and a lot of them continue to university and "oftentimes being the first within their family to do so". KIPP college days start at seven twenty-five and continues on until five p.m. All students take classes in thinking skills, English, science, mathematics, social science, music and orchestra. KIPP gives its students a chance to work very hard and to excel.

Though it is written with a journalistic, instead of academic approach, Outliers has undoubtedly contributed to the ongoing thinking about success in the organization world. It highlights the importance of hard work, determination, opportunity and luck, family upbringing, personal circumstances, and culture.

Despite its shortcomings, mainly its insufficient academic rigor, Outliers is really a highly recommended book for many who want to explore the "secrets" of success, beyond IQ and EI.

Book Review - Outliers: The Story of Success by Dr. Farid A. Muna

Outliers: The Story of Success By Malcolm Gladwell

Little, Brown and Company, November 2008.

Dr. Farid Muna is Chairman of Meirc Training & Consulting He holds a Bachelors degree in Management from NORTH PARK State University, an MBA in Finance from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from London Business School, University of London.