The Outliers
The reason I’ve been silent recently is not because I’ve been lazy or busy (“I’m always busy”, as my former boss used to put it) but because I’ve been reading and thinking. Well, listening and thinking, actually. And I prefer to think in silence.
Anyway, I have made my way through “The Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, the number one book on Business Week’s reading list.
I must admit that I was pretty skeptical as I set out to read the book. As some of you know, I’m always skeptical about books since I’ve had to read too many for too little value and too much eye strain.
So, to spare my eyes, I got hold of the audio version of the book read by the author.“Here’s a guy who obviously likes the book he’s written” I thought as I heard the excited voice of Malcolm Gladwell in my earphones. So I listened on.
The book’s structure is very American in the sense that it is an interesting collection of stories each followed by the author’s conclusion. And each conclusion , in turn, is designed to support the main idea that seems pretty obvious once you’ve opened the book. It actually is very obvious but we tend to forget many obvious things in life (like, you need to keep your posture as you’re reading this).
So the idea that the author so fervently strives to put into the readers’ heads is that in order to understand why someone has achieved what they have achieved, you need to look at their environment and their past. Nothing new, eh?
The trick is in knowing what to look at and how to look at it. I am not going to spill any of the book’s secrets here (I’m a bad typist and not a fan of copy-paste exercises, anyway).
Instead, I do recommend that you read the book (or listen to it if you’re as fed up with written material as I am). But be critical as you read it.
The reason you should be critical is that the book’s structure has one fundamental weakness that is instantly visible (or audible) to all of you GMAT critical reasoning wizzes. In fact, each of the book’s stories is a perfect tool to practice your critical reasoning skills for the exam. As I said before, each story is designed to support one single point that the author wants to make. And clearly, when you are talking about things as complex as the life of a genius, one inference is clearly not enough. In fact, the author could have used one story from his collection (say, the life of Bill Gates, or the story of a 12-year old girl from Bronx studying 7.30 am to 11 pm to get out of poverty, or the research about the Canadian hockeye league) to illustrate all the points in his book and still have a few more left for the careful reader to ponder. Granted, that would have made the book slightly more boring but surely more accurate in the assessment of facts.
The book itself is divided into 2 parts: “The Opportunity” and “The Legacy”, the importance of which is very often underestimated by the American culture of “self-made men” which the author strives to dismantle.
Obviously, both notions are regarded with much greater respect in Russia (and you will feel this as you read the book). So the question is, why would you read it?
The book is probably pretty useless if you aim to be an outlier yourself (even if you are one, already) because by the time you are mature enough to read and understand it, most of your opportunities will have gone. There’s also no point in reading it to figure out what has prevented you from “making an (even better) outlier’ because if you’re smart enough, you will have figured that out by the time you open the book, and if you haven’t figured that out, the book will only spur another wave of undue hatred towards your family and your childhood.
The reasons why you should read it, however, are:
- This is probably the first book I’ve read that gives a sound and practical explanation of how parents can improve the odds of their kids success. Personally, I very much liked the idea of “concerted cultivation”, when parents put conscious effort in developing their kids as opposed to leaving the kids’ upbringing to the “natural growth” environment. Again, this concept sounds pretty common, but do read the examples that the book provides and you may be very surprised just how much small things like taking your (future) kid to the doctor matter when it comes to their social development. And don’t leave this book to your (wife's) “maternity leave” reading list as it will be too late to make the most of it.
- OK, assume you are not planning to have any kids, ever (which is a strange concept to me, but it’s up to you anyway). But you should still read “The Outliers” to understand those weird people around you some of whom are a little better at math, some better at finance, some have a better career, and one of them just happens to be your boss (if you’re lucky enough). I don’t need to tell you all the benefits of understanding them better, do I?
- But to me, the biggest (and most practical) benefit of this book was that it provided a perfect workout to my inquisitive and critical brain. This is not a book you should take for granted. This is a book every point of which you should question, analyze and reassess through your own frame of experience. And then, we can talk about it.
If you feel like talking about it.