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Resources » Articles/Knowledge Sharing » E-Books »
Book Review : The secret to success
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The secret to success
Malcolm Gladwell presents some interesting ideas as to what it takes to be a success in his thought-provoking book, Outliers: The Story of Success
Outliers: The Story of Success is difficult to put down. Its smooth-flowing sentences and rapidly presented ideas draw the reader in and make the pages fly by. Author Malcolm Gladwell begins by quickly presenting a host of preconception-exploding ideas, each of which are supported by examples to build a convincing case for the author’s assertion. That assertion is that, in the nature / nurture debate, nurture is much more important than we give it credit. And this holds true even when it comes to truly outstanding examples of professional success (what the book calls outliers).
There are multitudes of intelligent, driven programmers out there – what determines who turns into Bill Gates and who doesn’t? It’s the same with performers – of all the garage bands in all the garages the world over, what makes one the Beatles? And how does the smartest man in America, with an IQ 45 points higher than Einstein’s, end up spending most of his adult life as a bouncer?
The book makes the case that any instance of success is the combination of a person’s ability and a surprising number of chances that, had they been different or absent, would have altered or even precluded that success. Bill Gates was one of the only teenagers in the world in the late 60s and early 70s who had the opportunity to spend thousands of hours programming. When the personal computing boom hit in the mid-70s, he was in a unique position to take advantage of that opportunity.
The Beatles were one of the Liverpool bands that went to Hamburg to play for a club owner. There, they played in marathon sessions that lasted from five to eight hours a night, every night for months. It was said they were no good onstage when they first went, but transformed when they returned.
Chris Langan, America’s smartest man, speaks without pauses — without “ums” or “uhs”. But his repeated inability to talk anyone into cutting him a break resulted in him never completing his sophomore year of college. The story behind it, Gladwell reveals, is Langan’s alternately abusive and absentee father. The severe disadvantages of Langan’s upbringing rival the extraordinary advantage of his intellect — he has an IQ of 195. Gladwell posits that the defensiveness his childhood instilled in Langan is the same quality that made him unable to effectively ask for help at college. Because he couldn’t, his frustration caused him to drop out and work various unskilled jobs.
Through these and other examples, the book shows that our individual fates are much more intertwined with our histories than we might think. It claims that these histories can be legacies hundreds of years old and even dependent on what language we speak or how abundant farmland we have in our great-grandparents' hometowns. There exist cultural tendencies toward math ability. And airplane crashes.
The extremes to which the main premise is taken may have been more thoroughly convincing if a few more counterarguments had been dealt with. However, the Notes section of the book shows Gladwell has done a good bit of research on the topic and used studies from a variety of disciplines and topics to form his argument.
The ideas in the book initially seem limiting but in the end are liberating. It's a bit disturbing to think that individuals, families, and even whole societies paths are so strongly dictated by their circumstances. But, culture and circumstances, as opposed to genetics, can be changed. And if we realise their power, we can be assured they are changed in thoughtful ways that benefits us.
Book: Outliers: The Story of Success
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Penguin Books
Number of pages: 309
Price: Rs276
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