Outliers
There are writers who manage to do what a plateful of curd rice wouldn’t do on a Sunday afternoon. On the other hand, there are writers who can make a ‘paati vadai’ story look like science fiction and make it stick in your head with fancy lingo. Malcolm Gladwell belongs to the latter category. I, like all his fans, approached his latest book with the same expectations.
Outliers is a very high level study of success. Here Gladwell conveniently assumes that most of the successful folks are talented and work hard and focuses more on the other factors that matter in their success – the opportunities and the legacies they inherit. Just to be doubly clear, this is nothing new. This is something we know all along. But then we also know paati vadai story for ages as well.
What makes this book interesting is the way Gladwell argues for his case. He propounds among other things, an ideal birth date for software genius, a relation between the math ability and the rice eating cultures, the reasons for the high number of air crashes involving Korean Air till 1999 and the way the Korean culture shapes respect for authority, the way some states in US place enormous premium on ‘family honour’ - here I find a remarkable coincidence with the southern districts of Tamil Nadu. Of equal significance is the 10000 hour rule that individuals invariably put in their disciplines before they strike gold – applicable from Bill Gates to the Beatles. It is highly doubtful if all these theories/stories will bear the rigor of academic scrutiny. But heck, it makes for a very interesting read which is seldom the case with proper research study. I liked the way he elucidates how an intangible bias here, a slight advantage there can make a huge difference in a highly competitive environment in the long run.
The only dampening factor is that this book makes Gladwell a little more predictable. There is less of a novelty factor in this book. I am sure Gladwell is skilled enough to spin an engrossing yarn on how ‘Intelligence and hard work’ has played a great role in shaping the lives of individuals for centuries – as if we do not know. Just because one can make a ‘paati vadai’ story look like science fiction does not mean that one should keep doing it time and again. As a Gladwell fan, I hope he comes up with more new insights in his forthcoming books. Or maybe, he can collaborate with people who can feed him some good stuff and he can just do what he does best – writing.
Outliers – worth a read.
January 26th, 2009 at 9:43 am
“It is highly doubtful if all these theories/stories will bear the rigor of academic scrutiny. ”
Academic scrutiny by the likes of Mangalam Srinivasan and Krishna Palepu ?
Seriously though, we give too much importance to so called scientific methods/academic rigour. The kind of topics that Gladwell deals with do not lend themselves to a controlled physics experiment type analysis. Most of the time, he seems to be dealing with human behaviour, which clearly is not the subject of Physics. Neverthless it’s not all hot air - for instance the 10,000 hours rule is well known in cognitive studies. Anecdotal evidence, folk lore, etc are valuable parts of our culture that need to be taken with a pinch of salt. As for academic rigour, getting published in journals doesn’t prove anything necessarily - the referee for your paper might want to attend some conference in your country and might become a little lenient. There is a tremendous backscratching culture in the scientific research community as well. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that even in leading journals, 80% of the stuff doesn’t advance our understanding much. It’s done due to the ‘publish or perish’ culture prevalent in the research community.
I have completed about 30% of the book, not sure why are saying it’s science fiction.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
BNB,
I’ve used science fiction mainly in the context of his ability to make mundane stuff very new, interesting and stimulating.
I agree with your stance on back scratching in academic circles…but i felt gladwell has stretched himself on a few things i.e students who gain an advantage by virtue of physical maturity in a class. I am somehow not so convinced by that argument. He starts with an advantage in sports and goes about mentioning this may well stretch to other areas as well.
Again, reality I suppose is a bit more complicated than that.
My favorite chapter was the one on plane crashes. Its scary to know that one plane had gone down because of fuel shortage and the first officer could not communicate this to the ATC crew.
January 27th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Boss, thanks for the response.
Wanted to ask you a couple of off-topic questions. (a) What’s the best place to buy a digital SLR in chennai ? (b) what’s the cheapest SLR you can get in India ?
January 27th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
oops, terribly sorry. Seems such an arbit thing to ask in retrospect. Please ignore my previous comment.
January 27th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
bnb
I’d mailed you my response to that question..