Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: Stories Of Success

Griffin Michel
Ms. Donohoo
English 12 - G
14 January 2016
Nonfiction Book Review - Outliers
Introduction
The classic American success story: a person is born to nothing, has an idea, and, by sheer power of their own will and determination, makes it big--or so it would seem. These are the stories, the stories of billionaires, professional athletes, lawyers, and scientists, that Malcolm Gladwell examines in his 2008 book, Outliers: Stories of Success. He delves deep into the stories of successful people, finding that they are rarely self-made. He counters the well-loved “rags to riches” stories that success is a product of great opportunities, cultural legacy, and a bit of luck.
Summary
In the first section of Outliers, “Opportunity,” Gladwell
examines the circumstances that allowed for successful people, whom he calls “outliers,” to achieve their fortune. He first examines demographic opportunities, things that boil down to luck, like where and when a successful person was born, and to whom. He examines a group of professional Canadian hockey players, showing a certain peculiarity-- nearly all of them were born in January, February, or March. While on its face, there would seem to be no explanation for this, Gladwell finds that it is because of January 1st cutoff date for youth hockey in Canada, meaning that kids born in January, February, or March are more likely to be larger than their peers on their teams, are stronger, and are therefore more likely to be bumped up to “better” teams. He finds that this extends to any sport with a standard cutoff date, and even to education, where relatively older students perform better than their peers. Demographic luck, is far more than months and days however--even the generation you are born in can impact your success. For lawyers, 1945 was the best year to be born, for the moguls of the gilded age, it was 1835. These opportunities are purely luck-of-the-draw; you have them or you don’t, whereas with “living opportunities” (as I’ll call them, for sake of ease), are oft a result of yourself or your upbringing. These include parenting, wealth, and other random opportunities--especially those that would help you reach 10,000 hours of experience, mastery. Gladwell provides many examples into every one of his stories of success, giving credibility to his argument. Another influence on success, he says, is legacy, in the second part of Outliers, cleverly named “Legacy.” While success is largely impacted by opportunities, our culture and family background is a huge influence.
“We can not separate ourselves from where we are from,” and that may be either aiding or detrimental to our success (221)-- it is both why Asians are “good at math,” because of their long history of intense rice agriculture, leading to a culture of hard work; and why Korean airlines crashed so many planes, because Korean culture itself does not encourage speaking up, even in danger; and it is why Americans perform poorly on exams. Society, he says, must reorient itself to support and foster success (given these two impactors: opportunity and
legacy).
Response
Outliers is split into two parts, covering Opportunity and Legacy, further divided into chapters, each with an argument and a story to support that argument.
Gladwell arranges the chapters and their respective stories to flesh out a new point, while also adding to the arguments of the previous chapters. The sequential adding of each chapter culminates with a final story, pulling together all of the points made in the part. This structure makes sense in a book like Outliers, with a central argument that calls for evidence. While Gladwell could have certainly used each chapter for only one point, the culmination of points solidifies each point and his argument as a whole for that part. This structure, along with Gladwell’s casual language and comprehensible data analysis, renders Outliers an easy to follow, enjoyable
read. His elaborating chapter system made for strong points; however the strongest point, the point where I was absolutely convinced, was in the chapter “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes,” wherein Gladwell attempts to place causation between cultural background and plane crashes. He compares cultures using dimensions developed by Dutch Psychologist Geert Hofstede, specifically PDI, or power distance index, rankings. PDI measures the rigidity of hierarchy; cultures with a high PDI have rigid rules regarding hierarchy, where those that have low PDI are looser on hierarchies. Gladwell uses two stories of plane crashes, one with Colombian pilots and one with Korean. Both of these countries have high PDI ratings, and both have had poor histories regarding plane crashes. He further drives this home with a list of PDI ratings by country, saying that “if you compare this list to the ranking of plane crahses by country, they match up very closely” (209). This, in-and-of-itself, was not enough to convince me; sure there was a correlation, but was there causation? I was fully convinced following the explanation that once American consultants from Boeing came to Korean Air (the airline involved in many crashes in the 1980s and 1990s), and implemented American (high-PDI) policies, the number of crashes significantly decreased (to a normal level).
The weakest point in his argument, however, was not related to his argument whatsoever. Gladwell champions ‘meaningful work’ in the final chapter of part one, “Lessons from Joe Flom.” In reading, this part seemed a bit unnecessary. It seemed a bit contrary to his argument as a whole, that success isn’t mostly an outcome of your work, but an outcome of opportunities and background. Gladwell even ended Outliers with the words “meaningful work” (269). In my mind, the point of meaningful work does not add to his argument, and may instead detract from its strength.
Conclusion
Overall, though, the message from Outliers is very strong: success does not come alone. This overall theme can be applied to all stories of success, whether that’s the story of Steve Jobs or the story of Donald Trump. This book encourages readers to think critically, not just about success, but in many aspects of life, recognizing that there is more to it than the surface would suggest. I would recommend this book highly, therefore, to anyone looking to think critically or to learn more about what success truly means.