Outliers - The Story of Success By Malcolm Gladwell

I just finished reading "Outliers" by Malcom Gladwell.



This is by far better than his hippie, new age voodoo book called "Blink".

The long and short of the book:" hardwork + initiative+ ambition +(opportunity/family background) = Success."

The whole premise of the book is that the story of the bootstrapping lone ranger that single handedly overcomes life's obstacles and rises to the pinnacle of life, is well, a myth.

As I read his book I had the uncanny sensation that I was reading my own life story especially when he recounts the stories of two individuals Chris Langan and Oppenheimer.

Both these men were geniuses.

You probably heard of Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.


You may have never heard about Chris Langan and that is the whole point.


Chris Langan was born a genius. He had taught himself how to read by the age of three. He breezed through school never having to take notes or prepare for exams like us mere mortals.


He liked academia.


Where do you think he ended up.


In a bar working as a bouncer!


The difference between the two was that Chris Langan lacked practical intelligence.


Social psychologists define practical intelligence as the ability to say the right thing at the right time to the right person.

I define social intelligence as "Street Smarts".

One telling example of the lack of social intelligence in Chris Langan was an anecdote where he argues with his Calculus professor and is rebuffed by the professor who says that Chris Langan lacks the intelligence to appreciate mathematics.

In the entire conversation Chris never managed to convey to the professor how good he was at Calculus and how much he loved to engage in its discussions!

In an equally telling example there is a stroy about how Oppenheimer manages to get away with just a probation after he was caught attempting to poison his tutor in college.

But how does this story relate to the argument that the book weaves. Here is how. Oppenheimer's father was a wealthy businessman. From a young age he was exposed to the wheeling dealing and learnt much about human psychology.

Chris Langan's father was a drunkard who used to beat his kids. Chris and his siblings grew up deeply distrustful of authority.

It was Chris's upbringing that turned out to be his undoing.

Malcolm cites cutting edge research to stress the importance of practical intellience.

I cite my life lessons.

Sadly my story is more similar to Chris's than Oppenheimer's.


Be warned, a high IQ is not enough.

In fact Malcolm cites research that proves that beyond a certain level, I believe 120, IQ does not really matter.

Another environmental factor is the culture of the society we live in. Malcolm goes on to give the best explanation of how culture affects us that I had ever read anywhere in a fascinating chapter titled "The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes".

There is an account here of how often Korean Air was crashing its planes. If not for the tragic results this account is comical.The main culprit for the crashes was culture.

Korea is what is called a high PDI (Power Distance Index) culture. Because co pilots and flight engineers were so deferential to the captain, the highest authority on the plane, there was poor communication and co ordination in the cockpit.

Once this was mitigated Korean Air crashes reduced dramatically.

I am a project manager so team work and communication is very important. I can't help but think of the outcome if we were to apply a similar mitigation strategy to corporate life. How much better would the project success rate be.

Finally this is the book that explains why some Asian cultures have a very strong work ethic. You can blame it on rice paddy cultivation. This kind of farming requires intensive manual labor and sophisticated planning and co ordination. Japanese farmers and Chinese farmers in the Pearl river delta therefore developed a culture of rising early every day and putting in long and intense hours required to successfully farm the rice paddies. This culture created the work ethic that has put some Asians and Asian countries on the ascend.

Hmm! Rice is the staple crop in South India as well but the author , as is the case with many westerners, is predominantly focussed on China.

Not in career development books but in this one did I find a great formula on what makes for a satisfying career, a satisfying business and a satisfying everything .

The formula ->"Complexity, Autonomy and a Relationship between reward and effort"

Read this book to get a 50,000 ft perspective on the major revolutions in human history and how some people were well placed to benefit from it. This will sensitize us to any revolutions we are already living through.



Read this book to understand that the relationship between an individual and success in life is far more than about just the individual. It is about riding the wave of opportunistic family upbringing and being placed at the right location at the right time.


Read this book if you want to get depressed about its underlying theme of fatalism. In one chapter Malcolm claims to predict one's success based on one's birth year and family background. How depressing can that be.



Hard work, ambition and initiative are necessary but apparently not sufficient.


Malcolm does however say that hard work pays especially working really hard. The chapters that deal with the 10,000 hour rule and the rice paddy cultivation allude to this.


In the end Malcolm leaves us hanging on whether hard work by itself is enough or not. He does not really clarify that.



Key Phrases That I Like In The Book



The Matthew Effect - "For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath"



Chinese Proverb - "No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich". (What a fantastic work ethic!)