One of the ‘talked-about’ books of last year was Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Here’s my take on it.

Gladwell is well-known for popularizing the research of others – you could say he is a marketer of facts that would otherwise stay hidden in scientific or psychological papers.  The focus of Outliers is that small group of people who ‘lie outside’ the norm – the norm being where the majority of the population lies.  So, an outlier is someone who is different – markedly different – from the rest; and the more different they are, the more of an outlier they are.

• A world champion = outlier
• A billionaire = outlier

You get the picture.

The book starts well, and makes some interesting observations about the ‘luck’ that sets outliers up to become outliers.  Gladwell suggests that most people think that ‘outliers’ become ‘outliers’ because they are inherently more talented than the rest of the group, whereas it would seem that other factors are at play beside pure talent.  When I read this, I thought, “no kidding, of course there are more factors at play – we live in a multi-causal world with multiple variables affecting every situation, and to try and pin-point one thing as the reason for a person’s success is too simplistic”.

This is captured by the concept of ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’, with nature being all of the characteristics of an individual and nurture being the opportunities provided (or not provided) to that individual throughout his or her life.  The simple fact is that some opportunities we are presented with are random events – the ‘luck’ factor.  But Gladwell describes something more than luck – he also describes the ’self-fulfilling prophecy’ factor.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

If a parent thinks that their child is especially talented at a particular activity (an outlier) they may choose to provide their child with additional training in that activity.  They may also focus additional time at home on the activity, talk more about that activity over meals, read more about that activity and so on.  As a result, the child is exposed to more information, knowledge, training and practice and therefore becomes highly skilled – not necessarily because they were inherently more talented than others, but because of all the extra training and attention they gave to the activity – which becomes the self fulfilling prophecy.

Of course, if the child isn’t interested or is lacking in physical aptitude for the activity, they’re unlikely to become an outlier – but – if they are interested and they do have the physical attributes, then armed with all the extra training and attention, they’re more likely to become an outlier.

So, it’s not just their raw talent (nature) but it’s also their environment (nurture) – but this old news.

10,000 Hours of Practice

Lot’s of research has gone into focusing on how to become successful – and when you think about it, you can only optimize what you’re born with in your environment.  You can train your body to become stronger or faster.  You can train your brain to think in a certain way.

Gladwell cites the research of a psychologist who has found that about 10,000 hours of critically reflective practice is what it takes to become a world expert – or in Gladwell’s words, an outlier.  It has been found that it is not ‘natural talent’ at the beginning of someone’s career that predicts their final level of expertise, but the amount of practice and the type of practice.

All of this can be summed up in the idea that practice makes perfect, which is an age-old saying that I remember my grandmother telling me.

So, it would seem that success is made of a bit of pure luck, a pinch of ’self-fulfilling prophecy’ and a heap of critically reflective practice – which to me is summed up in another saying, “it’s not just the hand of cards you’re dealt, but how you play the game”.

Cultural Conditioning

The last major focus of the book is on cultural conditioning – where your cultural environment has an impact on your success.  Perhaps your upbringing and social environment places limitations on you that are false, but that nevertheless prevent you from attaining an outliers level of success.  Or, alternatively, perhaps your upbringing and cultural environment creates an opportunity for extreme success – and this would be summed up in the concept of success breeds success.  Examples of cultural conditioning might be the Australian stereotype of the “typical Aussie battler”, or the expectation that “Asians are good at mathematics”.

Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at MIT, discusses this in detail in his book Predictably Irrational.

Summary

When I think about all this, it obviously leads me to consider my own life and that of my children – and I take away three major ‘action points’ for you to consider:

1. You and I need to create the opportunity for ‘opportunity’ to arise
2. You and I need to put in the hours and practice the very thing we want to develop expertise in – and our practice should be critically reflective and we should actively seek constructive criticism rather than shy away from it
3. You and I need to think carefully about the assumptions we make about our capabilities – are there any false limitations placed upon us by our cultural upbringing and that we are allowing ourselves to be subjected to?  If so, this would be a real shame.

Despite re-articulating what I would think is common sense, Outliers is a great book to read because it challenges us to think about these things.  I understand enough about human behavior to know that it can be:

1. difficult to break free from cultural conditioning
2. difficult to receive criticism, to develop disciplined practice habits and work hard
3. difficult to create opportunities

and anything that inspires us to do these three things is worth reading.  Order your copy from Amazon.

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