One Story of Success

Another popular non-fiction book that I really wanted to read was Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It falls into the same kind of category as Freakonomics (although not about economics); a book about the social sciences (or sciences) written in a way that a regular reader can understand. For me, Outliers didn't work nearly as well as Freakonomics, but it was still interesting.

Outliers is a story about success; what are the factors that make someone successful? An "outlier" refers to a thing (person, data point, etc.) which exists away from a usual body of that same thing. Statistically, say, all the data points cluster around 5, while one data point is way out at 9. For a human example - Bill Gates vs. all the peons that work for Microsoft. I'm sure many of the people that work for Microsoft are bright and intelligent; but only one of them is Bill Gates.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I can safely assume that outliers can refer to people on the other end of the social scale too - those who are just incredibly unsuccessful. If average people are clustered somewhere around the middle, and there are highly successful outliers on the high end of the scale, would there not be highly unsuccessful outliers at the other end of the scale too? That might be an interesting book.)

At any rate, the book is about success (financial and professional success, mainly - but I'll come to that in a minute.). We learn about hockey players and the special month of January; IQ studies and family income; why 10,000 hours is the magic number; Jewish lawyers in New York; rice paddy farming in China; why Korean airlines used to be the one of the worst airlines for crashes; and why summer vacation in schools is obsolete. All of it is very interesting, but I have a few bones to pick with the author.

His point about success is that it's not just the hard work and effort you put into something or even your innate talent; success is also a product of your lifestyle and surroundings. For example, hockey players. Hockey players' birthdates seem to cluster around the beginning of the year; especially January. This is not because being born in January gives you some magical affinity to snow and ice - it all relates to the cutoff dates for hockey programs for children. The cutoff date is January 1st. Let's say we have two kids, born in the same year - one on January 2nd and one on Dec.31. The kids are nearly a calendar year apart in age, but are competing for the same spot on the team. The older kid (Jan.2nd) is going to appear to have better skills simply because of his age. So he gets put on the better team and receives more training than Dec.31st. So even if the two kids have roughly the same skill set, Jan.2nd is going to get better opportunities and better training than Dec.31st and so Jan.2nd will end up being better in the long run than Dec.31 due to the increased training.

This is actually borne out by the numbers and various studies - at all levels of hockey. So, if you want your kid to be a better hockey player, aim for a birthdate somewhere in the early months of the year (January-April). (And, of course, hope that your kid likes hockey!) But what about those kids born the rest of the year? Does that mean the kids born near the end of the year are more talented? Better skaters/puck handlers/playmakers? I can only come to the conclusion that they must be to be able to make it against the large roster of kids from the beginning of the year. Gladwell's solution is that leagues for kids be divided by age. His point is that we're missing a whole bunch of talented kids who are born in the later months of the year because they're physically younger than the early month kids they're competing against. My point is that if they were talented enough they'd get in anyway! And some of them must be talented enough - because there are kids who do come from the end of the year who are terrific hockey players. Maybe instead of finding more hockey players from the end of the year who are better, maybe we're just promoting more average hockey players from the beginning of the year and making them better through practice hours. Because obviously we're already getting the best of the end of the year if they can make it through at all.

I also have a few questions about the conclusions he draws from an IQ study done in, I believe, California. A number of children with genius-level IQs were identified, and followed throughout their school years and adult lives. The study showed that even though every child had a genius IQ, not every child ended up in a job/career that used that IQ. For example, kids from middle and upper income homes were more likely to have obtained advanced university degrees than kids from lower income homes. Gladwell concludes that, therefore, it's not just the high IQ, it's also the environment that you grow up in that's responsible for your success (nature AND nurture). And I don't entirely disagree with that....except that a small number of children from lower income homes also obtained advanced university degrees as well. Now, presumably, these kids don't have all the advantages that someone from a higher income home would have. Yet, they still managed to be successful and obtain an advanced university degree. I don't think we can conclude definitively that environment also has something to do with it. And aren't these kids the real outliers? Shouldn't the book be about them?

A lot of what Gladwell says in the book does make sense - in some cases, success is part of being in the right place at the right time. Luck is a big factor. For example, the Jewish lawyers in New York. Because of when they were born, they couldn't get a job at the rich white snobby firms in New York, and had to start their own firms. These little firms did all the corporate takeover work for companies - an area that would suddenly skyrocket and shoot these little firms to prominence over the snobby white firms that didn't do that kind of law. So, luck is an essential part of success.

Where I also quibble with is his definition of success. I don't think he ever explicitly defines success in the book, but it is implied that success is monetary and professional - make lots of money, have a good job, be good at math/computers, etc. Not everyone measures that as success. Not everyone is Bill Gates because not everyone had the opportunities with computers that Bill Gates had growing up AND because not everyone has the interest in computers that Bill Gates does. Interest is just as an important part of success as is hard work, luck, social background and ability. If you're not interested in computer programming, it doesn't matter how many hours you get to use a mainframe computer in the 1970's - you're not going to use it and you're not going to become Bill Gates. Not everyone can be Bill Gates - is that not the definition of an outlier?

There's a particularly sad chapter at the end of the book which talks about a special academic school open for children from lower income families; the poorest of the poor. These children go to school all day and part of the weekend. No summer break. One little girl doesn't finish her homework until 11pm that night and wakes up before 6am the next day to get to school. She's 12. There's no time for play, for fun, for daydreaming - all the hallmarks of the creative mind. The schedule involves English, Science, Social Science, Math (2 hours a day by Grade 5), half an hour of "thinking skills" a day, two hours of Music a week, Orchestra every day, and Sports teams after Orchestra. What about Art or Drama? What about learning other languages? What about gym? (And this comes from someone who passionately hated gym all throughout school.) Sure, the kids are great at math, but heaven forbid they need to come up with something creative! Success is not solely defined by being good at math. Sure, a lot of careers require excellent math abilities, but many instead require creativity. I'm not sure where creativity and relaxation and play fits in to this curriculum at all. There is more to life, and success, than math. Math ability is one measure of success, but it is not the only measure of success, and that is where the book falls apart, to an extent. By focusing on such a narrow view of success, the reader is able to poke holes in the author's arguments to some extent. Isn't success also a personal viewpoint? A person may not have the outward trappings of material success, but that person could still be feeling successful at their life - they have a good relationship with their husband, they have a nice garden, they have a happy and healthy baby, or any other thing that makes that person feel successful. When success is so linked to an individual's perception, I think it's difficult to lay down ground rules as to how people are successful, because success is individual.

So, while Outliers was an interesting book, I don't entirely agree with all of the points the author makes. However, if you like a good argument with your reading material, this book's for you! I'm also interested to check out other books by Gladwell and see what else he has to say.

And, finally, one more photo for those cat lovers out there. Enjoy!