Psychology

The widespread and usual notion about being exceptional, successful, extraordinary, or about being an outlier is that it comes from the inherent or innate nature of a person. That person is thought of by other people to be talented and gifted with great abilities to stand out in a crowd and fulfill the destiny of success. Significant factors of triumphs such as educational attainment, training, culture, family background, and the aptness of the moment to grab an opportunity, are often pushed aside in defining what makes a person an outlier.

On the other hand, one cannot discount the contribution of these factors to the way of success of any person. These factors are all significant in being successful. Being an outlier cannot be attributed alone to an individuals innate talent or characteristic. More so, the factors abovementioned are always present in a persons story of victory. These factors may be the incredible secret to every outlier. This is the very claim of Malcolm Gladwells Outliers, the Story of Success.  

Before we take on the success of evaluating Gladwells Outliers, it is of great assistance to initially know something about him. Aside from Outliers, the Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell is also the author of the two best selling non-fiction books namely The Tipping Point and Blink. The common about Outliers, The Tipping Point, and Blink is the discussion about singularities or about things we often consider as unusual and out of our league. Gladwell usually explains these singularities in the light of details that are ordinarily disregarded in giving the main reason for those events, things, and persons that are extraordinary. Gladwell is always interested in bizarre and remarkable things.

Malcolm Gladwell does not have any psychology or sociology degree as one expects from his exposition of success in Outliers. He has a degree in History. Before becoming a best-selling author, Malcolm Gladwell is a correspondent of The Washington Post and then a writer of The New Yorker.

Now that we have been familiar with Gladwell, it is of the proper time to be deeply familiar with Outliers, the Story of Success before making an evaluation.

The book is divided in to two parts. The first part of the book is entitled opportunity and the second part is called legacy. The first part of the book contains chapters one to five. These chapters expound on the often taken for granted factors such as appropriate timing and series of great opportunities that determine the success of a person. The second part of the book has chapter six to nine and epilogue. This part of the book discusses the traits, values, beliefs, and ideas that people have imbibed from their culture and family background in becoming successful.

The first chapter of the book as its rubric suggests, The Matthew Effect, is about the advantages of birth dates in qualifying for big time national leagues in hockey, baseball, and soccer. Malcolm Gladwell points out that birth dates are often neglected and attributed to have no effect on a success of a person. In this part of the book he presented data about the correlation of the birth dates of team superstars to their success in the sport they were in. In his account Gladwell presented that in Canadian hockey because the cutoff date for joining a team is January one, most of the famous and great hockey players in Canadian teams are born on the first months of the year. Most of them were born on January, February, and March.

The Matthew Effect says that those who have given an advantage to be born on the first months of the year will receive more advantages because of that first advantage. Since they have qualified to be on the team because they were lucky to be born on the first three or four months of the year, they were still luckier because of the series of training that the team will invest on them. Consequently, they will be the ones who will receive more contracts and will play more games. Since they have underwent a myriad of practices and trainings as compared to others they will be the future superstars. Their advantage started only with a single advantage, to be born on the first months of the year.

The second chapter of the book is about the ten thousand hour rule. In this part, Gladwell claims that as it is showed by history of great personalities, successful in their chosen path, it is an imperative to have at least ten thousand hours of practice of doing what they want to be in order to master that skill. He has enumerated the case of The Beatles, Bill Joy and Bill Gates in pointing out his contention.

As an example, he said that The Beatles has more than enough of the ten thousand hours of practice when they hit the top of the charts in the music industry. It is because when they are still in Hamburg, The Beatles has been invited by a local club owner to play in his restaurant for eight hours of seven days a week. Since they must play up to eight hours a day, they must innovate the way they perform in front of many people. They must learn all kinds of songs they must have their own rendition of every song so that they must appeal to the customers and patrons of the restaurants.

Another example that was given by Gladwell is the case of Bill Gates, the one responsible for the most of the operating systems of every personal computer in the world today and Bill Joy, another computer genius. Gladwell discussed that every successful person in every world whether musicians like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or computer geeks like Steve Jobs, the owner of the superior and posh Mac laptops and other electronic gadgets must have ten thousand hours of exposing themselves into the field that they love in order to be overly successful or to be an outlier.

The chapter three and four of the book asserts that IQ or the measurable intelligence of a person is not tantamount to the measurement of success. In this part, Gladwell contends that high and exceptional IQ does not necessarily translate into being an outlier or an overly successful person. Gladwell says that IQ has a threshold. Of course it is essential that one has a high IQ in order to be an outlier but when one compares a person with an IQ of 120 to a person with an IQ of 195, it does not necessarily follow that the person with the IQ of 195 will be more successful than that of the one with an IQ of 120. According to Gladwell, the threshold of an IQ as a factor for measuring success is 120.

To elaborate the argument about IQ, Gladwell cited the example of the comparison of the capacities of a person based on being creative and based on measurable intelligence. He says that there are people who has very high IQ but lacks imagination. In order to be successful Gladwell says that apart from being exceptionally intelligent one must also be creative in order to be successful and to significantly handle problems and trials in ones endeavors. Measurable intelligence is called analytical intelligence and creative capacities belong to practical intelligence.

Another point made by Gladwell about intelligence is that if one is extremely intelligent but has no great and solid family background, there is a great tendency that one cannot manage the adversities that one can encounter and fail like the most unwise person in the world.

To elaborate this assertion Gladwell mentioned the case of Christopher Langan, a man with an IQ of 195 and Oppenheimer, one of the men who are responsible for the creation of atomic bombs.

Christopher Langans father has left them when he was still young. They were financially underprivileged and his step father is always beating him and his mother when he is still young. Also Chris mother is not that familiar about scholarship acquiescence in universities. When the time came that Christopher has been bereft of the means to sustain schooling, his mother has failed to accomplish the requirement of the university Christopher was so Chris has eventually stopped schooling.
Different from Langan, Oppenheimer came from a very wealthy and well-known family. Since his early childhood, Langan is already exposed in the intricacies of dealing with people and asserting for ones rights and desires. His father is a businessman and Oppenheimer definitely handles negotiations in uptight situations magnificently.

So even though Oppenheimer and Langan experienced the same adversities and difficulties in life and even though Langans IQ is higher than Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer has become more successful than Langan later in life.

The fifth chapter of the book expounded on the notion of cultural background and demographic background as the determining factors of success. Gladwell mentioned the case of Joe Flom and Maurice Janklow. Joe Flom is a Jewish immigrant in the United States that became successful in the clothing industry because of a Jewish background. Jewish immigrants in that day are advantageous in the clothing industry because that is there staple living in the place where they have left.

Maurice Janklow is one of the owners of the greatest and biggest law firms in New York. He is a Jew. In his days, New York law firms do not involve themselves in litigation cases. They just perform services related to taxes. In terms of suing other companies and merging or buying out other companies, New York law firms at that time are hesitant. Janklow even though he is a very good law student did not land a job easily because he is physically not that appealing to be a lawyer compared to other aspiring lawyers.

However when he has decided to collaborate with other Jewish lawyers and instituted a law firm, it started to grow with an enormous propensity. It is because Janklow and his other associates accept those cases that other big time New York law firms do not accept. So after many years, Janklow has become the trend setter in New York law firms. It is for the reason that law services related to litigation matters are already the primary problems of law firms when Janklows firm is already rising up.

The sixth part of the book stressed the role of cultural background in determining success or the attitude and behavior of a person. Gladwell indicated the situation of the Appalachians which are the ancestors of the Southerners in the United States of America. He claims that Southerners have quick tempers and are easy to be annoyed once you triggered and placed them in uptight situations. He says that this behavior and attitude can be attributed to a long way to the culture of the Appalachians that are the ancestors of this Southerners because of the core of values that Appalachians uphold. As Gladwell stated, legacies that culture left are very powerful force in determining success. Legacy in the sixth part of the book is connected to the ancestral cultural legacies that are passed down to families after families.

In the seventh part of the book, cultural legacies or cultural background is also discussed but it is connected to the culture, valuation and tradition that every country upholds. This is demonstrated through the analysis of factors contributing to plane crashes.

Gladwell pointed out that the usual reason of plane crashes are neither unskillful pilots nor terrible weather but communication barriers among or between the chief pilot, the second pilot and the chief engineer of the plane and the International Airline Traffic Enforcer. It is because when those officers are placed in uptight situations such as maneuvering through a very terrible weather and landing down in the airport it is usually the miscommunication between those responsible officers that make the maneuvering of plane very difficult.

Gladwell asserted that communication problem is the very source of plane crashes of Korean Air. It is because in this country the subordinate gives a very great regard for his or her superior to the point of sugarcoating suggestions that must be made in urgent situations. Also, euphemisms are used by subordinates to assert something to their bosses. In Korea, Gladwell asserted that subordinates must pay respect to their bosses to the point that subordinates must treat their superiors for lunch and must buy those gifts. Subordinates must let their superiors to drink first in a luncheon or dinner meeting. Subordinates must greet their superior first before talking to them.

Because of the reasons abovementioned, Korean Air have been experiences a great number of plane crashes thus diminishing their effectiveness and decreasing the trust of their patrons and clients. Another situation is that of Colombia. Gladwell said that there are countries that are have strict regard for rules and regulations and for their superiors regardless of the circumstances. Also there are other countries that have a great regard for circumstances than strict regulations and rules.

The eighth chapter of the book discusses that the dexterity of Asians regarding mathematics is connected to the long period and culture of their industriousness and hard work. It is because counting has become embedded in their culture for a myriad number of centuries. Counting is greatly needed for agriculture in planting rice in rice paddies.

In the ninth chapter, academic performance is attributed to financial family background. Data showed that children with great financial family background are smarter than those children with poor family background. It is because rich families plan the future of their children and invest in training their children by enrolling them in enrichment programs to develop their talents.

The epilogue part of the book discusses the historical background of Malcolm Gladwell from his grandmother to his mother. Summing up all those factors mentioned above. Gladwell emphasized that being an outlier is not about ones inherent talent or ones attitude but it is about the circumstances, opportunities and appropriate timing of events that can put an individual into the route of success.

The general statement of the book or the primary argument of the book is that being successful is not about ones talent, IQ, or putting it more direct to the point, being successful is not about the person or the individual. Being successful is about the circumstances that give opportunities to persons in order to be successful. It is about the historical events that transpire into ones life that determine if that person will fail or will succeed.

The greatest advantage of the arguments of Gladwell is that he gives importance to the factors that are often pushed aside by other people in determining ones triumph and victory in life. However it is also his greatest disadvantage. It is because by doing such, he has downplayed the greatest factor of success  the individual.

It is always the individual that always determines ones success. It is because it is always up to the individual on how he or she will manage his or her self in uptight situations. Even there are great circumstances and opportunities in life that will be presented to an individual, if the individual is weak and always pessimistic he or she will never be successful. However, even if there are no opportunities and all circumstances in an individuals life are not that positive, the individual can make out of his way to find opportunities and turn out bad circumstances into good one to be successful.

The very problem of Gladwell is that his definition of being an individual is that he separates and detaches the definition of an individual from his family background, cultural legacy, circumstances, and opportunities. But the very question is what makes the opportunities and circumstances It is the individual. If Gladwell assimilates the definition of being an individual with the individuals educational attainment, culture, family background, values, and circumstances. He will see that in the very definition of an individual, there is no point to claim that the influences, opportunities, and legacies are the primary factors in determining success.

In the case of Canadian Hockey players, those who are born from Jan to April are not outliers if we will really look at the definition of being an outlier, that is the norm in that, and the only people who might be considered an outlier in that situation or that context are those who arent born of those months and are still more successful than those players who are born on Jan to April.

10,000 hour rule is most likely true but it is not the only key to success. If it is a very great or enormous factor, then all people can be extraordinary just by practicing up to 10,000 hours. And how about those people that have just reached 9,000 hours of practice, can they not be successful
Bill Gates has been lead to those opportunities not because of the timing and circumstances but because he already like computer programming and because he chose to find those opportunities.

Being a history major, Gladwell has treated the explanation of outliers through their history and the history of the country and the period in which an individual belong overlooking the power of the individual to have the last human freedom  the freedom to perceive.