Outliers [electronic resource] : The Story of Success

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There is a story that is usually told about extremely successful people, a story that focuses on intelligence and ambition. Gladwell argues that the true story of success is very different, and that if we want to understand how some people thrive, we should spend more time looking around them-at such things as their family, their birthplace, or even their birth date. And in revealing that hidden logic, Gladwell presents a fascinating and provocative blueprint for making the most of human potential. In The Tipping Point he changed the way we think about thinking. In OUTLIERS he transforms the way

Verlag:

Little, Brown and Company,

Datum:

2008

Digitales Format:

CLOUDLIBRARY EPUB

Sprache:

Englisch

Zusammenfassung

Learn what sets high achievers apart -- from Bill Gates to the Beatles -- in this #1 bestseller from "a singular talent" ( New York Times Book Review ).

In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Rezensionen (6)

Publisher's Weekly-Rezension

Journalist Gladwell has established himself on the nonfiction bestseller lists by breaking down complex social science research into approachable concepts that can spark discussion around water coolers and cafe tables. Some of Gladwell's critics fault him for zeroing in on compelling anecdotes that may not consistently add up to empirical proof, but his flair for narrative serves him well as a reader. Gladwell builds dramatic tension into his storytelling-from the unique childhood of software tycoon Bill Gates to the secrets of success found along the rice fields of ancient China and Japan-making for an engaging listening experience even though the threads may not always tie together into a seamless package. The bonus author interview features some entertaining insights, including Canadian Gladwell's explanation for why so many comedy superstars hail from America's northern neighbor. A Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 22). (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Guardian Review

What do we get from Malcolm Gladwell, in return for all the adulation, multi-million-dollar advances and $80,000 speaker's fees? Listening to his detractors, you would think the answer is not very much, but that, of course, could be at least partly down to envy. There aren't that many journalists who have achieved millionaire status by doing nothing more than hopping from cafe to cafe with a book bag and laptop in tow. Gladwell's previous two books, Tipping Point and Blink , sold nearly five million copies. They eloquently argued that social phenomena are spread in the same way as disease, and that our instinct can be more valid than our circumspection. On the back of them he became a global business and trends guru and the notion of a "tipping point" entered the modern lexicon. His latest book, Outliers , which argues that success isn't primarily down to the individual, but to his or her context, has received mixed reviews. The New York Times called it "glib, poorly reasoned and thoroughly unconvincing". Germaine Greer said archly: "There is no answer to everything, and only a deluded male would spend his life trying to find it, brandishing the 'big idea' as a bookish version of male display". To be fair to Gladwell, he doesn't claim any great import; as he once put it in an interview, "I'm just trying to start a conversation . . . " But where does his conversation lead? By revealing the otherwise hidden patterns behind outstanding achievements Gladwell certainly adds something to our received wisdom about why people succeed. His critics, though, are on to something. The book, ultimately, disappoints. What Gladwell does undoubtedly do is present a series of interesting facts. He shows that how "good" you are at sports can depend hugely on which month you were born, as school leagues favour the bigger, ie older, children in each year. The success of corporate lawyers in New York is a tale of immigration, forefathers in the garment trade and anti-semitism. Even the uber success of Bill Gates and the Beatles is down more to chance and time of birth than raw talent, though, of course, Gladwell credits that, too, along with hard work and personality. In Gates's case, says Gladwell, he happened to be born at the dawn of the PC age, in a place where he had easy access to usually prohibitively expensive mainframe computers. And the Beatles were booked to play hundreds of incredibly long gigs in Hamburg. As John Lennon said later, "We got better and got more confidence, we couldn't help it with all the experience playing all night long". This idea, that the crucial factor in achieving the extraordinary is to be in circumstances that allow sustained development of innate talent "- a kind of accidental 'hot-housing'" provides the book with its best soundbite. Exceptional success, Gladwell suggests, comes with the 10,000-hour rule, which seems to be the common amount of practice required by all sorts of high achievers before they become real outliers. Much of Gladwell's work, of course, is not original. He draws on little-known studies and academic sources, and this provides ammunition for his critics. One Nobel prize winner has admonished him for not sufficiently crediting the scientific work he draws upon. But that is churlish, surely. Gladwell does more than regurgitate. He first identifies and then takes hitherto obscure ideas, fills them out into a compelling narrative and adds plenty of anecdote and drama, before finding for them a mass and appreciative audience. At the book's heart is the revelation that pure intelligence isn't enough. What great successes need is not the highest IQ but a high IQ, accompanied by other factors. What he's saying, in a message that should be seized on by anyone who regards themselves as progressive, is that it is society that provides the conditions for success, rather than the super-talented individual alone. He tells the sad tale of Charles Langan, identified as a genius at an early age, who, because of a poor background and the inadequate social skills that resulted from it, has ended up drifting and disappointed. Gladwell contrasts him with the equally bright nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who reached the pinnacle of achievement because his family taught him the social skills necessary to work his way through numerous obstacles. Like all Gladwell's stories, this is not conclusive, of course. Some poor kids develop amazing social skills, but each case is not meant to be definitive, just illustrative, and they do add up to a patchwork of evidence that convinces: we are not self-made. We are made, partly by ourselves, sure, but crucially, also by the times and society we live in. The problem with this book, though, is that the end point isn't particularly startling. Unless you are an avowedly right-wing individualist, you probably already buy this core message. As the book unfolds there is a hunger for something deeper and more profound that never turns up. Unlike Tipping Point and Blink , where Gladwell's weaving of facts and argument led to a seemingly new revelation, Outliers ends up being rather less than the sum of its parts. I guess that inadvertently tells us something else about success. Even outliers like Gladwell can sometimes manage only to be ordinary. Derek Draper is a psychotherapist and a Labour campaign adviser. To order Outliers for pounds 15.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop Caption: article-gladwell.1 His latest book, Outliers , which argues that success isn't primarily down to the individual, but to his or her context, has received mixed reviews. The New York Times called it "glib, poorly reasoned and thoroughly unconvincing". Germaine Greer said archly: "There is no answer to everything, and only a deluded male would spend his life trying to find it, brandishing the 'big idea' as a bookish version of male display". To be fair to [Malcolm Gladwell], he doesn't claim any great import; as he once put it in an interview, "I'm just trying to start a conversation . . . " In Gates's case, says Gladwell, he happened to be born at the dawn of the PC age, in a place where he had easy access to usually prohibitively expensive mainframe computers. And the Beatles were booked to play hundreds of incredibly long gigs in Hamburg. As John Lennon said later, "We got better and got more confidence, we couldn't help it with all the experience playing all night long". This idea, that the crucial factor in achieving the extraordinary is to be in circumstances that allow sustained development of innate talent "- a kind of accidental 'hot-housing'" provides the book with its best soundbite. Exceptional success, Gladwell suggests, comes with the 10,000-hour rule, which seems to be the common amount of practice required by all sorts of high achievers before they become real outliers. - Derek Draper.

Kirkus-Rezension

There is a logic behind why some people become successful, and it has more to do with legacy and opportunity than high IQ. In his latest book, New Yorker contributor Gladwell (Blink, 2005, etc.) casts his inquisitive eye on those who have risen meteorically to the top of their fields, analyzing developmental patterns and searching for a common thread. The author asserts that there is no such thing as a self-made man, that "the true origins of high achievement" lie instead in the circumstances and influences of one's upbringing, combined with excellent timing. The Beatles had Hamburg in 1960-62; Bill Gates had access to an ASR-33 Teletype in 1968. Both put in thousands of hoursGladwell posits that 10,000 is the magic numberon their craft at a young age, resulting in an above-average head start. The author makes sure to note that to begin with, these individuals possessed once-in-a-generation talent in their fields. He simply makes the point that both encountered the kind of "right place at the right time" opportunity that allowed them to capitalize on their talent, a delineation that often separates moderate from extraordinary success. This is also why Asians excel at mathematicstheir culture demands it. If other countries schooled their children as rigorously, the author argues, scores would even out. Gladwell also looks at "demographic luck," the effect of one's birth date. He demonstrates how being born in the decades of the 1830s or 1930s proved an enormous advantage for any future entrepreneur, as both saw economic booms and demographic troughs, meaning that class sizes were small, teachers were overqualified, universities were looking to enroll and companies were looking for employees. In short, possibility comes "from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with." This theme appears throughout the varied anecdotes, but is it groundbreaking information? At times it seems an exercise in repackaged carpe diem, especially from a mind as attuned as Gladwell's. Nonetheless, the author's lively storytelling and infectious enthusiasm make it an engaging, perhaps even inspiring, read. Sure to be a crowd-pleaser. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist-Rezension

Gladwell, author and journalist, sets out to provide an understanding of success using outliers, men and women with skills, talent, and drive who do things out of the ordinary. He contends that we must look beyond the merits of a successful individual to understand his culture, where he comes from, his friends and family, and the community values he inherits and shares. We learn that society's rules play a large role in who makes it and who does not. Success is a gift, and when opportunities are presented, some people have the strength and presence of mind to seize them, exhibiting qualities such as persistence and doggedness. Successful people are the products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy, and success ultimately is not exceptional or unattainable, nor does it depend upon innate ability. It is an attitude of willingness to try without regard for the sacrifice required. This is an excellent book for a wide range of library patrons.--Whaley, Mary Copyright 2008 Booklist

New York Review of Books-Rezension

IN 1984, a young man named Malcolm graduated from the University of Toronto and moved to the United States to try his hand at journalism. Thanks to his uncommonly clear writing style and keen eye for a story, he quickly landed a job at The Washington Post. After less than a decade at The Post, he moved up to the pinnacle of literary journalism, The New Yorker. There, he wrote articles full of big ideas about the hidden patterns of ordinary life, which then became grist for two No. 1 best-selling books. In the vast world of nonfiction writing, he is as close to a singular talent as exists today. Or at least that's one version of the story of Malcolm Gladwell. Here is another: In 1984, a young man named Malcolm graduated from the University of Toronto and moved to the United States to try his hand at journalism. No one could know it then, but he arrived with nearly the perfect background for his time. His mother was a psychotherapist and his father a mathematician. Their professions pointed young Malcolm toward the behavioral sciences, whose popularity would explode in the 1990s. His mother also just happened to be a writer on the side. So unlike most children of mathematicians and therapists, he came to learn, as he would later recall, "that there is beauty in saying something clearly and simply." As a journalist, he plumbed the behavioral research for optimistic lessons about the human condition, and he found an eager audience during the heady, proudly geeky '90s. His first book, "The Tipping Point," was published in March 2000, just days before the Nasdaq peaked. These two stories about Gladwell are both true, and yet they are also very different. The first personalizes his success. It is the classically American version of his career, in that it gives individual characteristics - talent, hard work, Horatio Algerlike pluck - the starring role. The second version doesn't necessarily deny these characteristics, but it does sublimate them. The protagonist is not a singularly talented person who took advantage of opportunities. He is instead a talented person who took advantage of singular opportunities. Gladwell's latest book, "Outliers," is a passionate argument for taking the second version of the story more seriously than we now do. "It is not the brightest who succeed," Gladwell writes. "Nor is success simply the sum of the decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them." He doesn't actually tell his own life story in the book. (But he lurks offstage, since he does describe the arc of his mother's Jamaican family.) Instead, he tells other success stories, often using the device of backto-back narratives. He starts with a tale of individual greatness, about the Beatles or the titans of Silicon Valley or the enormously successful generation of New York Jews born in the early 20th century. Then he adds details that undercut that tale. So Bill Gates is introduced as a young computer programmer from Seattle whose brilliance and ambition outshine the brilliance and ambition of the thousands of other young programmers. But then Gladwell takes us back to Seattle, and we discover that Gates's high school happened to have a computer club when almost no other high schools did. He then lucked into the opportunity to use the computers at the University of Washington, for hours on end. By the time he turned 20, he had spent well more than 10,000 hours as a programmer. At the end of this revisionist tale, Gladwell asks Gates himself how many other teenagers in the world had as much experience as he had by the early 1970s. "If there were 50 in the world, I'd be stunned," Gates says. "I had a better exposure to software development at a young age than I think anyone did in that period of time, and all because of an incredibly lucky series of events." Gates's talent and drive were surely unusual. But Gladwell suggests that his opportunities may have been even more so. Many people, I think, have an instinctual understanding of this idea (even if Gladwell, in the interest of setting his thesis against conventional wisdom, doesn't say so). That's why parents spend so much time worrying about what school their child attends. They don't really believe the child is so infused with greatness that he or she can overcome a bad school, or even an average one. And yet when they look back years later on their child's success - or their own - they tend toward explanations that focus on the individual. Devastatingly, if cheerfully, Gladwell exposes the flaws in these success stories we tell ourselves. The book's first chapter explores the anomaly of hockey players' birthdays. In many of the best leagues in the world, amateur or professional, roughly 40 percent of the players were born in January, February or March, while only 10 percent were born in October, November or December. It's a profoundly strange pattern, with a simple explanation. The cutoff birth date for many youth hockey leagues is Jan. 1. So the children born in the first three months of the year are just a little older, bigger and stronger than their peers. These older children are then funneled into all-star teams that offer the best, most intense training. By the time they become teenagers, their random initial advantage has turned into a real one. At the championship game of the top Canadian junior league, Gladwell interviews the father of one player born on Jan. 4. More than half of the players on his team - the Medicine Hat Tigers - were born in January, February or March. But when Gladwell asks the father to explain his son's success, the calendar has nothing to do with it. He instead mentions passion, talent and hard work - before adding, as an aside, that the boy was always big for his age. Just imagine, Gladwell writes, if Canada created another youth hockey league for children born in the second half of the year. It would one day find itself with twice as many great hockey players. "Outliers" has much in common with Gladwell's earlier work. It is a pleasure to read and leaves you mulling over its inventive theories for days afterward. It also, unfortunately, avoids grappling in a few instances with research that casts doubt on those theories. (Gladwell argues that relatively older children excel not only at hockey but also in the classroom. The research on this issue, however, is decidedly mixed.) This is a particular shame, because it would be a delight to watch someone of his intellect and clarity make sense of seemingly conflicting claims. For all these similarities, though, "Outliers" represents a new kind of book for Gladwell. "The Tipping Point" and "Blink," his second book, were a mixture of social psychology, marketing and even a bit of self-help. "Outliers" is far more political. It is almost a manifesto. "We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that 13-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur," he writes at the end. "But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one 13-year-old unlimited access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?" After a decade - and, really, a generation - in which this country has done fairly little to build up the institutions that can foster success, Gladwell is urging us to rethink. Once again, his timing may prove to be pretty good. David Leonhardt is an economics columnist for The Times.