Business Book Review: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

In a world where comparison is the norm, Outliers is a delightfully insightful look at the stories behind the extraordinary.

My Rating: ★★★★★

Length: 320 pages

Publisher: Penguin Press

Released: 2017

Key Takeaways for Personal Branding

Malcolm Gladwell made the phrase ‘The Tipping Point’ a part of our vocabulary through his acclaimed bestseller by the same name. His book, Outliers, is what made another concept you likely talk about popular (more on that next).

Many treat outliers as exceptions to the norm. Gladwell challenges you to find what makes them exceptional. To look for the story behind the extraordinary. Outliers delves into those outside the ordinary.

The 10,000-hour Rule

You’ve likely heard of the 10,000-hour rule. It’s become popular rhetoric for the magic number of greatness needed to master a skill. You’ve likely heard of it thanks to Gladwell. It’s based on academic research, but Outliers is the book that popularised it for mainstream consumption.

10 years is how long it likely takes to achieve 10,000 hours of practising your craft. The number is based on a study of violinists in the 1990s by K. Anders Ericsson at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music. By age 20, the elite performers had each achieved over four thousand hours of practice. The other groups, of lesser talent to the elite performers, had totalled less.

The 10,000-rule highlights the relationship between practice and mastery. What was striking about Ericsson's study was that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “natural” musicians who rose effortlessly to the top.  Even “prodigies” like Mozart, started writing at age six.

Studies of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players and more continue to reaffirm this magic number.

For the sake of simplicity, Gladwall tests the 10,000 rule with two examples from popular culture. The first is The Beatles. They were together for seven years before landing in the United States. Arguably their two greatest achievements, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles, were created 10 years after the band was founded.

Gladwell also takes a deep look into Bill Gates' success. His father was a wealthy lawyer. His mother was the daughter of a well-off banker. Gates attended Lakeside, a private school for elite families.

‘The Mother’s Club’ raised the money for a state-of-the-art computer unlike any most students had access to in the 1960s. While most students used a laborious computer-card system, Gates got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader.  Gates’ story reminds us that there is more to success than meets the eye. Successful people are often a product of their environment and an element of luck.

Mitigated Speech

Gladwell’s book takes a fascinating look at the history of aeroplane crashes. With thousands of flights a day, the rare plane crash presents an interesting case for outliers. Much of which came down to communication flaws. Specifically “mitigated speech”. Mitigated speech is a term linguists use to describe an attempt to downplay or sugarcoat what is being said.

You likely mitigate your speech personally and professionally every day in some way to be polite. But doing so in an in-flight emergency has tragic consequences. In many of the cases Gladwell explores, mitigated speech was a result of cultural differences between pilots and air control centres or hierarchal differences between pilots.

The devastating, yet fascinating discussion will have you assessing your sugar-coated speech in new ways.

Favourite Quotes

Successful people don’t do it alone. Where they come from matters. They’re products of particular places and environments.

Outliers are those who have been given opportunities - and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.

Gladwell’s Outliers is an illuminating curation of cases from rock stars to business tycoons and everything in between. In most, it explores the life story behind the professional story. Demonstrating how the two are inextricably intertwined. In a beautiful personal touch, Gladwell ends with how his own family legacy contributed to his success.

Outliers is for anyone who has ever marvelled at another’s success. You’ll start to ask yourself what the story behind the extraordinary is.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell:  Available on Amazon.