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Outliers: The Story of Success | 
 enlarge | Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $27.99
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Rating:  207 reviews
Sales Rank: 7
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0316017922
Dewey Decimal Number: 302
EAN: 9780316017923
ASIN: 0316017922
Publication Date: November 18, 2008
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."
Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm
Product Description
In this stunning new 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 202 more reviews...
 An interesting look at what gets success November 18, 2008
Preston Barrett
235 out of 282 found this review helpful
In this wide-ranging third installment of Malcolm Gladwell's exploration of how people and social phenomena work, the New Yorker journalist takes a close look at what constitutes high levels of success. That is, what makes people at the top of their respective fields get there? As we've come to expect from Gladwell's previous books, the answer to the question is a bit complicated.
He says that upbringing, culture and even random luck have something to with success, but there is another important quality that anyone can control. Two chapters are dedicated to the "revelation" that IQ is only a baseline quality and success has little to nothing to do with having a high IQ or a low IQ. Rather, success is substantially a product of cultivating a high degree of what Robert Sternberg calls "practical intelligence" or what most refer to as "emotional intelligence."
Gladwell uses the example of Nobel laureates coming from unknown schools as often as ivy league schools. At this level of mastery IQ is no longer a factor. Success has little to do with where you were educated and everything to do with your level of practical/emotional intelligence and willingness to put in the 10,000 hours of practice required to reach mastery of your field.
All in all, it's an interesting read that isn't too heady and goes by pretty quickly, as the interesting anecdotes are what you would expect from Gladwell.
Another book on the topic that I strongly recommend because it has been really helpful to me in actually applying what Gladwell teaches in my own life (for my own success!) is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book.
Success- Discover the Pathway Towards Your Own Possibilities! January 2, 2009
Michael Chopoorian (Brooklyn, New York)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers- the Story of Success" is an engaging, informative look at how and why some people achieve successful vibrant lives, and why others fall short of embracing their own brilliance. His theories and insights are illuminating and inspired me to reflect upon the ways in which I define "success". Gladwell examines patterns for how and why people achieve their goals and manage to create a life filled with extraordinary success, both financially and personally. His stories help to demystify the celebrated lifestyle, as he looks for common denominators within each personal journey. We often look at successful people and stratify ourselves, thereby diminishing our own possibilities. In order to find a common through line that best characterizes optimum success, he examines professionals from all areas of life- celebrities, doctors, lawyers, musicians, and athletes. He examines the internal through line in each of these stories of empowerment and achievement and tries to find a commonality by dispelling notions and contrived theories.
When the topic of "going for a successful, magical life" comes up I automatically think of my favorite authors and life coach leaders, Ariel and Shya Kane. The Kanes have written a fascinating book called "How to Create a Magical Relationship: The 3 Simple Ideas that Will Instantaneously Transform Your Love Life", that inspires me to ignite my passion for a successful life whether I'm focusing on work or on my personal relationships. One of my favorite sections in the Kanes book discusses the concept of compassion. When a boss or friend finds fault with my actions, I can either wish that I did it differently, defend myself to be "right"- or have compassion for myself and move on. The Kanes liken compassion to a state of grace, and they suggest that forgiveness- especially for oneself, allows you to move on to the current moment of now. When you're stuck in the "right" "got to defend myself" zone of life, how can you ever move on to claiming a successful and magical existence? Ariel and Shya Kane have written two other amazing books, and well as audio CD's, and they frequently conduct workshops in New York City. They have made a difference in how I interact within my life and how I view my own ideology of what is means to be "successful". Check them out at transformationmadeeasy.com and discover your own insights into achieving success and well being within your own life.
Magnificent and Very Important December 30, 2008
Irfan A. Alvi (Towson, MD USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
In my opinion, Gladwell has done a magnificent job with this book, and the ideas presented are enormously important for anyone interested in success in just about any field of endeavor.
His basic thesis is as follows:
1. Inborn ability matters relatively little in many fields. In some fields like science it matters more, but only in the sense that one needs a minimum threshold of ability (eg, IQ of at least 120); above that threshold, extra ability doesn't matter much. [In predominantly creative fields like the compositional arts (as opposed to "mere" artistic performance like playing music composed by someone else), I suspect that inborn creative ability matters a lot, but standard measures like IQ may not reflect that ability.]
2. In pretty much all fields, focused hard work is necessary to develop expertise, and generally about 10,000 hours need to be invested to reach the expert level. But being an expert isn't the same as achieving the standout success of an "outlier" (eg, Bill Gates, Will Smith, or Barack Obama).
3. Luck plays a large role in success. Bad luck can dramatically inhibit success, and good luck fosters success. Exceptionally good luck (eg, a long series of lucky circumstances) is needed to achieve success at the outlier level. Luck clearly interacts with the first two factors noted above -- inborn ability involves rolling the genetic dice, and having the opportunity to put in one's 10,000 hours also involves luck (eg, poor kids aren't likely to have access to computer centers, violin lessons, and professional coaches). Being immersed in a culture which fosters success in a particular field is also a matter of luck, along with being born at the "right" time within that culture. But of course "luck" doesn't have to be entirely random, since it can be influenced by deliberately changing one's circumstances, exposures, networks, etc. ("Chance favors the prepared mind" - Pasteur); for example, if you live in Idaho and want to get into the music business, consider relocating to a more "happening" locale.
The particular strength of Gladwell's book is that he's a great writer with outlier-level ability for storytelling. Some reviewers have criticized his book for lack of originality, but Gladwell deserves credit and success for bringing these important ideas to a large general audience in a gripping and compelling way. And he certainly doesn't claim that he came up with these ideas all by himself.
Some reviewers have also criticized Gladwell for not adequately grounding his ideas in published research and for thereby cherry-picking data and arguing with straw men. That's a somewhat odd criticism, since it contradicts the criticism of lack of originality. Moreover, there are several good books available which describe the research critics might be looking for, such as the following:
- Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin is an excellent book which overlaps considerably with Gladwell's book. The main difference is that Colvin puts greater emphasis on hard work ("deliberate practice") whereas Gladwell emphasizes luck more, so one could say that Colvin is more focused on expertise whereas Gladwell is more focused on going beyond expertise to the outlier level.
- Creativity in Science: Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeist by Dean Keith Simonton is another excellent book which focuses specifically on creativity (and success) within science. The book reads like a PhD thesis and is quite rigorous in its use of careful reasoning, empirical data, and quantitative analysis. In a sophisticated way, Simonton provides strong support for Gladwell's ideas, and he ultimately argues that chance (luck) is the dominant factor in scientific creativity and success, while also recognizing the supporting roles of genius (inborn ability), zeitgeist (culture), and logic (basic knowledge of one's scientific domain and its rules of inference, which comes from hard work, perhaps again involving roughly 10,000 hours invested in education and training). Simonton also emphasizes that a scientist's chance of coming up with important results is directly related to total output (eg, number of papers published), so that ties chance to continued hard work after already becoming an expert (eg, obtaining a PhD).
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a fascinating and provocative book which, coming from a different angle, also argues for the role of unforseeable luck (positive "black swans") in producing outlier-level success, with negative black swans having the opposite effect.
In summary, I believe Gladwell has a done a great service in presenting very important ideas related to success in a user-friendly way, and I think the evidence (in his book and beyond) provides strong support for his ideas.
Very highly recommended -- indeed, a must read, especially for parents.
Outliers, the concept December 19, 2008
Donald E. Dupuis
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I think this book is just great. The basic premise is interesting, it is well argued, and well written. Is it an exhaustive treatment of the subject - no. It is a highly entertaining and provocative introduction.
If you think the universe is fair, or ought to be, you are not going to like this book. If you are interested in why some succeed whereas others - just as smart, just as hardworking and maybe more so, do not do so well - then this is a book for you.
I particularly loved his bits about the transported Italian town in Pennsylvania, about airplane crashes, and why it is hard to expect our school children to successfully compete with Japanese school children on standardized international tests when we go to school 180 short days a year and they go to school 240 long days a year.
If this is your field of expertise - you are not going to like this book, it is too thin on material - but as an introduction to this way to thinking about the world it is a book I highly recommend. Incidentally, the subtitle for this book could be It Takes a Village to Raise a Child - at least if you want them to succeed.
Do you have outliers working for you? November 21, 2008
Samantha Bartlett
24 out of 32 found this review helpful
This new book from Malcolm Gladwell will make executives think twice before they cut budgets on training that improves employee's skills. Malcolm shows us that the greatest talents can be developed, and this is certainly true in corporate America. As he says in Outliers, talent should be "thought about as something a company develops, rather than something that is `acquired'. He goes on to say that the most skilled individuals in a profession are made and not born.
Ability, according to Gladwell, is just one factor in success. He points to research that suggests that once you have enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. What's more, the people at the very top don't just work much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.
Practice does make perfect. The greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians and scientists emerge only after spending at least three hours a day for a decade mastering their chosen field. This idea - that excellence at a complex task requires a critical, minimum level of practice - surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours.
Outliers: The Story of Success suggests the importance of investing in communicating company mission, culture and skills. "Look around Wall Street, or what's left of it today," he says, "and you'll see lots and lots and lots of people from Goldman Sachs. That's not a coincidence. It's because they took their mission to invest in people seriously."
Gladwell argues that the state of today's economy is the perfect time to invest in talent development. "When it's easy to make money, you have no incentive to think about development of talent. Now, you're forced to." I couldn't agree more. Outliers is a great book and a fun read.
Another book (in the same style Gladwell uses in Outliers) that is also outstanding and I strongly recommend is The Impulse Factor: Why Some of Us Play It Safe and Others Risk It All
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