Book Review - Outliers The Story of Success

Outliers: The Story of Success

By Malcolm Glad well

Little, Brown and Company, November 2008.

Malcolm Glad well is the best selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink. His latest book, Outliers, has been on best seller list of The New York Times for eight straight months, since it was published in November 2008. Glad well’s engaging and journalistic writing style and his talent for simplifying complex issues, I think, is his secret of success. And these are the reasons why his books are both controversial and popular. His latest book is no exception.

Outliers attempt to explain the secrets of successful people, but suggests that intelligence (IQ) alone is not a guarantee of success in life. But this view is an already well-known fact that there is established in the early 1990s with a host of academic studies that discovered that success actually requires additional skills, known as emotional intelligence (EI). Unfortunately, Glad well does not dwell on or even refer to the growing body of literature on EI.

Instead, Glad well focuses on a number of other important and equally important ingredients for success. Actually, of course, his book complements EI studies and explains the "secrets" of success from a different perspective: taking into account the personal, environmental and cultural contexts with success.

In this book review, I will highlight the most important secrets to success is covered by Outliers starting with the advantage (or luck) to be born at the right time of year. One example Glad well highlights is that the Canadian hockey players and Czech football and hockey players who were born in the first six months of a year and has a clear advantage of age and maturity compared to their teammates. This is because the eligibility cutoff age by January 1 in those countries. As Glad well explains: "A boy who turns ten January 2, as there is to play with someone who does not turn on until the end of ten years - and at the age of preadolescence, a twelve-month difference in age represent a huge difference in physical maturity. "

What about birth year? Also explains the consequences of being there at the right time, at the right age. Glad well cites Silicon Valley tycoons, who were born between 1953 and 1956 and were thus at the perfect age in 1975 to take advantage of the personal computer revolution. Here are the names and births of some of these successful men: Paul Allen (1953), Bill Joy (1954), Scott McNealy (1954), Steve Jobs (1955), Schmidt (1955), Bill Gates (1955), and Steve Ballmer (1956). Glad well later claim that New York lawyers born in the early 1930s also had a big advantage when the boom in the number and size of mergers, hostile takeovers, and disputes occurred in the 1970s, mainly due to a relaxation of Federal Regulations.

Glad well suggests that the "10,000-hour rule" of hard work and practice, which explains why many people achieved success. He gives examples of Bill Joy's contributions to UNIX, Java, and Web Mozart's masterpiece was composed when he was twenty-one, although he began writing music at age six, the Beatles and their Hamburg experience of playing music eight hours a day, seven days a week between 1960 and 1962, and Bill Gates put thousands of hours of computer programming begins at the age of thirteen. Besides being smart, these people achieved success by putting in 10,000 hours of practice before he was outstanding at what they did.

Two other "secrets" are discussed in Outliers: culture and education. Glad well compares the safety of aircraft in the 1990s, and notes that the captains of Colombia (Avian) and Korean captains (Korean Air) in some cases could have averted plane crashes if their cultures allowed subordinates (CoPilot and flight engineers) to speak out and warn captains of impending disasters. These two cultures place great emphasis on power distance, which means that subordinates defer their superiors, even when these overall may actually be in the wrong. In short, were subordinates reluctant to speak out because of fear and / or respect, a very dangerous cultural "dimension" when flying a passenger plane! In effect, Glad well argues that it does not matter where you were born, and what culture you were raised in.

Quote culture again, Glad well attributes the high score on the math test in countries like China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan to the strong work ethic and demanding nature of these countries from all major wet-rice agriculture. Here again, Glad well fails to mention that the rice is also grown in other countries like the Philippines and Indonesia where the population is not necessarily known for high scores on math tests. Glad well also makes no mention of the Protestant ethic hard work which may have contributed to the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution, or the fact that grow tobacco, used to be as demanding as working in rice fields.

Finally, Glad well links the quality of education to success. He quotes longer days and hours at high schools in Japan and South Korea, "the school year in the U.S. are on average 180 days long. The Korean school year is 220 days. The Japanese school year is 243 days long." Finally, Glad well cites the great benefits and opportunities that Kip Academy middle schools, which began in South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. Students at Kip good at math and reading, and a large percentage of them go on to university and in many cases are the first in their family to do it. "Kip school day begins at seven twenty-five, and continues until five pm all students taught thinking, English, science, mathematics, social studies, music and orchestra. Kip gives students a chance to work very hard and for Excel.

Although it is written in a journalistic rather than academic approach Outliers have undoubtedly contributed to the ongoing reflection on success in business. It stresses the importance of hard work, determination, opportunity and happiness, family upbringing, personal relationships, and culture.

Despite its shortcomings, particularly its lack of academic rigor Outliers is a highly recommended book for those wishing to explore the "secrets" of success than IQ and EI.