Outliers Story of Success Sidesync Reading Questions Answers

2008 book by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers

Outliers volume cover
Author	Malcolm Gladwell
Audio read by	Malcolm Gladwell
Cover artist	Allison J. Warner
Land	U.s.
Linguistic communication	English
Subject	Psychology
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Piddling, Brown and Company
Publication date	Nov 18, 2008
Media blazon	Hardback paperback audiobook
Pages	304 (A5)
ISBN	978-0316017923
Dewey Decimal	302 22
LC Class	BF637.S8 G533 2008

Outliers: The Story of Success is the third not-fiction volume written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines why the majority of Canadian water ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the agenda year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates accomplished his extreme wealth, how the Beatles became one of the most successful musical acts in man history, how Joseph Flom built Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom into one of the most successful law firms in the world, how cultural differences play a large function in perceived intelligence and rational conclusion making, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hr Rule", claiming that the fundamental to achieving world-class expertise in any skill, is, to a large extent, a thing of practicing the correct style, for a full of effectually ten,000 hours, though the authors of the original study this was based on take disputed Gladwell's usage.^[one]

The volume debuted at number one on the bestseller lists for The New York Times and The Globe and Postal service, holding the position on the onetime for eleven sequent weeks. By and large well received by critics, Outliers was considered more than personal than Gladwell's other works, and some reviews commented on how much Outliers felt similar an autobiography. Reviews praised the connection that Gladwell draws between his own background and the rest of the publication to conclude the book. Reviewers too appreciated the questions posed by Outliers, finding it of import to determine how much private potential is ignored past society. However, the lessons learned were considered anticlimactic and dispiriting. The writing style, though deemed easy to sympathize, was criticized for oversimplifying complex social phenomena.

Background [edit]

Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell was a journalist for The Washington Post earlier writing for The New Yorker. The subjects for his articles, commonly non-fiction, range from "Ron Popeil'south infomercial empire to computers that clarify pop songs".^[2] His familiarity with academic material has allowed him to write near "psychology experiments, sociological studies, law articles, statistical surveys of plane crashes and classical musicians and hockey players", which he converts into prose accessible to a general audience and which sometimes pass as memes into the pop imagination.^[iii]

Earlier Outliers, Gladwell wrote two all-time-selling books: The Tipping Point (2000) and Blink (2005).^[iv] Both books have been described as "pop economic science".^[3] The Tipping Betoken focuses on how ideas and behaviors accomplish critical mass, such as how Hush Puppies quickly grew popular in the 1990s. Glimmer explains "what happens during the first two seconds we see something, before we actually start to think".^[4] All Gladwell's books focus on singularities: singular events in The Tipping Point, singular moments in Blink, and singular people in Outliers. Gladwell was fatigued to writing most singular things afterward he discovered that "they always made the best stories".^[ii] Convinced that the most unusual stories had the best chance of reaching the front page of a paper, he was "quickly weaned off the notion that [he] should exist interested in the mundane".^[two]

For Outliers, Gladwell spent time looking for research that made claims that were contrary to what he considered to be popularly held beliefs. In one of the volume's chapters, in which Gladwell focuses on the American public school system, he used inquiry conducted by university sociologist Karl Alexander that suggested that "the way in which education is discussed in the Us is astern".^[5] In another chapter, Gladwell cites pioneering research performed by Canadian psychologist Roger Barnsley when discussing how the birthdate of a young hockey player can make up one's mind their skill level in the future.^[6]

While writing the volume, Gladwell noted that "the biggest misconception about success is that we practise it solely on our smarts, ambition, hustle and hard work."^[4] In Outliers, he hopes to prove that there are a lot more variables involved in an private'southward success than order cares to admit,^[4] and he wants people to "move away from the notion that everything that happens to a person is up to that person".^[2] Gladwell noted that, although at that place was little that could be done with regard to a person'due south fate, guild tin can still bear upon the "man"-affected part of an individual's success.^[2] When asked what message he wanted people to take away later reading Outliers, Gladwell responded, "What we do as a community, as a club, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves. Information technology sounds a piffling trite, but there's a powerful amount of truth in that, I think."^[two]

Synopsis [edit]

In his introduction, Gladwell discusses the Roseto effect which enabled a small, close-knit town in Pennsylvania to accept nigh no history of heart disease, substance corruption, or societal ills, seemingly due to the supportive, comforting social environment of its Italian-descended population. The residuum of Outliers has two parts: "Role 1: Opportunity" contains five chapters, and "Part Two: Legacy" has four. The book also contains an Introduction and Epilogue.^[7] Focusing on outliers, defined by Gladwell every bit people who do not fit into our normal understanding of achievement,^[4] Outliers deals with exceptional people, especially those who are smart, rich, and successful, and those who operate at the farthermost outer border of what is statistically plausible.^[3] The volume offers examples that include the musical ensemble the Beatles, Microsoft's co-founder Pecker Gates, and the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. In the introduction, Gladwell lays out the purpose of Outliers: "It'due south not enough to ask what successful people are like. [...] Information technology is simply by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic backside who succeeds and who doesn't."^[iii] Throughout the publication, he discusses how family, civilisation, and friendship each play a role in an individual'due south success, and he constantly asks whether successful people deserve the praise that we requite them.^[iii]

The book begins with the observation that a disproportionate number of elite Canadian hockey players are born in the earlier months of the calendar yr. The reason behind this is that since youth hockey leagues determine eligibility past the calendar year, children built-in on Jan 1 play in the aforementioned league as those born on Dec 31 in the same year. Because children born earlier in the yr are statistically larger and more physically mature than their younger competitors, and they are ofttimes identified as amend athletes, this leads to extra coaching and a higher likelihood of being selected for aristocracy hockey leagues. This miracle in which "the rich become richer and the poor go poorer" is dubbed "accumulative advantage" past Gladwell, while sociologist Robert K. Merton calls information technology "the Matthew Upshot", named after a biblical verse in the Gospel of Matthew: "For unto everyone that hath shall exist given, and he shall accept abundance. Just from him, that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."^[8] Outliers asserts that success depends on the idiosyncrasies of the selection process used to place talent just as much as it does on the athletes' natural abilities.^[8]

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell interviews Bill Gates and focuses on the opportunities given to him throughout his life that have led to his success.

A common theme that appears throughout Outliers is the "10,000-Hr Dominion", based on a study by Anders Ericsson. Gladwell claims that greatness requires enormous time, using the source of the Beatles' musical talents and Gates' computer savvy equally examples.^[4] The Beatles performed alive in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more x,000 hours of playing time, therefore meeting the 10,000-Hour Dominion. Gladwell asserts that all of the time the Beatles spent performing shaped their talent, and quotes a Beatles' biographer, Philip Norman, as challenge "Then by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Frg, 'they sounded similar no 1 else. It was the making of them.'"^[four] Gates met the 10,000-Hour Rule when he gained access to a loftier school reckoner in 1968 at the historic period of 13, and spent 10,000 hours programming on it.^[4]

In Outliers, Gladwell interviews Gates, who says that unique access to a estimator as early on as 1968 when they were not commonplace helped him succeed. Without that access, Gladwell states that Gates would still be "a highly intelligent, driven, charming person and a successful professional", but that he might not be worth US$fifty billion.^[4] Gladwell, notwithstanding, never mentions that Gates' mother had access to the board of directors of IBM and was not only an ordinary daughter of wealthy businessmen as he says. Gladwell explains that reaching the 10,000-Hour Dominion, which he considers the key to success in whatever field, is simply a matter of practicing a specific chore that tin exist accomplished with twenty hours of work a calendar week for x years. He also notes that he himself took exactly 10 years to meet the 10,000-60 minutes Dominion, during his cursory tenure at The American Spectator and his more recent chore at The Washington Mail service.^[three]

Gladwell argues that J. Robert Oppenheimer's affluent groundwork helped requite him the skills necessary to become successful.

Reemphasizing his theme, Gladwell continuously reminds the reader that genius is non the simply or even the nearly important affair when determining a person'south success. Using an anecdote to illustrate his claim, he discusses the story of Christopher Langan, a man who ended upward owning a horse farm in rural Missouri despite having an IQ of 195 (Gladwell claims that Einstein'southward was 150).^[3] Gladwell points out that Langan has not reached a high level of success because of the destitute, dysfunctional surround in which he grew upwards. With no ane in Langan's life and nothing in his background to help him take advantage of his exceptional gifts, he had to find success by himself. "No 1—not stone stars, not professional athletes, non software billionaires, and non even geniuses—e'er makes it alone", writes Gladwell.^[3]

Gladwell notes how many of the richest men in history were fortunate to come up of age during decades of technological boom, or be born at times of low birth rates when universities and task opportunities were more open to applicants. Later, Gladwell compares Langan with Oppenheimer, the male parent of the atomic bomb. Noting that they typify innate natural abilities that should have helped them both succeed in life, Gladwell argues that Oppenheimer'southward upbringing made a pivotal difference in his life. Oppenheimer grew up in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Manhattan, was the son of a successful man of affairs and a painter, attended the Ethical Civilization Fieldston School on Key Park West, and was afforded a childhood of concerted tillage.^[8] Outliers argues that these opportunities gave Oppenheimer the chance to develop the practical intelligence necessary for success.^[8] Gladwell then provides an chestnut: When Oppenheimer was a student at the Academy of Cambridge he attempted to poison one of his tutors. He avoided punishment, and continued his studies by using the skills gained from his cultivated upbringing in his negotiation with the academy'due south administrators, who had wanted to expel him.^[8]

In the side by side chapter, Gladwell explains the fact that Asians are adept at mathematics by correlating it to rice agriculture, particularly the fact that rice tillage requires more piece of work ethic, discipline, and longer hours than Western wheat agronomics, and East Asian school systems take shorter summer recesses than Americans. The pattern of words for counting numbers is more than logical in Asian languages than western languages.

Gladwell discusses how airline crashes can event from miscommunication between pilots and the control tower. The deferential culture of some ethnic groups tin make those pilots reluctant to convey imminent danger to ground controllers. In affiliate nine, Marita'southward Bargain, Gladwell advances the notion that the success of students of unlike cultures or dissimilar socio-economic backgrounds is in fact highly correlated to the time students spent in schoolhouse or in educationally rich environments. He describes the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) which helps students from almost 50 inner-city schools across the United States achieve much meliorate results than other inner-metropolis schools' students and explains that their success stems from the fact that they simply spent more hours at school during the schoolhouse yr and the summer. Gladwell also analyzes a v-year report done by Karl Alexander of Johns Hopkins University, demonstrating that summer holidays take a detrimental effect on students of disadvantaged backgrounds, who paradoxically progress more during the school year than students from the highest socioeconomic group. Gladwell discusses how Appalachian and Scottish culture both take a history of fierce feuds. This is acquired past the need for abiding vigilance to guard livestock from rustlers – something not required of lowland farmers who grow by and large crops instead of livestock.

Before the volume concludes, Gladwell writes virtually the unique roots of his Jamaican female parent, Joyce, a descendant of African slaves.^[2] Joyce attended University College in London, where she met and brutal in honey with Graham Gladwell, a young mathematician. After moving together to Canada, Graham became a math professor and Joyce a writer and therapist. While Gladwell acknowledges his mother's ambition and intelligence, he too points out opportunities offered to his parents that helped them live a life improve than those of other slave descendants in the West Indies. Gladwell besides explains that, in the 18th century, a white plantation owner in Jamaica bought a female slave and fabricated her his mistress. This act inadvertently saved the slave and her offspring from a life of vicious servitude.^[9] As 1 of the slave'southward descendants, this plough of luck led to Gladwell's relatively successful position in life. Summarizing the publication, Gladwell notes that success "is not exceptional or mysterious. Information technology is grounded in a spider web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plainly lucky",^[9] and at the end of the book, he remarks, "Outliers wasn't intended as autobiography. Just you lot could read information technology every bit an extended apology for my success."^[iii]

Style [edit]

Outliers has been described equally a grade of autobiography, equally Gladwell mixes in elements from his own life into the volume to give information technology a more personal touch. Lev Grossman, writing in Time magazine, called Outliers a "more than personal volume than its predecessors", noting, "If you hold it up to the light, at the right angle, you can read information technology as a coded autobiography: a successful homo trying to figure out his own context, how success happened to him and what information technology means."^[3] He also surmised that Gladwell feels guilty about his success and believes that Christopher Langan should have experienced the same success that he had.^[3]

Reception [edit]

Published past Piddling, Brown and Company on November xviii, 2008,^[x] Outliers debuted at number one on the bestseller lists for The New York Times in the The states and The Globe and Mail in Canada on Nov 28, 2008,^[11] property the position on the erstwhile for xi sequent weeks.^{[12] [13]} Between June 2011, when the paperback version was released, and February 2017, the book made the New York Times bestseller list for paperback nonfiction 232 times.^{[14] [15]} Equally in his other books, Gladwell's engaging and vivid prose drew praise in Outliers, though Gladwell's methodology has been criticized for also often falling casualty to beguiling reasoning, inadequate and anecdotally based sampling, and oversimplified analysis.

David A. Shaywitz, reviewing the book in The Wall Street Journal, praised Gladwell's writing style as "iconic", and asserted that "many new nonfiction authors seek to define themselves as the 'Malcolm Gladwell of' their chosen topic."^[8] He complimented its clarity and like shooting fish in a barrel grace, simply also pointed to these as possible Achilles' heels for Gladwell because of his oversimplification of complex sociological phenomena to "meaty, pithy explanations".^[8] Furthermore, he praised the book for asking some of import questions, such as "How much potential out in that location is being ignored? How much raw talent remains uncultivated and ultimately lost because we cling to outmoded ideas of what success looks similar and what is required to reach information technology?"^[8]

In a discussion about the book in Slate magazine, John Horgan was especially moved by Gladwell's family history. He felt that the links betwixt race and accomplishment were given substantive analysis, but found the lessons mentioned in Outliers to be "oddly anticlimactic, even dispiriting".^[9] His contribution ended by remarking, "Outliers represents a squandered opportunity for Gladwell—himself an outlier, an enormously talented and influential writer and the descendant of an African slave—to make a major contribution to our ongoing discourse near nature, nurture, and race."^[9] BusinessWeek gave the book four out of five stars and appreciated its "Aha!" moments, merely wondered if Gladwell purposely omits bear witness that contradicts his thesis. The review remarked that Outliers was repetitive in parts, but that Gladwell eventually pulls the stories together into an overarching narrative.^[sixteen]

Criticism focused on the book'south manner and oversimplified conceptualizations. Displeased with Gladwell's generalizations drawn from small amounts of data, Roger Gathman wrote in The Austin American-Statesman that this was uncharacteristic of him, and believed that the approach points to a "certain exhaustion in his favorite method".^[17] He remarked that in Outliers, the experiments, analyses, and conclusions fatigued are too mechanically applied to historical or cultural phenomena to "create a cognitive 'gotcha' moment", that Gladwell's analytical method was no longer working, and that "it'due south high time for Gladwell to produce something more than challenging than his beautifully executed tomb robberies of one-time sociology papers."^[17] Boyd Tonkin in The Contained held a like opinion, and wondered why Gladwell "does not withal concord a tenured professorship at the University of the Bleedin' Obvious".^[18]

Ask A Korean posted a detailed assessment of Outliers' section on the 1997 Korean Air crash, accusing Gladwell of "journalistic malpractice". The blog accuses Gladwell of "stacking the deck" against Korean pilots by listing irrelevant air crashes from KAL'due south history, as well as truncating the pilots' chat to suit his book'south conclusion. The piece accuses Gladwell of "culturalism", a concept like to racism, in suggesting that Koreans are inherently prone to air crashes because of their advice style.^[19]

Jason Cowley, reviewing the book in The Guardian, felt that Outliers was an argument between Gladwell and himself, referring to the many times that he uses the word "we" when defining his position, such every bit in the example: "At that place is something profoundly wrong with the mode nosotros look at success. ... We cling to the idea that success is a simple part of individual merit and that the world in which nosotros grow up and the rules we cull to write every bit a society don't matter at all."^[20] He also believed that there was a "certain 1-dimensional Americanness at work", observing that many of Gladwell'southward examples are from the United States, particularly in New York City.^[20] In an article well-nigh the volume for The New York Times, Steven Pinker wrote, "The reasoning in 'Outliers,' which consists of cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies, had me gnawing on my Kindle."^[21] In a review in The New Republic, Isaac Chotiner called the terminal 2 chapters of Outliers "impervious to all forms of critical thinking".^[22]

Finding information technology ironic that Outliers provided suggestions on how to resolve cultural biases, the Sunday Times review past Kevin Jackson agreed that the book itself suffered from an unbalanced focus on American subjects, predicting that this would pb to better sales in the United states of america than in the United Kingdom. Jackson was disappointed in the book'southward lack of new ideas, noting that it merely expands on the concept that "you take to exist born at the right moment; at the right place; to the right family (posh usually helps); and and then you have to work actually, really hard. That'southward about it."^[23] He was too skeptical towards Gladwell'south arguments for the 10,000-Hour Rule by countering that the Beatles' success had more to practice with "the youthful spirit of the historic period, the vogue for guitar bands and a spark of collaborative chemistry".^[23] Regarding the book, Paul McCartney, former member of the Beatles, said in an interview on August half dozen, 2010:

[...] I've read the book. I remember at that place is a lot of truth in it [...] I mean there were an awful lot of bands that were out in Hamburg who put in 10,000 hours and didn't make information technology, so information technology's not a bandage-iron theory. I call back, however, when y'all expect at a group who has been successful... I think yous ever will find that amount of work in the groundwork. Just I don't think information technology's a rule that if you lot do that amount of work, y'all're going to be as successful as the Beatles.^[24]

Case Western Reserve University's banana professor of psychology Brooke North. Macnamara and colleagues accept subsequently performed a comprehensive review of 9,331 enquiry papers about practice relating to acquiring skills. They focused specifically on 88 papers that collected and recorded data almost practice times. In their newspaper, they note regarding the x,000-hour rule that "This view is a frequent topic of popular-scientific discipline writing" but "we conducted a meta-analysis covering all major domains in which deliberate practice has been investigated. We found that deliberate practice explained 26% of the variance in performance for games, 21% for music, 18% for sports, iv% for educational activity, and less than i% for professions. Nosotros conclude that deliberate practice is of import, just not every bit important every bit has been argued".^[25]

Sociologist Shayne Lee referenced Outliers in his stance editorial for CNN.com that commemorated Martin Luther Male monarch Jr.'s birthday. Lee discussed the strategic timing of King's rise from a "Gladwellian" perspective, citing Outliers every bit the inspiration for his argument.

References [edit]

1. ^ Ericsson, K. Anders (2012-10-01). "Preparation history, deliberate do and elite sports functioning: an assay in response to Tucker and Collins review—what makes champions?". Br J Sports Med. 47 (nine): bjsports–2012–091767. doi:x.1136/bjsports-2012-091767. ISSN 0306-3674. PMID 23111333. S2CID 2890412.
2. ^ ^{a b c d eastward f g} Bowman, Donna (2008-11-xviii). "Malcolm Gladwell". The A.V. Club . Retrieved 2009-01-12 .
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j m} Wadman, Neb (2008-11-13). "Outliers: Malcolm Gladwell's Success Story". Time. Archived from the original on November 21, 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-12 .
4. ^ ^{a b c d east f g h i} Donahue, Deirdre (2008-11-xviii). "Malcolm Gladwell'south 'Success' defines 'outlier' achievement". USA Today . Retrieved 2009-01-12 .
5. ^ Hutchison, Al (2008-12-14). "'Outliers' Volition Make You Think". The Tampa Tribune.
6. ^ Smith, Charlie (2008-12-05). "Malcolm Gladwell'due south Outliers opens with tale about Vancouver Giants". The Georgia Directly . Retrieved 2010-06-18 .
7. ^ Gladwell, Malcolm (2008). Outliers . Little, Brown and Company. pp. VII–IX. ISBN978-0-316-01792-3.
8. ^ ^{a b c d e f m h} Shaywitz, David A. (2008-11-15). "The Elements of Success". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2015-03-thirteen. Retrieved 2020-06-01 .
9. ^ ^{a b c d} Horgan, John (2008-eleven-13). "A Squandered Opportunity?". Slate . Retrieved 2009-01-13 .
10. ^ Outliers: The Story of Success (Hardcover). ISBN978-0316017923.
11. ^ "Hardcover Nonfiction for the week of November 28, 2008". The New York Times. 2008-11-28. Retrieved 2009-01-xiv .
12. ^ "Hardcover Nonfiction for the calendar week of Feb 12, 2009". The New York Times. 2009-02-12. Retrieved 2010-03-17 .
13. ^ "Hardcover Bestsellers". The World and Mail service. 2009-01-09. Retrieved 2009-01-14 .
14. ^ "Paperback Nonfiction Bestsellers". The New York Times. 2011-06-26. Retrieved 2017-06-twenty .
15. ^ "Paperback Nonfiction Bestsellers". The New York Times. 2017-02-19. Retrieved 2017-06-20 .
16. ^ "Gladwell's Outliers: Timing is Almost Everything". BusinessWeek. 2008-11-20. Retrieved 2009-01-16 .
17. ^ ^{a b} Gathman, Roger (2008-11-16). "Malcolm Gladwell's 'Outliers': well-written, thinly argued". Austin American-Statesman.
18. ^ Tonkin, Boyd (2008-11-21). "Book Of The Week: Outliers, By Malcolm Gladwell". The Independent . Retrieved 2009-01-16 .
19. ^ "Culturalism, Gladwell, and Airplane Crashes". Enquire a Korean. xi July 2013. Retrieved 28 Oct 2021.
20. ^ ^{a b} Cowley, Jason (2008-11-23). "Stating the obvious, only oh then cleverly". The Guardian . Retrieved 2009-01-fourteen .
21. ^ Pinker, Steven (2009-11-07). "Malcolm Gladwell, Eclectic Detective". The New York Times . Retrieved 2010-07-05 .
22. ^ Chotiner, Isaac (2009-01-29). "Mister Lucky". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 2011-01-05. Retrieved 2010-07-19 .
23. ^ ^{a b} Jackson, Kevin (2008-eleven-23). "Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell". The Times . Retrieved 2009-01-16 .
24. ^ "INTERVIEW: Paul McCartney heads to Canada". CBC News. 6 Baronial 2010. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
25. ^ MacNamara, Brooke N.; Hambrick, David Z.; Oswald, Frederick 50. (2014). "Deliberate Practice and Performance in Music, Games, Sports, Pedagogy, and Professions: A Meta-Analysis". Psychological Science. 25 (8): 1608–1618. doi:10.1177/0956797614535810. hdl:1911/76260. PMID 24986855. S2CID 1367517.

External links [edit]

• Official website
• Summary past Dan Dascalescu, most 3250 words

barnesgoinfory.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

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