Malcolm Gladwell writes very winningly, but his thinking is not nearly as
good as his writing. In "Outliers", Gladwell purports to tell us what
distinguishes the great accomplishers from all others. His emphasis is
largely on two
factors: good luck, and, beginning at a very early age, spending "10,000
hours"
of work and study in the field of later achievement. The necessity to
start
very early means that effective parenting is crucial.
Conjoined with this is his stated position that innate gifts like talent
and
intelligence are insignificant elements in achieving success. Don't worry,
he
is saying, you don't have to be born gifted or very smart to succeed; and,
if
you don't succeed, it's not your fault. You can blame it on your parents
who
did not see to your putting in those 10,000 hours, or you can blame bad
luck.
Gladwell's is a very popular, pandering message.
Gladwell is already getting a reputation among his critics for selecting
only
the evidence that supports his thesis. It appears that Gladwell's research
for "Outliers" was this simple: He made a list of great achievers, and,
with
his theory already in mind, he examined their lives. No surprise -- each
person finally chosen for inclusion in the book reflects the 10,000-hours
and
good-luck thesis, and each had no overwhelming innate gifts or
intelligence.
He does not name any achievers he researched but left out of his book. We
have to wonder: did he discover no great achievers who didn't put in those
10,000
hours and ten years of apprenticeship, who didn't have helpful parents,
who
didn't enter their fields until their late twenties or after?
Moreover, you will look in vain for any evidence that he made an effort to
uncover people who HAD put in those 10,000 hours but still never achieved.
I
guarantee there are legions of such hard-working non-achievers. The reason
is
that no amount of hours and practice will make a Michael Jordan or a
Pavarotti or
a Steven Spielberg if innate gifts are not also there.
From the time I was very young, I was struck by how many would-be artists,
athletes and scholars put in far, far more hours but couldn't begin to
match the
performance of guys who far, far out-performed them. Granted, intensely
dedicated "failures" live and die in obscurity. It's hard to find and
research
them. But it was Gladwell's duty to hunt for them.
Discerning what is common to great performers tells us nothing unless you
can
also show that factor is lacking in non-achievers. Gladwell would need to
reveal "if and only if" factors, or his claims are merely comforting
reading for
the vast audience of average folk who never made it big.
Gladwell cites some people with high I.Q scores who never amounted to
much.
In doing so he shows no understanding whatever of what a high IQ score
entails.
One gets a high IQ score simply by being good at wide range of cerebral
demands. Be in the 99th percentile in math, logic, verbal command, spatial
relations, and short term memory, and I guarantee you'll get a whopping IQ
score. But
you can come in above 180 and yet not be of world class or even national
class
in any of those aptitudes. (To be in the 99th percentile in math means
you're
one of 3,000,000 in this country.) From this we can safely infer that a
high
IQ is not SUFFICIENT to cause great accomplishment.
But Gladwell appears to take the illogical position that because high
intelligence isn't sufficient, it can't be necessary -- indeed, it isn't
any factor
whatever in greatness.
The fact is greatness almost always demands not just one gift but several
gifts. Bill Gates was not solely a brilliant programmer. Ted Williams was
not a
great hitter solely because he had great eyes. Streisand and Pavarotti did
not
have solely world class larynxes; they had supreme musical insight, the
ability to see "where the music is".
Most large managerial jobs require high aptitude in a range of areas, and,
though high IQ alone doesn't guarantee success -- it is not sufficient --
it is
necessary in such roles.
Paradoxically, the soothing comfort of Gladwell's message is diminished by
the hint that if you haven't had the early advantages of the greats, the
game is
up for you by the time you're out of your teens.
Yes, for most of us it's glum news to hear we may have been born
under-equipped compared to the greats, but it's misleading to dismiss both
talent and
intelligence as factors in greatness (specifically, he named 120 as the
threshhold
IQ score; anything above that is unnecessary.) Now, either Gladwell knows
this is misleading, or he doesn't. If he doesn't, he's too dumb to write
about
book about what's needed for greatness. If he DOES know it, then he's a
charlatan.
In any case, I am reminded yet again of an old-world saying I made up:
Beware
of the articulate.
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