Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell


Outliers Secrets of Success:

1. Being born early in year (or right after any cut-off for qualification and training) is an advantage that is cumulative.
2. Natural talent is nowhere near as important as practice.
3. Expertise is the product of 10,000 hours of practice. This is roughly achieved in 10 years of dedicated, sustained development.
4. Smarts are important but only up to a point. Smart enough is all it takes. Genius is not required.
5. Opportunity is critical. Being in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the small windows of game-changing opportunity.
6. Drive, as a result of cultural legacy is the most potent filter for success.

The quote of the book: “Hard work is a prison sentence only if does not have meaning”

3 Factors that Give Work Meaning:

1. Autonomy
2. Complexity
3. Effort-reward direct relationship

The review:

In summary, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is, typical of his works, chock-full of richly researched statistical and cultural gems that are valuable to any organization but there are some that are especially pertinent to the US-Philippines outsourcing challenges, which I have preliminarily presented in THE Biggest Challenge to American-Philippine Work: How Cultural Differences Impact Effecive Communication (http://jamesmirasol.com/)

Western communication is transmitter-oriented where it is the responsibility of the speaker to communicate clearly, while Asian communication is listener-oriented where it is the responsibility of the listener to divine what the speaker is saying. This is a cultural issue that I have encountered many times in many organizations. This culturally-based communications gap is what I consider to the biggest challenge in US-Philippine outsourcing execution.

Exacerbating the communications gap is the cited work of Geert Hofstede for IBM worldwide and which was termed the Power-Distance Index (PDI) which measures individualism-collectivism attitudes. Interestingly but not surprisingly, Americans are at one extreme in the PDI scale where individualism is highest and the Philippines is on the opposite end where collectivism is highest. This is another frequent source of execution gaps in US-Philippine outsourced work, I have found. I will expound more on this and the communications gap in another article soon on http://jamesmirasol.com/ so check back again soon.

On work ethic differences between America and Asia, Outlier’s was particularly insightful about the Agricultural differences and how this has led to significant Educational differences. This was one of the great revelations of the book to me.

The discussion on American-Asian cultural differences are astute and an on the money which leads me to a personal question:

What happens to those of us who are hybrids, the result of American AND Asian upbringing?

In my case, I feel that being raised largely American by an Irish-American mother and a US-educated father, in the Philippines has resulted in a dual-cultural hybrid that is truly native in both and yet able to view either from a single perspective. Granted, this ability is not always a conscious decision which can then become challenging in itself but overall, it is my feeling that is a unique hybrid which delivers a unique value proposition.

Shoot me an email at james@jamesmirasol.com if you would like to discuss this and perhaps share an opinion that may be posted as a follow-up to this review.

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Notes:

I feel that in Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell made some generalizations that I have a hard time accepting on face value. In particular, Gladwell stated that "Even the most gifted of lawyers, equipped with the best of family lessons, cannot escape the limitations of their generation." This simply cannot be true as every generation has to have a some single lawyer that must rise to the top of their profession unless we consider that generations can be skipped, bridged by an older generation hanging around for extended service and then subsequently supplanted by a younger generation leapfrogging to the top.

Additionally, I need to wonder out loud about Outlier’s assertion that Jewish Lawyers and Doctors became professionals because of their humble origins rather than inspite of their humble origins. Specifically, what of the cliche of the Jewish parents pushing their offspring to become lawyers or doctors or marry them? Could that have something to do with what is presented as an inevitable career? Later on in the book, Gladwell also points out that Jewish immigrants from Europe were largely urban professionals because they were prohibited by law from owning land and thus clustered in city centers where urban professional pursuits were their only economic recourse. There is a disconnect here that I cannot resolve.

Shoot me an email at james@jamesmirasol.com if you can shed some light on this.