Boy, was I excited to read Malcolm Gladwell's new book, "Outliers". His first book, "The Tipping Point" was awesome. Really got me thinking. None of it was really new stuff, but it was written well and presented in such a way that you couldn't help but think about how many opportunities there were in life. All you had to do was seek the tipping point, and the future was yours.
"Blink" had a similar empowering message too: "Don't over think problems," Gladwell told us. "You know the answer from the get-go anyway, so just go with your gut."
But I had the opposite experience with "Outliers": it was an incredible bummer. If there ever was a book that made me feel like there's no hope for my future, this was the one.
That's not to say that Gladwell didn't write a good book. In fact he makes a pretty strong case for his thesis: Truly successful people are rare because they benefit from cosmic accidents that bring them resources and opportunities most humans will never obtain. Bill Gates had limitless access to a high-powered computer as a pre-teen in the 1970's, teaching him the secrets of computing at an early age. As part of an early tour The Beatles were forced to perform three times a day, seven days a week for a year, tightening their act and letting them experiment with lots of different styles in a short period.
Gladwell suggests a 10,000 hour rule: That you can't really master something until you've done it for 10,000 hours. Most of us never get the opportunity to do anything for 10,000 hours, so we don't have the chance to become masterful and wildly successful. The people that do get this much practice are "outliers" on the bell curve of society.
For those of us who do not get to practice for 10,000 hours, we are the median, the dregs and the normal. Gladwell relates depressing tales of the dreary average - we, the unwashed - who try to succeed, but are only met with failure and disappointment. In Gladwell's world, there are only the truly great (he tells us his story of unnatural success as another example) and the depressing normal.
But it isn't really the book's conceit that ticked me off. It was the supposition of "Outliers" that only those blessed with great assets - 10,000 hours of practice, for example - that can really succeed. The rest of us, Gladwell seems to suggest, should just stick to buying off-the-rack fashion at Wal-Mart and fill in the spaces between the interesting people. We have nothing of merit nor any ability to contribute, let alone really succeed.
Yes, he tells a story of a struggling 19th Century Little Italy apron maker who makes it big. And he has a mismatched chapter on KIPP charter school success that suggests that if poor people are given a chance to work real hard, they can have a decent life. The apron maker had 10,000 hours of clothing salesmanship to hone his understanding of market desire. The KIPP kids will be good at schoolwork because they have to work late school days, during Saturdays and have short summer breaks - 10,000 hours of schoolwork by the time they graduate.
So, Gladwell seems to say (but he never comes out and says it), do what you do a lot of, and you might be successful. If only I could justify watching the Sci-Fi channel as a marketable skill!
That's Gladwell's silver lining for us average people. The dark cloud is this: Unless you work at something for an impossibly long time, you'll never get any good at it, and you'll never contribute anything worthwhile.
For the guy that wrote "Blink" and "Tipping Point", this is a surprisingly conservative message. Only experience counts. Creativity is totally secondary to knowing the ins and outs of a skill.
I had a boss once who would love this message. In his mind there were no independent ideas, only ones that have been derived through great thought and consideration. This translated into delayed action for almost everything he did, since unless an idea was connected to the sageness of experience (usually his), it was not worth consideration.
So, if you have a new insight! If you have a fresh perspective! If you have a flash of creativity! Forget it! Malcolm Gladwell says only if you've been working at something for a really long time can you succeed. Because success only comes with great experience and practice. All the other ideas and average people are doomed to failure.
Dad, husband, MBA, homeowner, publisher of hyperlocal 
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