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What is the secret to success? Why do some of us succeed when others fail? In Outliers—The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell explores his theories of how opportunity, advantage and even when you born and how hard you work determine the success of athletes and such greats as Bill Gates, The Beatles and even Cleopatra.

A Bloomberg Businessweek bestseller, 28 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and numerous people dropping the title made me curious about what new insights this little book held for determining how successful one is in any field or endeavor.

Through a series of case studies, Gladwell attempts to dispel the myth that successful people are self-made. He insists that instead they “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” The dictionary defines “outlier” as:

something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body
a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample

Outliers is written in two parts, Opportunity and Legacy.

In Part One, Gladwell examines opportunity as a function of timing. Gladwell cites the successful Ontario Junior Hockey League as being comprised of young men who were born close to January 1. That date is magic, he claims, because they started school later and therefore were stronger and smarter when they came of an age to play the game. He translates this to individuals in various disciplines for determining their ability to achieve success. Gladwell also claims that the people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and others became industry giants because they were born in 1954 or 1955. Therefore were old enough to be part of the a coming revolution, but not too old to have missed it. His theories on practice and repetition also center on opportunity. Gladwell claims that Mozart and The Beatles were not musical prodigies, but were put into situations that caused them to put in at least 10,000 (being the magic number) hours of practice, thereby reinforcing the old adage that “practice makes perfect.”

In Part Two, Legacy, Outliers focuses on cultural legacy. Gladwell says that cultural legacy “persists, generation after generation, virtually intact…and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.” In Part Two he examines success and failure by illustrating how a cultural legacy of failure can be transformed into one of success using Korean Air as an example. At once time, Korean Air was more likely to crash their planes because of a rigid pilot power structure; however, now they attain high safety ratings because they fostered collaboration in the cockpit.

This is not a book of statistical data to be analyzed; but rather a book I found an interesting read and somewhat entertaining. Gladwell is a social observer, but not revolutionary. I didn’t find anything to disagree with, and in reading this book, I found it reinforced for me that it still takes a lot of hard work and a degree of luck to succeed.

- Colleen Cain Buckner

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