Book Review: What the Dog Saw (2009) by Malcolm Gladwell.

It's surprising only one chapter contains the word "myth".

The chapter, "The Talent Myth--Are Smart People Overrated?" exemplifies Malcolm Gladwell's overall approach to his essays in What the Dog Saw. Just about every other one begins with a myth that Gladwell sets out to debunk.

Unlike his other three monster best-sellers: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers (each favorably reviewed here), this book constitutes a collection of essays previously published in The New Yorker magazine.

Thus, it appears his criterion was to select essays exhibiting this myth theme. One example particularly captured my interest as a trial lawyer. Gladwell claims that prosecutors got it "wrong" when they prosecuted Enron's former CEO Jeffrey Skilling by framing the issue as a one about "truth and lies"--a commonly held belief about the Enron scandal. (p. 155.) Gladwell argues that the truth was hiding in plain sight, what he terms "an open secret". Instead, he calls it a "peril[] of too much information". (151.)

This debunking pattern removes the element of surprise. By the time I reached Gladwell's discussion of pit bull's reputation for aggressiveness, I knew how he would conclude: don't blame the breed. And there it was. (416.)

By far, as a book, What the Dog Saw represents Gladwell's weakest effort of his four. I can't help but suspect that Gladwell or his publisher sought to capitalize on his runaway success as an book author. Or perhaps that's just a myth. Maybe he intended to publish such a book all along.

Book Review: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (2008).

As hopeful as Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point was (small adjustments can yield cataclysmic changes), Outliers represents its mirror image. Holding up The Tipping Point to a proverbial mirror would produce not an exact replica of Gladwell's prior work, but its reverse.

Outliers explores the ingredients of success. It concludes that success essentially comes through a confluence of factors that are mostly beyond one's control.

First, Outliers essentially posits that you cannot excel unless you happen to be in the right place at the right time. Gladwell illustrates this principle by noting how hockey players rise to the top due to the time of year they were born. In the formative years when the best are culled out, those born at the beginning of the calendar year would be mature than their counterparts born at the end of the year, and hence would be selected for further development. Gladwell also discusses how lawyers (such as at Wachtell, Rosen and Skadden, Arps in New York City) riding the mergers and acquisitions boom were in the right place and the right time because other firms--the "white shoe" firms eschewed this practice area until it was too late, and lawyers comprising these firms were rejected by the "white shoe" firms and left to form these firms specializing in this lucrative practice area. Too, he shows that the big names who cashed in during the personal computer revolution (such as Joy, Jobs, Gates, Ballmer, Allen) were all born within a year or so of each other in the 1950s. This followed a similar pattern where the captains of industry during the industrial revolution in the United States, such as Carnegie, all were born within a narrow window of years.

Second, you cannot excel unless you enjoy immense talent. While Gladwell allows that genius is not required (and not a guarantee of success), those featured in the book invariably have a surfeit of talent, such as the computer industry's Bill Joy and Bill Gates and the lawyers comprising the law firms featured in the book. Now even if one has these first two factors in his or her favor, this will not invariably lead to success. The final factor is the single thing over which one has control, but it can't be obtained easily.

Third, and perhaps the centerpiece of the book, Gladwell argues that one cannot excel in just about any endeavor unless he or she put in about 10 years of hard work (and the right kind). He calls it the 10,000 hour rule, but he equates it to ten years of toiling. For example, Bill Gates enjoyed the "luck" (Gates' and Gladwell's word) of having access to a high-end computer in 1968 and thereafter to practice programming to place him in the perfect position to exploit this expertise during the personal computer revolution. When the time came, unlike his contemporaries, he already had been working in this field for about ten years. This rung true to me in the field of law. Some collegues and I have bandied about the idea (years before Outliers' publication) that it takes lawyers about 10 years to develop the skills to be excellent.

As usual for a Gladwell work, Outliers is full of interesting anecdotes. It's a quick read, but unfortunately loses momentum when it veers from these three main points. For example, its unduly lengthy discussion of the etiology of a couple of airplane crashes went far beyond what was necessary to make its simple point that certain cultural factors contribute to success or failure.

If you've enjoyed Gladwell's Blink and The Tipping Point (both reviewed here), you will enjoy this one as well--even if it turns The Tipping Point on its head.

Book Review: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

Incremental adjustments can yield cataclysmic changes.

That's the message of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.

It's a hopeful message.

"Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push--in just the right place--it can be tipped." (p. 259.)

Determining how and where to make the "slightest push" is not self-evident, however.

Gladwell advances the polemic by exploring three components of tipping points, which he concludes are mostly driven by people, not ideas. "Ideas...spread just like viruses do." (p. 7.)

First, Gladwell therefore focuses on the viral transmitters. He categorizes them as: Salesmen, Connectors and Mavens. These are the few, key people who can unleash an epidemic. You obviously want to get these folks involved in making change.

Second, Gladwell explores what he calls, "The Stickiness Factor." This pertains to the message or idea itself. "We all want to believe that the key to making an impact on someone lies with the inherent quality of the ideas we present. But in none of the cases did anyone substantially alter the content of what they were saying. Instead, they tipped the message by tinkering, on the margin, with the presentation of their ideas..." (p. 131.) Gladwell continues: "There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it." (p. 132.)

Third, the author addresses "The Power of Context." This pertains to altering "specific and relatively small elements in the environment" to serve as tipping points. (p. 167.) In one intriguing example, Gladwell discusses how the New York City subway system's severe crime problem was tipped by an aggressive campaign to eradicate graffiti, an ostensibly minor manifestation. (pp. 142-43.)

The book provides some generic tools about how major change is implemented. However, it's up to the reader to apply them to a particular scenario. Since Gladwell essentially concedes (in fact, argues) the power of context, his general suggestions cannot be applied without a maven-like knowledge of the particular context(s) in which change is sought as well as connections to key individuals.

That's the domain of the most crucial change-agent, who curiously gets short-shrift in Gladwell's text: the leader.

Book Review: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.

Blink's important.

Reading this short sentence, you have formed certain conceptions about it. These instantaneous impressions may be shaped by your experience with my prior book reviews; your experience with books; your experience with Malcolm Gladwell works; your experience with rapid eye movements; your interpretation of "important;" and a variety of other factors.

The fact that you have already developed opinions about this review points to what Gladwell calls in Blink "the adaptive unconscious" (p. 11), although he did not invent the term.

"This new notion of the adaptive unconscious is thought of...as a kind of giant computer that quickly and quietly processes a lot of the data we need in order to function as human beings. The only way that human beings could ever have survived as a species for as long as we have is that we've developed another kind of decision-making apparatus that's capable of making very quick judgments based on very little information." (pp. 11-12; emphasis supplied.)

Gladwell identifies its power but does not blindly endorse it. "Blink is not just a celebration of the power of the glance, however. I'm also interested in those moments when our instincts betray us." (p. 14.) Gladwell offers examples on both sides of this tension.

For example, Gladwell provides an amazing study helmed by John Gottman of the University of Washington. "Gottman has proven something remarkable. If he analyzes an hour of a husband and wife talking, he can predict with 95 percent accuracy whether that couple will still be married fifteen years later. If he watches a couple for fifteen minutes, his success rate is around 90 percent." (p. 22.) You'll have to read the book to discover the tell-tale sign.

What Gottman does "teach[es] us a great deal about a critical part of rapid cognition known as thin-slicing. 'Thin-slicing' refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patters in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.... Thin-slicing is part of what makes the unconscious so dazzling. But it's also what we find most problematic about rapid cognition." (p. 23.)

Gladwell also explores these problematic aspects in Blink. In a somewhat humorous example, he offers the case of President Warren G. Harding. Voters evidently believed he would be a good president because he looked presidential. "[H]is 'lusty black eyebrows contrasted with his steel-gray hair to give the effect of force, his massive shoulders and bronzed complexion gave the effect of health.'" (p. 74, quoting Harding biographer Francis Russell.) However, in this instance, Gladwell says they were fooled by their adaptive unconscious or thin-slicing. Looking presidential didn't equate to being a good president. "He was, most historians agree, one of the worst presidents in American history." (p. 75.) Gladwell calls this sort of judgment by appearances the "Warren Harding error." (p. 91).

On the flipside, Gladwell argues against the common belief that having more data and more time to analyze it necessarily results in better decision-making. (pp. 13-14.) "In good decision-making, frugality matters." (p. 141.)

Ultimately, Gladwell comes to a balance. "[T]ruly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking." (p. 141.)

Gladwell continues with this theme of balance: "[W]e are often careless with our powers of rapid cognition. We don't know where our first impressions come from our precisely what they mean, so we don't always appreciate their fragility. Taking our powers of rapid cognition seriously means we have to acknowledge the subtle influences that can alter or undermine or bias the products of our unconscious.... Too often we are resigned to what happens in the blink of an eye. It doesn't seem like we have much control over whatever bubbles to the surface from our unconscious. But we do, and if we can control the environment in which rapid cognition takes place, then we can control rapid cognition." (pp. 251-52.)

This book has significance across myriad professions and life experiences. I believe the implications for trial lawyers are vast, although decision-making in trials received scant if any attention in Blink. Trial attorneys must be mindful of the thin-slicing being performed by jurors (and trial judge) with each witness, for example. Moreover, first impressions matter so much that the initial contacts with the jury--the voir dire process [asking questions to elicit juror bias] and opening statement--must be deemed the most crucial aspects of a trial.

This omission leads to a mild criticism of the book. The book inordinately focuses on police (and military) procedures and reactions, which are too specific to have broad application. More people are likely to have contact with the judicial system, as a party, juror, judge, attorney, witness or court staff, than being involved in a police shoot-out. At least that is my "thin-sliced" conclusion borne from the personal bias of my profession.

Highly recommended.