Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, Outliers, is entertaining and well told. His message isn't new, but the re-telling is worthwhile.
The essence of the book is that the incidence of success is a function of expertise and opportunity. Both are shaped by dispositional and situational factors. As a general rule, we tend to underestimate the time and effort it takes to develop true expertise and to undervalue the role of context (time, place, family, and culture). Such bias too often leads to an under-investment in skills and the shaping of our environment.
As K. Anders Ericsson and others have revealed through their research, world class expertise requires 10 to 20 years of accumulated, deliberate practice. Due to the powerful dynamics of feedback and accumulations, even small differences in initial endowments and conditions can lead to dramatic differences in outcomes. After the fact, we are prone to attribute achievement with "talent" and "genius" and, in the process, fail to do justice to hard work and good fortune.
As much as I appreciate Gladwell's storytelling, it seems to me that he fails to appropriately highlight how the magnitude of success is subject to extreme variance of the "winners take most" variety (see Art De Vany, for instance). While the cultivation of expertise can increase the chance of success, it does not guarantee success, nor is there a simple, causal relationship between the degree of expertise and the magnitude of achievement. Such extreme variance seem to be the result of supply side factors (see Chris Anderson) and demand side circumstances (see Duncan Watts).
While we too often neglect situational factors in favor of attributions based on disposition (real and imagined), it's tough to observe, measure, and shape our situation. We have no control over when, where, and to whom we are born, for instance. While it sounds old-fashioned, the most direct ways for us to influence our success are dispositional:
- We can take responsibility for the cultivation of our own expertise. Hard, sustained, self-critical effort is the key. Don't demean the achievement of others, and don't let yourself off the hook, by too readily making attributions of superior talent. Differences in endowments are real, but are too often excuses rather than reasons.
- We can learn humility. Achievement and success is not random, but chance plays a much bigger role in our success and failure than most of us would like to acknowledge. By being humble about our own successes, we might find it easier to sympathize with the failures of others.
- We can learn courage. Years of deliberate, often painful, practice is required to compete. That provides us with the chance of success, but guarantees nothing. Even when we succeed, the skewed distribution of rewards often make it hard to perceive the difference between success and failure (ask the person who takes 4th place in an Olympic event). It takes courage to persevere. As Winston Churchill said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
