I finished reading Malcom Gladwell's latest book, Outliers, a few nights ago.
I know what I have to say about this book is going to be completely esoteric, in the sense that you will likely have to read it before fully participating. Not that you're not brilliant people; I'm sure you can easily make sense out of my words. But my fear is that if you haven't read it, you may be tempted to take some of the things I say at face value, which is not how they're written -- they're written with the mental tapestry of Outliers as a background. I'm not sure of another way to do this, as I want to attempt to take the concepts Gladwell presents in Outliers one step further.
You should probably view these initial paragraphs as much of a disclaimer as anything else, as I don't want to "give away" the book for you. Go read it and come on back!
I enjoyed this read immensely, as I have all of Gladwell's works, and this is perhaps even my favorite. Where all his works provide plenty of abstract intellectual fodder for my mind to gleefully process for weeks, Outliers has a sharp edge of pragmatism that makes it special. It also contains tinges of the kind of social activism that really revs my engine, turns my crank, places my soapbox before a microphone... that kind of thing. Here's a few thoughts:
1. Education
How can the educational system continue to ignore works like this? In Outliers, Gladwell presents a bevy of facts (not to mention crystal clear logic) for how and why the college admission process, for one thing, is mostly an outdated ludicrous absurdity. But he doesn't stop there; it turns out, the social constructs we've built around most organized projects (schools, sports, music, etc.) have become self-fulfilling prophecies, archetypal facades that have been built on so many layers of edifice that they can no longer even see where they began, and for what purpose.
How does one even go about reforming these magnificent disasters of greed and perpetual fragmentation? Do we even try? I'm inclined to encourage the beginning of something else; to foster and support a brand new educational model, for example, that can hopefully someday replace the current system. (Gladly, some of this discussion has already begun: P21, KIPP, etc..)
2. Self-Made BS
I love the idea that the "self-made man" is a total myth. I've suspected this to be true for awhile, intuitively, so it's nice to see some logical background for it. The truth is, nobody makes it on their own. EVER.
This makes infinitely more sense to me. People don't live in a vacuum; we are constantly "made" by our social surroundings. That's not to say we have no control, but once we begin to realize that we need to change our surroundings and not just ourselves, I think we'll be a long way towards undersatnding how to better create the future.
3. Social Assessments
How can we connect an understanding of the social construction component in success with studies of our own lives, past and future?
This is the issue that intrigues me the most about the implications of Outliers: is there a way to somehow extrapolate a model from Gladwell's work to where we could analyze our own life story -- our own social constructs, our family backgrounds, the month and year in which we were born, and the particular moment of history we were born into -- and combine it with personal research into individual talents and strengths, and then multiply that knowledge by what we are passionate about, thereby providing a much more insigntful process into each person's unique "place in the world"...??
Seems like a an intense endeavor, to say the least, but just imagine the possibilities if we could! We've already made so much progress within individualized assessments (psychological, emotional, talent, etc.); why couldn't we develop systems to generate "social" or "contextual" assessments?
//
While I Swim at Home, Our Combatants Fight On
by Ben Stein (from NewsMax Magazine June 2008, Pg. 34)
THERE IS A MAGNIFICENT SCENE IN BLADE RUNNER, MY FAVORITE postwar movie, in which Rutger Hauer, who plays a replicant, a human-looking robot, prepares to die. He tells his possibly human pursuer, Harrison Ford, that he has seen amazing things in his short life far out in outer space, and then he folds himself up and says, "Time to die."
As I get older, at a breakneck pace, I often think of the most beautiful, magnificent sights I have seen. The night sky in Santa Cruz, California, where I lay on a picnic bench and watched more stars than I had ever seen. It was a perfect moment of peace. I think of the Upper Priest Lake in Bonner County, Idaho, a lake three miles long, totally as nature made it eons ago, surrounded by forests and mountains, the Canada border a stone's throw away, immense eagles soaring overhead, with only one other guest, a young man windsurfing along the placid waters. And people say there is no God?
Then I think of my German Shorthaired Pointers lying in each others' paws as they sleep on the bed next to me. And I think of my saintly wife, with her perfect profile, reading in bed next to me, and I think of how lucky I was to find my soul's perfect companions -- my wife and my hounds.
But there is something I find even more amazing, even more moving: the sights of young men and women in the uniforms of the United States military, the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, the Coast Guard, the Reserves, and the Guard. It isn't just that they look great in their uniforms and their tall, straight posture.
No, what is amazing to me, and a spectacular sight, is that these are human beings with the same wishes and dreams for a long, peaceful, fulfilled life as you and I have. But they have offered up their young lives and their bodies and their health and their peace of mind and their very sanity -- and that of their families -- to go out and fight for my worthless, selfish life and comfort.
I sit at home. I swim in my pool. I play with my dogs. I make fresh Alaskan salmon for my wife on the grill. Then I check my stocks and then I go to sleep with the loves of my life as the air conditioning and the electric blanket and the mattress keep me perfectly comfortable.
They -- the military in combat -- sleep in ditches if they can sleep at all. They get their legs blown off. They have permanent brain damage. They go to eternity before their time. They live with the fear of torture if they are captured by the terrorists. They leave their children behind. They miss years at a time of their babies growing up. Their wives -- the true backbone of the nation -- keep the family together while the soldiers keep the perimeter of terror far from our hearths.
And for this, they are paid modest wages, at best. They lose their families all too often. They live in extreme discomfort. They are treated like commodities to be moved on a chessboard of global struggle.
Imagine, just imagine, what it is like to be in combat! Imagine the smartest people on the planet, the Germans and the Japanese, armed with the best weapons man can devise, trying to kill our fathers and grandfathers while they struggled in mud and snow and hail and freezing rain. And then the war ends and we drive in cars with tail fins, and they who once tossed grenades at Japanese pillboxes now coach the high-school tennis team, and combat is just a nightmare. Imagine that while we complain about the stock market and how expensive gasoline is, they fight it out with terrorists who use retarded children as suicide bombers and have no such thing as conscience.
Then they come home and see that there is no mention of them in the news, that the media cares only about deranged movie stars and recording artists and how much people weigh. They, the soldiers, marines, sailors, pilots, guard, Coast Guard, reserves, are invisible and alone.
Then, the combat stars go back to fight again, and we continue to worry about interest rates.
God help us. God bless them, the thin pillars on which all of mankind's tomorrows' hopes rest, the most glorious sight on heaven and earth. They should be the first thoughts in our prayers every moment of every day. They are the real miracles.
//
When in a position of leadership, how much does a leader's lack of faith in a subordinate actually create their downfall? Is there some kind of derivative of a self-fulfilling prophecy that happens here?
To put it another way, will I, as a leader, only ever get as much as I expect out of the folks I try to lead? Is there some kind of projected glass ceiling of progress or productivity that I fabricate over their heads?
Or can a leader's unwavering belief in a person actually help propel them towards success?
I believe this to be true. I have personally been in a number of situations where it appears as though a protege simply needs someone else to believe in them... and, perhaps most, to believe in them even when they can't believe in themselves.
I am hopefully always learning more about myself. It is one of my constant projects: to figure out why I act the way I do. One thing I have learned is that I'm so confined within my own skin that it's often a Sisyphean battle to even understand WHAT I'm doing half the time, as most of my movements have become completely rote programming. But every once in awhile something breaks through, and a light bulb turns on.
I imagine I'm like one of those Lite-Brite machines from the 80's... eventually -- just maybe, someday -- I can light up enough LED's to actually get a complete picture of me.
At the nonprofit I work with, we're currently looking for a person to take over our one of our departments. I've learned that I have an overwhelming tendency to be extremely optimistic when it comes to people. I always think they can accomplish great things, often more than they may even think. But at the same time, I've learned that a myopic view of only seeing "potential" and not necessarily "reality" can also have a dangerous edge. I know how crucial it is to have the "right people on the bus" and that making a hasty decision on the front end is a very costly error, in more ways than just financially.
But as we look to add people to our staff, or to grow the participants we already have for that matter, isn't it more dangerous to set expectations too low, instead of too high?
In any kind of relational setting, be it an organization or a friendship or a marriage, isn't there just something about the complete audacity of hope (to quote that other guy); hope that each person involved can change and grow and become more than they currently are?
Isn't there just something grand about always looking for the best in people instead of expecting the worst?
The greater danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and miss it. Rather, it is that we aim too low and reach it." — Michelangelo//
It's easy to discount all the things that are happening behind the scenes.
In our entertainment-based culture, we tend to only respect the final, glowing, sparkling, gleaming product, free from all blemishes and glitches. We airbrush our photos, we put 7 second time-delays on our "live" radio and television feeds, and we have dress rehearsals for our church services. We want our news packaged into headlines, simple soundbytes to consume or discard. We want our politicians in suits and ties, not gym clothes.
Anymore, there have almost become two strictly dichotomized worlds: one for presentation, and one for preparation. Everyday Life has become a TV show.
But behind the scenes... that's where the magic happens.
I just finished reading Malcom Gladwell's glorious book "The Tipping Point" in which he describes how relatively small things have a tremendous impact in "tipping" social epidemics, from fashion to education to crime. In the first section he describes The Law Of The Few, where a relatively small number of extraordinary people are crucial to kickstarting an epidemic. But I'm starting to wonder if it's those select few, those people that fit into some kind of "behind the scenes" Social or Informational Aristocracy, that actually do most of the world's work, period.
When I originally came up with the "behind the scenes" idea for this post, I wanted to write about what I find to be an utterly demoralizing disconnection between how "the masses" seem to perceive reality and what I'd consider to be "actual reality." I am often frustrated by how so many people can be so infinitely clueless as to what's going on in the world around them.
Ever met some of these folks?
But I don't feel like the gap can be attributed simply to an lack of intelligence; in fact, I think the problem is mostly 1) a shortage of ability to manage one's own life or 2) sheer laziness (or a combination of both).
I know that last little rant can make me sound a bit condescending, but actually, I bring this up because I know that people can change. If you want to learn to manage your life, do it. If you want to stop being lazy, do it. Also, I know discussions like this can make me sound like some kind of elitist, but I am not talking about human value, I am talking about human productivity, and that's an important distinction.
No matter the reason, the reality is that it's really just a numbers game. At the end of the day, most people are responders, not innovators. We can talk in terms of Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation bell curve, of innovators-to-laggards, if you like... same thing. Here's a nice epidemiology diagram, for your visual jollity:
You can see the "learning curve" that sweeps upward and which, by the end, represents the nearly complete diffusion of the phenomena in question. (Everyone feels more intelligent when discussing sociology with big words.)
What I know is that there are all of these "things" happening out there in the world: from food crises to economic crises to violent military crises, and most people are content -- happier, even -- knowing that they won't every have to touch these problems with a 30-foot-stick if they don't want to. But for me, these realities hit me like a branch in the face. For me, it means that someone else is controlling my life -- or at least "pulling the strings" and directing aspects of the world I interact in.
And I'm not a big fan of that.
If you've read Gladwell's book and buy what he says, you simply can't get around the concept that, in terms of "phenomena tipping" at least, some people are simply more important than others. What I wonder is if this mystery also extends into the world's productivity.
Are there a select few people pulling the majority of the weight? Does the 80/20 rule apply here? Are 20% of the world's population doing 80% of the work?
Is there any way to tell?
//
You can see the "learning curve" that sweeps upward and which, by the end, represents the nearly complete diffusion of the phenomena in question. (Everyone feels more intelligent when discussing sociology with big words.)
What I know is that there are all of these "things" happening out there in the world: from food crises to economic crises to violent military crises, and most people are content -- happier, even -- knowing that they won't every have to touch these problems with a 30-foot-stick if they don't want to. But for me, these realities hit me like a branch in the face. For me, it means that someone else is controlling my life -- or at least "pulling the strings" and directing aspects of the world I interact in.
And I'm not a big fan of that.
If you've read Gladwell's book and buy what he says, you simply can't get around the concept that, in terms of "phenomena tipping" at least, some people are simply more important than others. What I wonder is if this mystery also extends into the world's productivity.
Are there a select few people pulling the majority of the weight? Does the 80/20 rule apply here? Are 20% of the world's population doing 80% of the work?
Is there any way to tell?
//