Book Review – Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

Malcolm Gladwell is back with another insightful non-fiction book. I really enjoyed Tipping Point and Blink. In Outliers Gladwell is attempting to identify why some people are successful while others of the same theoretical ability are not. His assumption comes down to opportunity that in many cases is completely out of the subject’s control. For example he delves in to why the majority of successful Canadian hockey players are born within the first 3 months of the year. What he finds is that Canadian youth hockey slots children based on year of birth. So, everyone born in 1980 is in the same level. So, starting out at 4 or 5 years old the kids born Jan-Mar are more developmentally advanced that those born in Oct-Dec. So, these kids are the best in the league at that young age. As a result they get the most coaching and ice time. Moving forward they are making the All-Star teams etc. So, Gladwell is saying that by being born in the latter half of the year you are less likely to get the attention to develop in to the player that they have could be. Now, this is just one of the examples he goes through many, but it’s definitely interesting. As always with Gladwell it tends to feel like common sense broken down to the n-th degree, but it’s totally worth the read.

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