Outliers is a sneaky book.
On first glance Malcolm Gladwell's title sounds like a statistics text; then just another book about outstanding achievers -- those plucky mail room clerks who end up running the company. But that's just the storyline he's trying to overcome.
He acknowledges that those clerks have to be smart, ambitious and hard working to rise to the top but notes that they'll never make it unless they have a lot of help -- and luck -- along the way.
'Well, that's a profound statement of the obvious!' you might say.
But it seems to me that myths like those peddled by Horatio Alger have contributed to our current plight. For thirty years we've been told that great men (and women) will rise to success if they can follow their own interests in a free marketplace and that society will benefit as a result. Great men rise up and society benefits from the trickle down.
Alan Greenspan was among the most powerful advocates of that kind of idea -- thanks a lot Ayn Rand! But in October of 2008 he testified before Congress that the current 'Great Recession' had caused him to question the narrative underlying his entire life.
For generations we've idolized men like Henry Ford and FDR, Reagan and Jack Welsh (more on him later) -- and Alan Greenspan -- while forgetting that each rose from communities that made their success possible.
The message I take from Outliers is to stop waiting for someone to save us and start building the kinds of communities that make it possible for the next generation to stand out.
Epilogue - By the way, when asked the secret of his success Jack Welsh said that it was his ability to tell compelling stories. While that's a great skill for 'outliers' maybe all of us could pay closer attention to the messier truths behind the stories we tell.
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