Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

In his new book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell proposes that people who succeed -- the best athletes, the richest people, the most talented professionals -- succeed not through sheer hard work. They succeed because they happened upon an unpredictably important series of opportunities, only noticeable in hindsight.

More about that in a minute.

In NLP, we use modeling to observe and replicate excellence. Often, "outliers" or people who are extremely successful, don't consciously know how they succeed. They may have suggestions or theories, but if they attempt to chunk down their success and make it useable for others, they often can't do it. Some of the worst teachers in the world are the best performers.

Modeling helps unpack what an outlier is doing, consciously and unconsciously, so that others can replicate their behaviors and beliefs and, hopefully, replicate the accompanying success of outliers. Many core techniques in NLP, such as the Outcome Frame and the Grief Process, come from modeling others.

But Gladwell proposes that it's not what the individual is doing by his or her own power that creates success. (By the way, these self-contained internal processes are often the focus of modeling.) Instead, unpredictably important opportunities come by way of:

• practical intelligence
• relative age to your peer group
• birth year and economic booms
• the power of collective support
• sheer chance meetings
  
• growing up in a culture of possibility
• having the time and motivation to acculumate 10,000 hours of experience in your field
• race and ethnicity (and not necessarily the most powerful or "desireable" race or ethnicity)

I like the twist to modeling that this suggests. It means that it's critical to look at all the logical levels in NLP modeling, including Environment.

And controlling the environment is tricky!

I highly recommend reading the book. Malcolm has his usual storyteller hat on, complete with twists and turns in plot. My favorite parts are:

• The "10,000 Hour Rule" chapter, especially section 2, which tells the story of K. Anders Ericsson's research about "gifted" musicians. It's not talent, but 10 years of practice, that makes for a master.
  
• "Marita's Bargain." This chapter tells the story of what it takes to escape the orbit of poverty and non-possibility thinking: lots of hard work... and luck.
• "A Jamaican Story," which tells the story of Malcolm Gladwell's own grandparents and parents. He told this section with a lot of heart and verve.
  

His best writing is in "Marita's Bargain" and "A Jamaican Story."

There were a couple of uneven parts. I didn't care for the chapter on airplane crashes and the detailed black box transcripts of the hours and minutes before deadly crashes. He makes a very strong case for the strength of cultural norms in this chapter. It's just unpleasant to read about such tragedy, I guess. My CSI-inclined friends may like this one!

If you'd like to sample some of the book for yourself, he's posted excepts on his website, including a part of the chapter on the 10,000 Hour Rule.