7 ms·

The secrets of Malcolm Gladwell

102 points by wvl 17y ago

wakeupthedawn 17y ago
Gladwell is successful because he tells so many people what they want to hear: your lack of talent doesn't matter. I always lol when I hear the Bill Gates example. The guy is a freaking genius. He had to go through Math 50 at Harvard to figure out there were people smarter than he was. Somebody else sneaking into the computer lab to learn programming (I'm sure there were many) wouldn't have been as good.
- tptacek 17y ago
  This has nothing to do with the article. Whatever you think of his books, Gladwell is demonstrably a talented public speaker, and this article explains his basic method.
  - mnemonicsloth 17y ago
    No, Gladwell is a demonstrably successful public speaker. Gladwell's point -- and the OP author's -- is that you should taboo the word "talent." Talent is the idea you wind up with when you commit the Fundamental Attribution Error while observing success or skill: In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error ... describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations ["he is very talented at X"] for the observed behaviors [extreme skill at X] of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. ["he spent his entire childhood practicing X"] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
    - tptacek 17y ago
      Have you ever watched him give a talk? Have you, yourself, ever given a talk to a large audience? I have, and it's a bitch. He's a demonstrably talented public speaker. It is extremely interesting to me, and, I assume, to most people who do public speaking, that Gladwell is actually writing out the entire content of his speeches. The rest of your comment, whatever. I don't care about his books. Neither does the author of this article, if you care to read it.
      - mnemonicsloth 17y ago
        Yes, and yes. Good for you, and I agree. The fact remains, Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent. If you call someone talented, you're implicitly conceding they were somehow predisposed to have the skill they've got. Gladwell says there are no such predispositions, only histories, habits, and hard work. UPDATE: the definition of TALENT I'm using is here: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/talent http://www.thefreedictionary.com/talent tal·ent (tlnt) n. 1. A marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment. See Synonyms at ability.
        yungchin 17y ago
        > The fact remains, Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent. That's not what I read in it. If you look up the passage about the conservatory students, you'll find that he says that you need a sufficient amount of talent to get into it, and beyond that level, effort expended is a more important factor.
        mbrubeck 17y ago
        "Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent." Did you read Outliers? Because it doesn't actually say that. Let's see what it really says: "Yes, the hockey players who make it to the professional level are more talented than you or me. But they also got a big head start..." (p 30) "Joy and Gates and the Beatles are all undeniably talented. Lennon and McCartney had a musical gift of the sort that comes along once in a generation, and Bill Joy, let us not forget, had a mind so quick that he was able to make up a complicated algorithm on the fly that left his professors in awe. That much is obvious. But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities..." (p 55) Gladwell argues against what his book calls "the primacy of talent." He says talent is one ingredient in success - even a necessary one - but not the most distinguishing one. He describes all the successful people he profiles as very talented, but adds that many equally talented people are unsuccessful because of different historical, cultural, and personal backgrounds.
        17y ago
  - mrduncan 17y ago
    Here is his TED talk from a few years ago: http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce...
  - dabent 17y ago
    I was stuck by the line: "It occurred to me afterwards that Gladwell’s success as a speaker illustrates one of his homespun themes - hard work pays off." Indeed, Gadwell has a talent for writing and speaking. While tastes for what he offers differ, he's taken that talent and worked hard to develop it. We all might not have the brain of Bill Gates, but I've seen many go surprisingly far on hard work with moderate talent. I've also sadly seen some very bright people just drag along through life from lack of effort. It's really sad to witness.
- yungchin 17y ago
  > Gladwell is successful because he tells so many people what they want to hear: your lack of talent doesn't matter. Actually, I thought he told people something they really don't want to hear: your superb talents don't mean a thing unless you straighten up and put in your 10k hours. It's a matter of perspective ;)
  - wakeupthedawn 17y ago
    Right, because that's clearly what's driving sales of Outliers. Telling a small group of people what they might not want to hear as opposed to telling a large group of people what they want to hear.
  - Sukotto 17y ago
    I find it really interesting that so many people hear what they want to hear in his talks. People on both sides of the talent vs hard-work debate are posting here using his books and lectures as support. Personally, I'm in the "work matters more than talent" camp. so of course, that's what I remember from his work :-) [edit: clarification]
    - mos1 17y ago
      I read it as an argument that to reach truly obscene, globally recognizable levels of achievement, you need talent, determination, discipline, and luck. It kind of makes sense if you think about it, since achievement typically has a log-normal distribution with a long right-hand tail, which implies that it's based on multiple normally distributed underlying factors. Take away any one of the factors, and you rapidly approach more "normal" levels of achievement.
- sabat 17y ago
  I wish I had learned a long time ago that what matters is not about what talent you're born with as much as what you do with it.
  - jamesbritt 17y ago
    Well, your future "a long time ago"s start right now.
    - nollidge 17y ago
      Cannot upvote this enough. What the hell are you waiting for? What the hell am I waiting for?
    - Sukotto 17y ago
      http://23moments.com/dont-you-dare-waste-your-fucking-time http://23moments.com/dont-you-dare-waste-your-fucking-time
- dgordon 17y ago
  It seemed to me he actually told people "Bill Gates may be a freaking genius, but he also worked harder than you've ever considered working, and took advantage of incredible, nearly unique, opportunities. That's what being a true outlier takes." How many high school kids were taking the bus to the conveniently located university computer lab in the middle of the night and programming all night in the early 1970s?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
saturdayplace 17y ago
Should be titled: Malcom Gladwell's public speaking secret. And the answer is plain as day,and rather boring. Said Gladwell, "I know it may not look like this. But it’s all scripted. I write down every word and then I learn it off by heart. I do that with all my talks and I’ve got lots of them" That's like asking someone who looks physically fit what their secret is, and they tell you, "Diet and exercise." Everyone knows this, but no one wants to put in the work.
- pmichaud 17y ago
  No one except the physically fit, expert public speakers.
- ibsulon 17y ago
  No, not everyone knows this. In fact, nearly every public speaker is initially taught not to do this. (I was in Forensics in high school, and recently joined Toastmasters.) For most people, if you try and memorize a speech, it will look like you've memorized a speech, because you will be fumbling for where you are next. If you are a professional speaker on a tour, someone with a lot of drama experience, or a salesperson with the same pitch every time, then it might make sense to do Gladwell's approach. For the rest of us, practice extensively but don't memorize start-to-finish.
  - tpyo 17y ago
    I just make mine up on the spot. Does no one else do this?
    - frossie 17y ago
      I just make mine up on the spot. Does no one else do this? It depends. There are some advantages to winging it: true spontaneity, an ability to have a more interactive presentation that is tuned to the rhythm and responses to the audience. The oft-materialised risk is that it turns into a rambling incoherent mess. In front of an unknown audience, the risk is too large, because if they don't feed you the right response, you are dead in the water. At least with a prepared talk you have something to fall back to. If you know your audience, or if you are determined to engage it whatever it takes (school talks come into this category), a certain amount of off-the-cuffness works well, provided you are confident you know what you are talking about.
fleaflicker 17y ago
I went to see him speak at a sportswriter's event in Brooklyn last week (he writes a lot about sports). He was unbelievable. I could listen to him for hours. He's as engaging in person as he is on paper--clear, not overly verbose, and unfailingly entertaining.
metra 17y ago
Surprised none of the editors caught this spelling mistake: perverserance. For a second I thought maybe that's the British way of spelling it but, no, it seems like it's just a spelling mistake.
- angelbob 17y ago
  "Perverseverance." That makes an excellent portmanteau of "perverse" and "perseverance." I may have to start using that, though not especially for Malcolm Gladwell.
hernan7 17y ago
That would be, sprezzatura (to make the hard look easy). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura
- nandemo 17y ago
  Er, no, admitting that you put a lot of effort into a speech is exactly what sprezzatura is not. Sprezzatura would be more like "oh, was the speech that good? I hadn't noticed myself. Well, now that you mention it, I guess it just comes naturally to me...".
yurisagalov 17y ago
I've done presentations and speeches as short as 30 seconds, and as long as 75 minutes, and in both cases, I always memorize and rehearse the talk, but I never memorize a script. This is generally a simple concept, and I think a lot of public speakers (who are far better than I am) do this as well. The idea is that you should know what you are talking about, but it should always be fresh, new, and interesting. When I do power point presentations, this is easy to accomplish - the points (1 to 2 at most, usually) are on the slide, and I simply expand on them in my talk. I may rehearse the slide/talk 10 times, and each time it will come out slightly different, and that is generally good. I want to make sure that I know what I am going to talk about, but I trust myself to be able to discuss the topic with some insight on the spot. Granted, this only works for topics you are familiar with, but no amount of prep in the world will make you comfortable leading a 75 minute discussion on a topic that is not close to your heart and mind.

102 points by wvl 17y ago

Gladwell is successful because he tells so many people what they want to hear: your lack of talent doesn't matter. I always lol when I hear the Bill Gates example. The guy is a freaking genius. He had to go through Math 50 at Harvard to figure out there were people smarter than he was. Somebody else sneaking into the computer lab to learn programming (I'm sure there were many) wouldn't have been as good.

tptacek 17y ago
This has nothing to do with the article. Whatever you think of his books, Gladwell is demonstrably a talented public speaker, and this article explains his basic method.
- mnemonicsloth 17y ago
  No, Gladwell is a demonstrably successful public speaker. Gladwell's point -- and the OP author's -- is that you should taboo the word "talent." Talent is the idea you wind up with when you commit the Fundamental Attribution Error while observing success or skill: In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error ... describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations ["he is very talented at X"] for the observed behaviors [extreme skill at X] of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. ["he spent his entire childhood practicing X"] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Have you ever watched him give a talk? Have you, yourself, ever given a talk to a large audience? I have, and it's a bitch. He's a demonstrably talented public speaker. It is extremely interesting to me, and, I assume, to most people who do public speaking, that Gladwell is actually writing out the entire content of his speeches. The rest of your comment, whatever. I don't care about his books. Neither does the author of this article, if you care to read it.
    - mnemonicsloth 17y ago
      Yes, and yes. Good for you, and I agree. The fact remains, Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent. If you call someone talented, you're implicitly conceding they were somehow predisposed to have the skill they've got. Gladwell says there are no such predispositions, only histories, habits, and hard work. UPDATE: the definition of TALENT I'm using is here: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/talent http://www.thefreedictionary.com/talent tal·ent (tlnt) n. 1. A marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment. See Synonyms at ability.
      - yungchin 17y ago
        > The fact remains, Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent. That's not what I read in it. If you look up the passage about the conservatory students, you'll find that he says that you need a sufficient amount of talent to get into it, and beyond that level, effort expended is a more important factor.
      - mbrubeck 17y ago
        "Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, argues that there is no such thing as talent." Did you read Outliers? Because it doesn't actually say that. Let's see what it really says: "Yes, the hockey players who make it to the professional level are more talented than you or me. But they also got a big head start..." (p 30) "Joy and Gates and the Beatles are all undeniably talented. Lennon and McCartney had a musical gift of the sort that comes along once in a generation, and Bill Joy, let us not forget, had a mind so quick that he was able to make up a complicated algorithm on the fly that left his professors in awe. That much is obvious. But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities..." (p 55) Gladwell argues against what his book calls "the primacy of talent." He says talent is one ingredient in success - even a necessary one - but not the most distinguishing one. He describes all the successful people he profiles as very talented, but adds that many equally talented people are unsuccessful because of different historical, cultural, and personal backgrounds.
        17y ago
- mrduncan 17y ago
  Here is his TED talk from a few years ago: http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce...
- dabent 17y ago
  I was stuck by the line: "It occurred to me afterwards that Gladwell’s success as a speaker illustrates one of his homespun themes - hard work pays off." Indeed, Gadwell has a talent for writing and speaking. While tastes for what he offers differ, he's taken that talent and worked hard to develop it. We all might not have the brain of Bill Gates, but I've seen many go surprisingly far on hard work with moderate talent. I've also sadly seen some very bright people just drag along through life from lack of effort. It's really sad to witness.
yungchin 17y ago
> Gladwell is successful because he tells so many people what they want to hear: your lack of talent doesn't matter. Actually, I thought he told people something they really don't want to hear: your superb talents don't mean a thing unless you straighten up and put in your 10k hours. It's a matter of perspective ;)
- wakeupthedawn 17y ago
  Right, because that's clearly what's driving sales of Outliers. Telling a small group of people what they might not want to hear as opposed to telling a large group of people what they want to hear.
- Sukotto 17y ago
  I find it really interesting that so many people hear what they want to hear in his talks. People on both sides of the talent vs hard-work debate are posting here using his books and lectures as support. Personally, I'm in the "work matters more than talent" camp. so of course, that's what I remember from his work :-) [edit: clarification]
  - mos1 17y ago
    I read it as an argument that to reach truly obscene, globally recognizable levels of achievement, you need talent, determination, discipline, and luck. It kind of makes sense if you think about it, since achievement typically has a log-normal distribution with a long right-hand tail, which implies that it's based on multiple normally distributed underlying factors. Take away any one of the factors, and you rapidly approach more "normal" levels of achievement.
sabat 17y ago
I wish I had learned a long time ago that what matters is not about what talent you're born with as much as what you do with it.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  Well, your future "a long time ago"s start right now.
  - nollidge 17y ago
    Cannot upvote this enough. What the hell are you waiting for? What the hell am I waiting for?
  - Sukotto 17y ago
    http://23moments.com/dont-you-dare-waste-your-fucking-time http://23moments.com/dont-you-dare-waste-your-fucking-time
dgordon 17y ago
It seemed to me he actually told people "Bill Gates may be a freaking genius, but he also worked harder than you've ever considered working, and took advantage of incredible, nearly unique, opportunities. That's what being a true outlier takes." How many high school kids were taking the bus to the conveniently located university computer lab in the middle of the night and programming all night in the early 1970s?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

saturdayplace 17y ago

Should be titled: Malcom Gladwell's public speaking secret. And the answer is plain as day,and rather boring. Said Gladwell, "I know it may not look like this. But it’s all scripted. I write down every word and then I learn it off by heart. I do that with all my talks and I’ve got lots of them" That's like asking someone who looks physically fit what their secret is, and they tell you, "Diet and exercise." Everyone knows this, but no one wants to put in the work.

pmichaud 17y ago
No one except the physically fit, expert public speakers.
ibsulon 17y ago
No, not everyone knows this. In fact, nearly every public speaker is initially taught not to do this. (I was in Forensics in high school, and recently joined Toastmasters.) For most people, if you try and memorize a speech, it will look like you've memorized a speech, because you will be fumbling for where you are next. If you are a professional speaker on a tour, someone with a lot of drama experience, or a salesperson with the same pitch every time, then it might make sense to do Gladwell's approach. For the rest of us, practice extensively but don't memorize start-to-finish.
- tpyo 17y ago
  I just make mine up on the spot. Does no one else do this?
  - frossie 17y ago
    I just make mine up on the spot. Does no one else do this? It depends. There are some advantages to winging it: true spontaneity, an ability to have a more interactive presentation that is tuned to the rhythm and responses to the audience. The oft-materialised risk is that it turns into a rambling incoherent mess. In front of an unknown audience, the risk is too large, because if they don't feed you the right response, you are dead in the water. At least with a prepared talk you have something to fall back to. If you know your audience, or if you are determined to engage it whatever it takes (school talks come into this category), a certain amount of off-the-cuffness works well, provided you are confident you know what you are talking about.

fleaflicker 17y ago

I went to see him speak at a sportswriter's event in Brooklyn last week (he writes a lot about sports). He was unbelievable. I could listen to him for hours. He's as engaging in person as he is on paper--clear, not overly verbose, and unfailingly entertaining.

metra 17y ago

Surprised none of the editors caught this spelling mistake: perverserance. For a second I thought maybe that's the British way of spelling it but, no, it seems like it's just a spelling mistake.

angelbob 17y ago
"Perverseverance." That makes an excellent portmanteau of "perverse" and "perseverance." I may have to start using that, though not especially for Malcolm Gladwell.

hernan7 17y ago

That would be, sprezzatura (to make the hard look easy). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura

nandemo 17y ago
Er, no, admitting that you put a lot of effort into a speech is exactly what sprezzatura is not. Sprezzatura would be more like "oh, was the speech that good? I hadn't noticed myself. Well, now that you mention it, I guess it just comes naturally to me...".

yurisagalov 17y ago

I've done presentations and speeches as short as 30 seconds, and as long as 75 minutes, and in both cases, I always memorize and rehearse the talk, but I never memorize a script. This is generally a simple concept, and I think a lot of public speakers (who are far better than I am) do this as well. The idea is that you should know what you are talking about, but it should always be fresh, new, and interesting. When I do power point presentations, this is easy to accomplish - the points (1 to 2 at most, usually) are on the slide, and I simply expand on them in my talk. I may rehearse the slide/talk 10 times, and each time it will come out slightly different, and that is generally good. I want to make sure that I know what I am going to talk about, but I trust myself to be able to discuss the topic with some insight on the spot. Granted, this only works for topics you are familiar with, but no amount of prep in the world will make you comfortable leading a 75 minute discussion on a topic that is not close to your heart and mind.