The second book I read completely in the new year, after reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, is Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. I actually heard of and read part of Outliers in 2009 but never completed it, just like his book The Tipping Point, which sits on my bookshelf seventy percent of the way done and partially remembered. Maybe I'll re-read it sometime. Outliers is along the lines of sociology and anthropology, it analyzed culture and how things became the way they are, in this case "The Story of Success" or stories and examples of how individuals became successful. Reading or taking topics from this book won't make you the next Bill Gates, but his example is told within. By the way there are spoilers on topics ahead...
Malcolm Gladwell starts the book by defining the word outlier:
1: something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body
2: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the other of the sample
"Roseto Valfortore lies one hundred miles southwest of Rome..." and in the late 1800s a large number of the citizens of Roseto eventually migrate and settle to Bangor, Pennsylvania. These Roseto residents in Bangor were noticed by a physician to have better than average cardiovascular health. "In Roseto, virtually no one under fifty-five had died of a heart attack or showed any signs of heart disease. For men over sixty-five, the death rate from heart disease in Roseto was roughly half that of the United States as a whole." The physician, Stewart Wolf, did a study and further examined why this was the case. In his investigation, he fount that this was not the case in surrounding towns very close to the Rosetans of Bangor. It was fount that at the time there were no medication to aide in having good heart health. Residents smoked, were obese and didn't exercise much. The way of life was average, no special diets. Gladwell points out that for this peculiar occurence, Rosetans are an outlier case. In the end it was fount the reason was contributed to that Rosetans had a very strong community bond, having this close family like town contributed to good heart health.
To summarize the book in a simple description, Malcolm Gladwell illustrates that to be successful, it takes the right timing, many hours of practice, unique opportunities, privileges or resources, talent, luck and the culture you are from along with the epoch you're from matters.
Chapter One
The Matthew Effect:
"For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." -Matthew 25:29
The meaning behind this parable is that resources in life are often given to those who already have advantages and those that don't have some form of pre-existing advantages are put onto a group that do not get help and likely even having what they already have taken away. Chapter one points out that a psychologist's wife, while attending a hockey game with husband, notices the birthdays of the players on the roster, in that most, if not all, the hockey players were born in an early month of the year. This is to give young nine or ten years old children an earlier advantage to grow, practice and get better as opposed to a young hockey player being born in October through December having less time to stimulate. The Canadian hockey teams cutoff date to be accepted into a good program is January 1st. Gladwell then gives examples on how this happens for other sports, as well as education. Sporting scouts will then select the bigger and better, the ones usually given an early start because of their month in birth.
Chapter Two
The 10,000-Hour Rule:
The meaning behind this parable is that resources in life are often given to those who already have advantages and those that don't have some form of pre-existing advantages are put onto a group that do not get help and likely even having what they already have taken away. Chapter one points out that a psychologist's wife, while attending a hockey game with husband, notices the birthdays of the players on the roster, in that most, if not all, the hockey players were born in an early month of the year. This is to give young nine or ten years old children an earlier advantage to grow, practice and get better as opposed to a young hockey player being born in October through December having less time to stimulate. The Canadian hockey teams cutoff date to be accepted into a good program is January 1st. Gladwell then gives examples on how this happens for other sports, as well as education. Sporting scouts will then select the bigger and better, the ones usually given an early start because of their month in birth.
Chapter Two
The 10,000-Hour Rule:
"In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours."
The Beatles were just another high school rock band. It wasn't until they were invited to play constantly for hours on hours in clubs in Hamburg, Germany. "The Beatles ended up traveling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962. On the first trip, they played 106 nights, five or more hours a night." Gladwell then goes on to explain before coming to the U.S., Lennon and McCartney were already playing together seven years. And Mozart, a genius? Well it seems his earlier "works are not outstanding" cited from the book Genius Explained by Michael Howe.
"the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No. 9, K. 271) was not composed until he was twenty-one: by that time Mozart had already been composing concertos for ten years."
In this chapter Gladwell explains how in the late 1960s computer programs were compiled using cardboard punch cards feed into huge mainframes one line of code at a time. These mainframes took up entire huge rooms and were owned only by large companies like IBM. It would take hours or days to have your program completed because the compilation had to be scheduled. The invention of what's called time-sharing allowed multiple access to the same compilation without the appointment which improved speed in getting the program built. In the early 1970s only a few colleges and organizations had time-sharing, guess which? The very same schools like the University of Michigan which Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun Microsystems) had attended. Gladwell goes on to discuss that in Bill Joy's college education, hours upon hours, days and until the late hours of the night, were spent programming. The 10,000-Hour rule is admitted from Bill Joy stating "So, so maybe... ten thousand hours... That's about right." In my calculating 10,000 hours in the average American work hours at 40 hours a week, times 52 weeks a year, 10,000 hours is about 5 years. If Bill Joy had an early unique opportunity to a unique programming resource as time-sharing, then Bill Gates is said to have had an even earlier start. Coming from a wealthy background had the privilege to send Bill Gates to a top private school that also had time-sharing in it's computer program. Not many schools had computer classes back then, nor time-sharing access. Along with a little luck, drive, his share talent, the right connections also spent hours upon hours programming. By the time he had started Microsoft, Bill Gates had 7 years and had over ten thousand hours of programming experience.
Gladwell then goes back on the importance of dates, birth dates. This time it's not about months, it's about years, specifically being born in the early or mid 1950s (Bill Joy - 1954, Steve Jobs - 1955, Bill Gates - 1955). One of the first personal computers to hit the mass market sold thousands in the mid 1970s. These PCs needed a programming language to go with them, and who is in line to provide this for the revolution? It would seem from the year 1950, one born at this time, until 1960, it would make them 10 years old, not old enough to do anything, but he or she is a seed. In the next several years one would begin his or her starting point in either math, science or technology. Bill Gates and Bill Joy immersed themselves in the world of computers. By the mid 1970s, when the first PCs were being sold, they were in the perfect age, 20s. They had already had a rare background of over 5 years from the age of 13-15 until they were in their 20s, the perfect age to take part in the PC revolution; the perfect time to fulfill the need for programming those PCs. With pre-existing math talent, access to unique resources, connections, 10,000 hours and the right timing made computing success for these individuals.
Chapter Three and Four
The Trouble with Geniuses Part 1 and Part 2:
"Knowledge of a boy's IQ is of little help if you are faced with a formful of clever boys."
Without reinforcement of resources or without the right formula or connections, having high IQ does not necessarily guarantee success, no matter how smart one is. In addition, once someone reaches a certain number in IQ it doesn't matter how much higher someone else is to be deemed a smarter genius, meaning someone with an IQ of 140 is not necessarily smarter than someone 130. It's like a basketball player 6' 6" tall is not necessarily better than a 6' 2" tall basketball player. Success also depends on a factor other than great talent, height or IQ (having analytical intelligence), it also depends on practical intelligence (the ability to work with people and use logic) or even divergent intelligence (using your brain to come up with different usages for things other than it's practical purpose or imagination to create).
Chapter Five
The Three Lessons of Joe Flom:
The Beatles were just another high school rock band. It wasn't until they were invited to play constantly for hours on hours in clubs in Hamburg, Germany. "The Beatles ended up traveling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962. On the first trip, they played 106 nights, five or more hours a night." Gladwell then goes on to explain before coming to the U.S., Lennon and McCartney were already playing together seven years. And Mozart, a genius? Well it seems his earlier "works are not outstanding" cited from the book Genius Explained by Michael Howe.
"the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No. 9, K. 271) was not composed until he was twenty-one: by that time Mozart had already been composing concertos for ten years."
In this chapter Gladwell explains how in the late 1960s computer programs were compiled using cardboard punch cards feed into huge mainframes one line of code at a time. These mainframes took up entire huge rooms and were owned only by large companies like IBM. It would take hours or days to have your program completed because the compilation had to be scheduled. The invention of what's called time-sharing allowed multiple access to the same compilation without the appointment which improved speed in getting the program built. In the early 1970s only a few colleges and organizations had time-sharing, guess which? The very same schools like the University of Michigan which Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun Microsystems) had attended. Gladwell goes on to discuss that in Bill Joy's college education, hours upon hours, days and until the late hours of the night, were spent programming. The 10,000-Hour rule is admitted from Bill Joy stating "So, so maybe... ten thousand hours... That's about right." In my calculating 10,000 hours in the average American work hours at 40 hours a week, times 52 weeks a year, 10,000 hours is about 5 years. If Bill Joy had an early unique opportunity to a unique programming resource as time-sharing, then Bill Gates is said to have had an even earlier start. Coming from a wealthy background had the privilege to send Bill Gates to a top private school that also had time-sharing in it's computer program. Not many schools had computer classes back then, nor time-sharing access. Along with a little luck, drive, his share talent, the right connections also spent hours upon hours programming. By the time he had started Microsoft, Bill Gates had 7 years and had over ten thousand hours of programming experience.
Gladwell then goes back on the importance of dates, birth dates. This time it's not about months, it's about years, specifically being born in the early or mid 1950s (Bill Joy - 1954, Steve Jobs - 1955, Bill Gates - 1955). One of the first personal computers to hit the mass market sold thousands in the mid 1970s. These PCs needed a programming language to go with them, and who is in line to provide this for the revolution? It would seem from the year 1950, one born at this time, until 1960, it would make them 10 years old, not old enough to do anything, but he or she is a seed. In the next several years one would begin his or her starting point in either math, science or technology. Bill Gates and Bill Joy immersed themselves in the world of computers. By the mid 1970s, when the first PCs were being sold, they were in the perfect age, 20s. They had already had a rare background of over 5 years from the age of 13-15 until they were in their 20s, the perfect age to take part in the PC revolution; the perfect time to fulfill the need for programming those PCs. With pre-existing math talent, access to unique resources, connections, 10,000 hours and the right timing made computing success for these individuals.
Chapter Three and Four
The Trouble with Geniuses Part 1 and Part 2:
"Knowledge of a boy's IQ is of little help if you are faced with a formful of clever boys."
Without reinforcement of resources or without the right formula or connections, having high IQ does not necessarily guarantee success, no matter how smart one is. In addition, once someone reaches a certain number in IQ it doesn't matter how much higher someone else is to be deemed a smarter genius, meaning someone with an IQ of 140 is not necessarily smarter than someone 130. It's like a basketball player 6' 6" tall is not necessarily better than a 6' 2" tall basketball player. Success also depends on a factor other than great talent, height or IQ (having analytical intelligence), it also depends on practical intelligence (the ability to work with people and use logic) or even divergent intelligence (using your brain to come up with different usages for things other than it's practical purpose or imagination to create).
Chapter Five
The Three Lessons of Joe Flom:
"Mary got a quarter"
Lesson Number One: The Importance of Being Jewish
It takes more work, supposedly three thousand hours annually, to field a few small rice paddies than it does larger fields of wheat or corn. The reason is because corn and wheat fields can be done with machinery, more automated than rice. Rice being more of a precise and manual labored crop. Well, let this Chinese person do some math with you again, 40 hours a week times 52 weeks a year is 2,080 work hours a year. With Saturdays and Sundays off, 3,000 hours a year is approximately 11.5 hours a day, that's half your day, I barely want to do my 8 hours a day. Just like a Jewish person willing to work hard from immigrant status so the next generations can become lawyers, so do rice paddy builders. Gladwell then applies that same hard work in building rice paddies to math. In addition to the hard work factor, another reason why Asians are so "prowess" in math is because it's easier to count in Asian systems than in the American system because the American system includes more unfamiliar numbers as it goes up: eleven, twelve, thirteen, twenty, thirty... while Asians system do not. I don't know about that statement because it's not different by that much; the Chinese system doesn't have "eleven or twelve", true, it's said "ten-one or ten-two", does this factor really makes it more faster or easier to count? Gladwell also states in this ease, it makes math more fun, does it? I don't find the ease or fun part true. First: I can count just as fast in the American counting system as I can in the Chinese counting system. Second, I don't find one system more fun to count in than the other. Do you know that in other countries, some math systems are approached differently? I have been multiplying in the American system all my life, by multiplying the furthest multiplier on the right with the multiplicand and putting the product under the line in one row, then as I move left in decimal I would do the same, multiply the multiplier with the multiplicand and put the product below the first product but one space to the left, before adding to get the final answer. Someone showed me another system in doing that, simpler. These reasons could be why Americans and other nations approach math differently. The example he's trying to give with hard work or if you keep on studying then you become good at math is understandable but this theory stating if you are good at building rice paddies is a far comparison and counting system difference has flaws to it. The answer to becoming better at math has nothing to do with how we count or building rice paddies but more practice and the challenge to become better, making it simpler and taking the time to understand or solve, that leads to success in math.
Chapter Nine
Marita's Bargain
"All my friends now are from KIPP."
"In the mid-1990s, an experimental public school called the KIPP Academy opened on the fourth floor of Lou Gehrig Junior High School in New York City.* KIPP stands for "Knowledge Is Power Program." Lou Gehrig is in the seventh school district, otherwise known as the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City."
A program like KIPP that takes first come first serve, then a lottery for reserve when the limit of acceptance has been reached is a great opportunity for fifth graders looking to get a head start in life (or to escape the statistics), since it's acceptance is not based on prior history in academics or economic background. Meaning KIPP schools are advanced equal opportunity schools. It is based on a strong mathematics program, lengthy hours (7:30am to 5:00pm), extra school days in the summer (occasional Saturdays), teaching formality in behavior and requiring parent involvement.
The reason Gladwell names this chapter Marita's Bargain is because that's the deal, she gives up a bit of her leisure life in the statistics of having low grades in the South Bronx for a better education and head start in life. The comment Marita makes: "All my friends now are from KIPP." means she followed through, her life is surrounded by the KIPP environment. KIPP has had a reputation for getting it's students into ivy league private universities (some with scholarships). This in sense Gladwell is describing success does not matter of the background, it depends on the resource and dedication to hard work that is needed to get to success. In addition, resources and dedication to hard work at an early age. This is an ideal easier said than done. For one, the hard work and extra hours are the easy part, if you are lucky enough to get in to KIPP. The hard part is to feed the family, parents have to work (when I was growing up I saw my father only once a week). The second part of the hard part is that parents have to understand before their children understand then care enough in their children's future.
Epilogue
A Jamaican Story
"If a progeny of young colored children is brought forth, these are emancipated."
Progeny means background of ethnicity and emancipated means to be freed from a form of restraint. Malcom Gladwell's great-great-great grandfather was from Ireland. In other words, when his grandma's great-grandfather settled on his Jamaican plantation in 1784, from Ireland, he bought a slave woman, descendant of an African tribe, as a concubine. Gladwell states that in Jamaica sexual relations between whites and blacks back then weren't a big a deal as it was in the United States, so it was common or accepted. However, the complexion of dark and light skinned individuals did matter. What's described as "White and light" got better treatment and less so as one's complexion got darker. Besides color discrimination, the Jamaican educational system was poor back then, for further education like college, one must leave to the England or America for higher education. Reform was what helped Gladwell's grandmother to understanding the importance of a good education and it was that which allowed the process for Gladwell's mother to get a higher education. These factors in his family lineage in turn crafted Malcom Gladwell to achieve the height of his journalistic career. The reason Gladwell digs into his ancestry is because like the background of greats like Bill Gates, you have to not look so much at the image of success but how it leads there. Malcom Gladwell considers himself an outlier, understandable because without a lineage of opportunities, direction, resources, family history, help, hard work, change in times, maybe he would be selling coconuts in Jamaica or Bill Gates would have programmed a line of really good games for Nintendo, instead of them being where they are; success is not built on share talent.
Lesson Number One: The Importance of Being Jewish
(Joe Flom was the last remaining partner of the prestigious Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom.)
A figurative highlight in the book for me must have been in this chapter where the Harvard Law School classmate of Joe Flom, Alexander Bickel, was turned down for a position in Mudge Rosen (another prestigious law firm). The exact reason was because of Alexander Bickel's "antecedents." Antecedent means of the past. In this case having Jewish ancestors. Bickel had already earned his reputation for being an outstanding lawyer. Gladwell goes on to explain two more lessons on the backgrounds of Flom and Bickel. If you're turned down by one group, you form your own. So Jewish law firms took jobs the big time firms didn't want, like at the time big firms didn't like litigation, civil cases or hostile takeovers (1930s-1960s). By the 1970s all that changed, with all these companies booming: litigation and hostile takeovers became a big thing, and based on the 10,000-Hour rule, the likes of the Jewish lawyers were already experienced in handling what prior to 1970s big time firms didn't handle. The game was now switched.
Lesson Number Two: Demographic Luck
A father is a lawyer and his son is a lawyer. One had the potential to be successful but didn't but his son did. The reason behind it was based on the needs and flourishing opportunities of the times. Times meaning during World War II, The Great Depression or our modern war that caused the recession of Bush-Obama. There's less people or more people in need of any given system (welfare, schooling, food supply), less people means more resources and more people means less resources. Father grew up in the midst of the Great Depression so no success and son after, thus successful.
Lesson Number Three: The Garment Industry and Meaningful Work
If you knew how to sew from the old country, bring your skills to the land of opportunity. Even though the long hours and reward is minuscule, the meaningful part is knowing or at least hoping one day the strive to make a poor living off garments will feed and shelter a child who will be a lawyer, maybe a successful one. Jewish immigrants had to work hard from immigrant status to using what they knew from the old country to put forth for those in the field of law to emerge. In this chapter Gladwell describes the importance of ancestry and changes in the times for success to rise from poor immigrants.
Why did Malcom Gladwell put a description of "Mary got a quarter" in the header under the title of this chapter? Because poor immigrants can't afford tickets to such classy events held at Carnegie Hall. Instead if you knew a ticket taker like Mary, you'd give her a quarter and she'd let "you stand in the second balcony, without a ticket." This was a crafty way a poor immigrant and a successful lawyer could afford a bit of culture.
Chapter Six
Harlan, Kentucky
(Culture of Honor is a piece of southern culture, where insulting one's pride can lead to a feud.)
If your great-great-great granddaddy was a bad-ass, you might also be a bad-ass.
"Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social and demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.* (Cited, Dov Cohen)
Chapter Seven
A figurative highlight in the book for me must have been in this chapter where the Harvard Law School classmate of Joe Flom, Alexander Bickel, was turned down for a position in Mudge Rosen (another prestigious law firm). The exact reason was because of Alexander Bickel's "antecedents." Antecedent means of the past. In this case having Jewish ancestors. Bickel had already earned his reputation for being an outstanding lawyer. Gladwell goes on to explain two more lessons on the backgrounds of Flom and Bickel. If you're turned down by one group, you form your own. So Jewish law firms took jobs the big time firms didn't want, like at the time big firms didn't like litigation, civil cases or hostile takeovers (1930s-1960s). By the 1970s all that changed, with all these companies booming: litigation and hostile takeovers became a big thing, and based on the 10,000-Hour rule, the likes of the Jewish lawyers were already experienced in handling what prior to 1970s big time firms didn't handle. The game was now switched.
Lesson Number Two: Demographic Luck
A father is a lawyer and his son is a lawyer. One had the potential to be successful but didn't but his son did. The reason behind it was based on the needs and flourishing opportunities of the times. Times meaning during World War II, The Great Depression or our modern war that caused the recession of Bush-Obama. There's less people or more people in need of any given system (welfare, schooling, food supply), less people means more resources and more people means less resources. Father grew up in the midst of the Great Depression so no success and son after, thus successful.
Lesson Number Three: The Garment Industry and Meaningful Work
If you knew how to sew from the old country, bring your skills to the land of opportunity. Even though the long hours and reward is minuscule, the meaningful part is knowing or at least hoping one day the strive to make a poor living off garments will feed and shelter a child who will be a lawyer, maybe a successful one. Jewish immigrants had to work hard from immigrant status to using what they knew from the old country to put forth for those in the field of law to emerge. In this chapter Gladwell describes the importance of ancestry and changes in the times for success to rise from poor immigrants.
Why did Malcom Gladwell put a description of "Mary got a quarter" in the header under the title of this chapter? Because poor immigrants can't afford tickets to such classy events held at Carnegie Hall. Instead if you knew a ticket taker like Mary, you'd give her a quarter and she'd let "you stand in the second balcony, without a ticket." This was a crafty way a poor immigrant and a successful lawyer could afford a bit of culture.
Chapter Six
Harlan, Kentucky
(Culture of Honor is a piece of southern culture, where insulting one's pride can lead to a feud.)
If your great-great-great granddaddy was a bad-ass, you might also be a bad-ass.
"Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social and demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.* (Cited, Dov Cohen)
Chapter Seven
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
(Korean Air)
I think it was the Discovery Channel or the National Geographic Channel, I forget which but I saw a documentary on Korean Air flight 007, a plane that accidentally entered Russian air space and was shot down killing all 269 passengers. The black box from the crash held for years by the Russians was examined not to be tampered entailed the conversation and functionality of the aircraft. It turns out it was a wrong setting on the aircraft overlooked by the pilots. Both pilots were also not paying attention to details because they are suppose to go over a checklist before taking off. Or it could have been, the First Officer depended too much on the Captain's authority and experience to not take action on making sure everything was correct himself. Gladwell mentions this incident in one sentence in the book but goes on to explain that Korean Air has had other crashes in the time frame of "1988 to 1998" was "seventeen times higher" than United Airlines. Gladwell goes into detail about Korean Air flight 801 to Guam. It would seem Koreans have a high PDI (Power Distance Index). PDI is a term from a Dutch psychologist, Geert Hofstede. The meaning of PDI is how "much a particular culture values and respects authority", meaning how much an individual or the people of a nation respects the government or it's hierarchy based on the power structure or it can also be illustrated in how much lax or how strict communication is between lower ranking individuals and higher power authorities. The black box that monitored the conversation between the pilot and co-pilot on the crashed flight examines and explains that if the lower ranking pilots and engineers have been more assertive and spoken up, then the errors that caused the crash may have given them a second chance in avoiding fatality. In some nations, like Korea, you respect your elders and show meekness toward authority (high PDI), even when your superiors are wrong or not focused to detail that should be focused on. America has a lower PDI, yes there is authoritative hierarchy in the U.S. but it's not as strong, if my boss did something wrong, I would not go uhm, uh, whuh, I would just tell him straight out. The PDI structure in the cockpit was a problem with Korean and other high PDI nations. I have always known the manner in which you communicate with others is a very important thing in how something plays out. By the way since Korean Air's cultural PDI revamp in 2000, their flying record has been impeccably good.
Chapter Eight
Rice Paddies and Math Test
"No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich."
(...is a chant rice paddy workers would say throughout the day to keep motivation and mind strong in their labor.)
(Korean Air)
I think it was the Discovery Channel or the National Geographic Channel, I forget which but I saw a documentary on Korean Air flight 007, a plane that accidentally entered Russian air space and was shot down killing all 269 passengers. The black box from the crash held for years by the Russians was examined not to be tampered entailed the conversation and functionality of the aircraft. It turns out it was a wrong setting on the aircraft overlooked by the pilots. Both pilots were also not paying attention to details because they are suppose to go over a checklist before taking off. Or it could have been, the First Officer depended too much on the Captain's authority and experience to not take action on making sure everything was correct himself. Gladwell mentions this incident in one sentence in the book but goes on to explain that Korean Air has had other crashes in the time frame of "1988 to 1998" was "seventeen times higher" than United Airlines. Gladwell goes into detail about Korean Air flight 801 to Guam. It would seem Koreans have a high PDI (Power Distance Index). PDI is a term from a Dutch psychologist, Geert Hofstede. The meaning of PDI is how "much a particular culture values and respects authority", meaning how much an individual or the people of a nation respects the government or it's hierarchy based on the power structure or it can also be illustrated in how much lax or how strict communication is between lower ranking individuals and higher power authorities. The black box that monitored the conversation between the pilot and co-pilot on the crashed flight examines and explains that if the lower ranking pilots and engineers have been more assertive and spoken up, then the errors that caused the crash may have given them a second chance in avoiding fatality. In some nations, like Korea, you respect your elders and show meekness toward authority (high PDI), even when your superiors are wrong or not focused to detail that should be focused on. America has a lower PDI, yes there is authoritative hierarchy in the U.S. but it's not as strong, if my boss did something wrong, I would not go uhm, uh, whuh, I would just tell him straight out. The PDI structure in the cockpit was a problem with Korean and other high PDI nations. I have always known the manner in which you communicate with others is a very important thing in how something plays out. By the way since Korean Air's cultural PDI revamp in 2000, their flying record has been impeccably good.
Chapter Eight
Rice Paddies and Math Test
"No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich."
(...is a chant rice paddy workers would say throughout the day to keep motivation and mind strong in their labor.)
It takes more work, supposedly three thousand hours annually, to field a few small rice paddies than it does larger fields of wheat or corn. The reason is because corn and wheat fields can be done with machinery, more automated than rice. Rice being more of a precise and manual labored crop. Well, let this Chinese person do some math with you again, 40 hours a week times 52 weeks a year is 2,080 work hours a year. With Saturdays and Sundays off, 3,000 hours a year is approximately 11.5 hours a day, that's half your day, I barely want to do my 8 hours a day. Just like a Jewish person willing to work hard from immigrant status so the next generations can become lawyers, so do rice paddy builders. Gladwell then applies that same hard work in building rice paddies to math. In addition to the hard work factor, another reason why Asians are so "prowess" in math is because it's easier to count in Asian systems than in the American system because the American system includes more unfamiliar numbers as it goes up: eleven, twelve, thirteen, twenty, thirty... while Asians system do not. I don't know about that statement because it's not different by that much; the Chinese system doesn't have "eleven or twelve", true, it's said "ten-one or ten-two", does this factor really makes it more faster or easier to count? Gladwell also states in this ease, it makes math more fun, does it? I don't find the ease or fun part true. First: I can count just as fast in the American counting system as I can in the Chinese counting system. Second, I don't find one system more fun to count in than the other. Do you know that in other countries, some math systems are approached differently? I have been multiplying in the American system all my life, by multiplying the furthest multiplier on the right with the multiplicand and putting the product under the line in one row, then as I move left in decimal I would do the same, multiply the multiplier with the multiplicand and put the product below the first product but one space to the left, before adding to get the final answer. Someone showed me another system in doing that, simpler. These reasons could be why Americans and other nations approach math differently. The example he's trying to give with hard work or if you keep on studying then you become good at math is understandable but this theory stating if you are good at building rice paddies is a far comparison and counting system difference has flaws to it. The answer to becoming better at math has nothing to do with how we count or building rice paddies but more practice and the challenge to become better, making it simpler and taking the time to understand or solve, that leads to success in math.
Chapter Nine
Marita's Bargain
"All my friends now are from KIPP."
"In the mid-1990s, an experimental public school called the KIPP Academy opened on the fourth floor of Lou Gehrig Junior High School in New York City.* KIPP stands for "Knowledge Is Power Program." Lou Gehrig is in the seventh school district, otherwise known as the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City."
I have been to the South Bronx over a dozen times in the past several years, there have been major development and improvement since the decades prior to the 1990s. There are only a handful of reasons to go to the South Bronx: a game at Yankee Stadium, heard about a really good Dominican restaurant, for curiosity reasons you just want to check out the neighborhood, cheap rent/hostel, business or friend in the area. The reason is the area is mainly for cheap housing, lines and lines of apartment buildings, some shabby and some renovated. One might pass by a few vacant lots every once in a while, a school, a park, garages, warehouses, a row of small bodegas or restaurants. Until recently, there were few department stores or large chain markets. Nothing wrong with the neighborhood or it's people, it's just undeveloped and if you weren't from the area, it would be an outlier, in the lower income sense. The undeveloped part also goes for the educational statistics in the area, meaning low scores in schools.
A program like KIPP that takes first come first serve, then a lottery for reserve when the limit of acceptance has been reached is a great opportunity for fifth graders looking to get a head start in life (or to escape the statistics), since it's acceptance is not based on prior history in academics or economic background. Meaning KIPP schools are advanced equal opportunity schools. It is based on a strong mathematics program, lengthy hours (7:30am to 5:00pm), extra school days in the summer (occasional Saturdays), teaching formality in behavior and requiring parent involvement.
The reason Gladwell names this chapter Marita's Bargain is because that's the deal, she gives up a bit of her leisure life in the statistics of having low grades in the South Bronx for a better education and head start in life. The comment Marita makes: "All my friends now are from KIPP." means she followed through, her life is surrounded by the KIPP environment. KIPP has had a reputation for getting it's students into ivy league private universities (some with scholarships). This in sense Gladwell is describing success does not matter of the background, it depends on the resource and dedication to hard work that is needed to get to success. In addition, resources and dedication to hard work at an early age. This is an ideal easier said than done. For one, the hard work and extra hours are the easy part, if you are lucky enough to get in to KIPP. The hard part is to feed the family, parents have to work (when I was growing up I saw my father only once a week). The second part of the hard part is that parents have to understand before their children understand then care enough in their children's future.
Epilogue
A Jamaican Story
"If a progeny of young colored children is brought forth, these are emancipated."
Progeny means background of ethnicity and emancipated means to be freed from a form of restraint. Malcom Gladwell's great-great-great grandfather was from Ireland. In other words, when his grandma's great-grandfather settled on his Jamaican plantation in 1784, from Ireland, he bought a slave woman, descendant of an African tribe, as a concubine. Gladwell states that in Jamaica sexual relations between whites and blacks back then weren't a big a deal as it was in the United States, so it was common or accepted. However, the complexion of dark and light skinned individuals did matter. What's described as "White and light" got better treatment and less so as one's complexion got darker. Besides color discrimination, the Jamaican educational system was poor back then, for further education like college, one must leave to the England or America for higher education. Reform was what helped Gladwell's grandmother to understanding the importance of a good education and it was that which allowed the process for Gladwell's mother to get a higher education. These factors in his family lineage in turn crafted Malcom Gladwell to achieve the height of his journalistic career. The reason Gladwell digs into his ancestry is because like the background of greats like Bill Gates, you have to not look so much at the image of success but how it leads there. Malcom Gladwell considers himself an outlier, understandable because without a lineage of opportunities, direction, resources, family history, help, hard work, change in times, maybe he would be selling coconuts in Jamaica or Bill Gates would have programmed a line of really good games for Nintendo, instead of them being where they are; success is not built on share talent.
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