Book Review: What the Dog Saw

Finished reading “What the dog saw” and in this brilliant & provocative book, covering everything from criminology to ketchup, job interviews to dog training, Malcolm Gladwell shows the most ordinary subjects can illuminate the most extraordinary things about us and our world. Looking under the surface of the seemingly mundane, he explores the underdogs, the miraculous and disastrous and reveals how everyone and everything contains an incredible story.

This book is a series of 19 short stories that each addresses a different question or issue. What’s the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there tons of varieties of mustard but only one type of ketchup? It turns out that different people like different levels of sweetness and bitterness, so we see twelve varieties of marinara sauce on the supermarket shelf, and another dozen flavors of soft drinks on the market.

How do you know whom to hire? Does intelligence really matter once you get away from college? What does hair dye have to do with Feminism? He talks about what makes a good salesman. It’s not just the ability to ask for the money. There needs to be an engaging, interesting presentation that draws the audience in. Gladwell discusses the difference between mystery and puzzle, and between the two types of serial killers. He keeps readers on their toes with unlikely comparisons and his unique points of view.

Another story takes a look at the homelessness problem, and we discover how one homeless man cost his city over one million dollars. How can a group of sane people get admitted to mental hospitals, and kept there for weeks even though their symptoms have subsided? And what does that have to do with gathering intelligence? Was Picasso a genius, a late bloomer or neither? What makes someone good at something, and what do they become recognized as great? Gladwell answers all these questions and more in his book.

Book Review: Blink

Recently, I had finished reading Blink and the book is all about those moments when we know something without knowing why. Here author explores the phenomenon of ‘blink’, showing how a snap judgement can be far more effective than a cautious decision. By trusting your instincts, he reveals, you’ll never think about thinking in the same way again.

There are two types of thinking. We may call them intuitive and articulate. The first is the domain of hunches, emotional reactions, and first impressions and instant responses to sensations. There is a cognitive process involved in such mental processes, one is responding to information. But there is no conscious thought because there is no time for it.

The second type of thinking is the domain of logic, deliberation, and scientific method. Here thinking is conscious, it occurs in words or sentences or symbols or concepts or formulas and so it takes time. Articulate thinking is the model of rationality, while intuitive thinking is often seen as primitive, emotional, the only type of thinking of which animals are capable. So it is articulate thinking that distinguishes human beings from the ‘lower’ animals.

Malcolm Gladwell wishes to bring a popular audience the results of recent research in psychology and related disciplines, such as neurosciences which not only confirm the importance of intuitive cognition in human beings but also offer a qualified vindication of it. He argues that intuition is often superior to articulate thinking. It often misleads, to be sure but with an awareness of the pitfalls we may be able to avoid them.

Blink tells more stories about judging from first impressions. A president elected because of his comely appearance that turned out to be a complete turkey. The book is all about how we understand the world around us. Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?

Book Review: The Tipping Point

In this brilliant book, Malcolm Gladwell explains and analysis the ‘tipping point’, that magic moment when ideas, trends, and social behavior cross a threshold, tip, and spread like wildfire. Taking a look behind the surface of many familiar occurrences in our everyday world. Gladwell explains the fascinating social dynamics that cause rapid change.

Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

Gladwell introduces us to the particular personality types who are natural pollinators of new ideas and trends, the people who create the phenomenon of word of mouth. He analyzes fashion trends, smoking, children television, direct mail, and the early days of the American Revolution for clues about making ideas infectious, and visits a religious commune, a successful high tech company and one of the world greatest salesmen to show how to start and sustain social epidemics.

There are three principles of social epidemics in the book: the law of the few, the stickiness factor and the power of context. The law of the few is roughly comparable to the 80/20 rule, that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Gladwell attributes the success of social epidemics to the efforts to three types of individuals: connectors, mavens and salesmen. The Tipping point is a powerful and fascinating book that cuts across a variety of fields of interest. Within, Gladwell constructs and details ideas that change the way one perceive social trends one might not otherwise think to question.

Book Review: Outliers – The Story of Success

When we try to understand success, we normally start with the wrong question. We ask ‘what is the person like or what is his background?’ Is he born with a silver spoon? What we should really be asking his ‘where are they from?’ The real secret of success turns out is surprisingly simple, and it hinges on a few crucial twists in people life stories, on the culture they grow up in and the way they spend their time.

Outlier: The story of Success is all about above Paragraph. Gladwell doesn’t discount the necessity of innate ability, and he points to hard work as a crucial factor for success in any endeavor. But he finds in these success stories that factors such as timing, circumstance, and crucial heritage play an off-overlooked yet critical role. This book is distributed in two parts: Opportunity and Legacy.

Outlier clearly answers why do some people achieve so much more than others? Can they lie so far outside the ordinary? What is the secret of their success? In this proactive and inspiring book, Malcolm Gladwell examines everyone from Business giants to scientific geniuses, sports stars to musicians, and reveals what they have in common. The facts in the book are very interesting and clearly indicate that the author did a deep research on everything.

Outlier offers an implicit message for companies as well. There is great competitive advantage for the organization recognizing that the work environment can nurture talent and also suppress it. The best companies will not only seek to provide their employees with enrichment but will also have the insight and courage to identify and recruit exceptional though neglected talent that could flourish under the right conditions.

He examines the causes of how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, how the Beatles became one of the most successful musical acts in human history, how cultural differences play a large part in perceived intelligence and rational decision making and many others. This book really will change the way one think about their life and it will challenge one to make the most of their own potential. 

David and Goliath: Malcolm Gladwell

Recently, I finished reading David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. It is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell. The book is focused on the probability of improbable events occurring in situations where one outcome is greatly favored over the other. The book contains many different historical stories of these underdogs who wind up beating the odds, the most famous being the story of David and Goliath.

David was the shepherd in Israel, who also serves Israel army for food. Goliath was the giant soldier in Palestine army. The story is 800 years old. Once both the armies attacked each other and nobody was ready to fight from Israel when Goliath came forward to fight. Goliath said, if any of the person defeats me then my army would surrender in front of you. Nobody came forward to fight and then David came forward, asked his king to fight against giant Goliath. Everybody laughed and underestimated David. Then David came in front of Goliath to fight and hit him with a slinger and killed him.

There had been many examples of stories like David and Goliath in the past. When a underestimated man defeated a person powerful then him, he is called as Underdog. The same story happened in 1980, which is termed as ‘Miracle on Ice’. This was the story of United States Ice Hockey National team made up of amateur and collegiate players, who defeated the Soviet Union National team, which had won six gold medals in last seven Olympics. US Ice Hockey team was named as ‘Underdogs’.

In this book, there are stories about the civil rights movements, the religious conflicts in Ireland, and the others. The moral of some of these stories can be dark. This is one unusual lesson about change the book teaches. Most success stories are full of compromises, exchanges, chicanery, and actions. We might find hard to accept in a purist moral framework or as an enforcer of polite society. This is one of the best books, which tells about the art of battling giants and tells about the people who had significant skills fired in the kiln of adversity, who are intolerant of the status quo. We might not like them, they may do things we might think are inadvisable, but they are our giant-killers. One must read this book.