Monday, February 21, 2011

Alert! Things may be reaching a tipping point!

The man who made the idea of a tipping point well known is Malcolm Gladwell. He was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2005. He also received the American Sociological Association’s Award for Excellence in Reporting of Social Issues in 2007. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three best-selling social science books written for interested lay people. His father, an Englishman, is a Civil Engineering Professor and his mother, a Jamaican, is a practising psychotherapist. They are all now naturalised Canadians.

I reckon that the best way to introduce you to this fascinating thinker is by taking the major insights from each of his three books. They are, in his own words, “intellectual adventure stories”, somewhat quirky but easy to read. The first book, the one on which I will focus, is The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference (2000); second book is Blink: The power of thinking without thinking (2005); and most recently published is his Outliers: The story of success (2008).

First insight: ideas and behaviours move through a population very much like a contagious disease does. Ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way as a virus is. So, false or negative ideas as well as true or positive ideas are often spread by word-of-mouth. And, according to Gladwell, ideas are spread by just a few key people until they reach a tipping point. At the tipping point, a critical mass is attained and the idea or behaviour then spreads like wildfire, just like a viral epidemic! Keep in mind, as you read on, the dramatic footage you have seen of the protests in Tunisia, Egypt and as I write now also in Gaddafi’s Libya. First, in getting to a tipping point Gladwell claims there are the “connectors”, very well networked people who seemingly know everyone and who can make or break a reputation, or kick-start a movement on their word alone. Then there are the “mavens” – a Yiddish word for “one who accumulates knowledge”. They are the people who acquire such detailed knowledge of an idea or issue that others turn to them repeatedly for advice. There must be a number of Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan mavens who understand political systems and the relative merits and demerits of Dictatorships and Democracy. Third there are the “salespeople” – people with the skills to persuade others when they are unconvinced by what they are hearing. In the Tunisian and Egyptian “revolutions” it seems the “salespeople” also used Facebook and Twitter to spread the ideas that reached a tipping point after two weeks of unbroken protest, and empowered the ordinary people of a nation to rid themselves of a dictator. Is there a tipping point sometime in our future in South Africa? What do you think? Who are our connectors, mavens and salespeople?

As with most things in life, these “epidemics” leading to a tipping point can be good or bad. Rumour mongering that breaks a business or destroys a person’s reputation can reach a tipping point where the rumour is taken as truth and denying it is almost impossible. Good news can also be spread via word-of-mouth (and electronic social networks!) and the success of a business, a person or official, or even a whole town, city or country can be permanently enhanced by a positive message that reaches a tipping point then spreads like mad. Is there a way to push South Africa towards a positive tipping point that benefits all of us? Allow me to leave you with these thoughts for the moment, and invite you to think blink, the subject of his second book.

Second insight: learn to trust your intuition, but also know that it can be wrong! Gladwell is talking here about rapid cognition; the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. He claims that we all have a sort of sub-conscious processor that uses all our experience and knowledge to rapidly come to a decision – in two seconds! This is wonderful when it works, when it proves you right. In our family our older son, Dayne, is eerily “intuitive”. He comes rapidly to a decision about people he has just met or about situations he faces for the first time. And to the irritation of the rest of the family he is more often than not right. However, there are also occasions when evolving reality and more considered investigation eventually proves him wrong. And don’t we all, to a greater or lesser degree, experience the satisfaction of coming rapidly to a judgement that turns out to be correct? But then the embarrassment of being proved wrong, sometimes substantially so, is also an experience that I’m sure is shared by all of us. So, Gladwell advises: trust your initial intuition more than perhaps you have been; but also, be sure to subsequently put in the more considered investigation and evidence gathering needed to confirm your rapid cognition.

Third insight: success is not just a matter of talent; the time, place and resources available to individuals and groups are also decisive factors in eventual success or failure. His book Outliers susses out what makes certain men and women do and achieve things that are out of the ordinary. His findings are instructive. For sure, talent is needed and usually a decent IQ; but the context is also crucial. If you grew up in a home where parents encouraged to you try things, and not be discouraged if at first you don’t succeed; if you and the kids at your school had early access to computers and state-of-the-art software; if the globe was on the brink of computerisation then you may have turned out to be a Bill Gates. And, surprise, surprise apart from everything that needs to break just right, and the prodigious amount of luck that is necessary; hard work and practice are also key. He cites the claim in the psychological literature that expertise usually takes about 10 years and some 50,000 hours of practice to develop. A Roger Federer, a Pablo Picasso or an Albert Einstein doesn’t just walk onto the world stage and deliver superior performances! No matter how talented they are intrinsically, they all have to work hard at it to sustain extraordinary performance. So, his message to all of us is this: when you go for your goals make sure you put in the hard work and practice required! They are essential for your success…

Malcolm Gladwell commands $40 000 a lecture in the USA corporate world. For just over R120 you could read his Tipping Point, which is the best introduction to why, apart from his wonderful Afro hairstyle, he is such a star celebrity. Blink about it!

Randall Falkenberg

2 comments:

  1. No question the North African revolution is the result of a tipping point reached, and it definately makes one reflect on the muncipal riots happening in SA. Moeletsi Mbheki may well have a point about SA's potential tipping point in 2020 when the budget prevents the ongoing support of social grants. Sobering indeed. Be great to learn about the latest thinking on how to reduce the economic chasm in this country, and fast!!!!

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  2. Bizarre... had just said goodnight to Jesse after chatting to him about some of the ideas in Outliers (which I'd never chatted to him about before),then got into bed, cracked open my email and found your latest blog.
    Your blogs give me food for thought and make me feel marginally cleverer for the knowledge gained. And all this in one page! That's the real beauty of them. Look forward to the next one...

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