“Outliers” is, among other things, the title of prolific author Malcolm Gladwell’s third book. After a best-selling “pop economics” book, The Tipping Point, and a “pop psychology” book, Blink, Gladwell offered up a sort of “pop sociology” book with Outliers, describing his take on the elements in a recipe for personal success. Gladwell first describes the typical autobiography of any successful person:
“... the story line is always the same: our hero is born in modest circumstances and by virtue of his own grit and talent fights his way to greatness.” (1)
But Gladwell notes that there is much more to the story:
“... these kinds of personal explanations of success don’t work. People don’t rise from nothing ... they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up.” (2)
Lebron James as Outlier
In other words, success—both at a personal and an organizational level—is a both/and proposition. It’s not just about “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”—though hard work, persistence and grit are factors—but it is also about being in the right place at the right time, finding the right mentors, and enjoying just a little luck. Lebron James, an NBA player on every fan’s shortlist for greatest basketball player of all time, was born in 1984, and by all accounts works incredibly hard at his craft. Still, he clearly would have lived a very different life had he been born 100 years earlier—about two decades after the Civil War—as an African American who would have been just 7 years old when James Naismith hung a peach basket on a pole and invented the game of basketball.
What if Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook fame, had been born, not in White Plains, New York in 1984, but somewhere, say, outside Bogota, Columbia just ten years earlier in 1974? Perhaps we would all still be using MySpace!
Maggie Rogers, the young singing sensation who just released her first album, rose to fame when Pharrell Williams “discovered” her on a visit to New York University for a master class. What if she had skipped class that day ... or instead attended Chesapeake College near her home in Maryland?
The Science of Becoming an Outlier
So there are clearly important factors outside our control that may limit our abilities and our capacity to be the success we dream about. But at the same time, the social sciences, neuroscience and organizational research all point to significant ways we can “stack the deck” in our favor. And—great news!—this is true for you and your organization.
For too long in our organizations, we’ve focused on