The Tipping Point– Malcolm Gladwell
The Skinny Canadian
Malcolm Gladwell describes himself in his twitter bio as a,
“Skinny Canadian,” but he is better known as the author of books like Outliers and more recently David and Goliath (2). Since 1996, Gladwell has been writing
for The New Yorker (2). However, the first book of his to land on the
NYT’s best seller list was Tipping Point,
the book I just finished. “What makes fads contagious?” asks Malcolm Gladwell
and answers himself with stickiness, context, and the law of the few.
The Arc of Fads
Hush puppies, inner city crime, syphilis, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,
and Paul Revere are all case studies that Gladwell dives into to come up with
his three factors for the tipping point. His theory is that fads are not
completely linear functions; instead they are more parabolic in nature. They
might start out slow and gradual, but eventually they reach their “Tipping
Point” and shoot off and up in popularity. In fact the novel The Tipping Point, had its own tipping
point, when then President Clinton brought the phrase into our everyday speech,
by using the phrase in a White House press conference.
The Book’s Own Success
Gladwell has always been interested
in mundane novelties. He brings out the puzzling enigma in the dull and droll
of everyday life. Despite having
literally just written a book on Tipping Points, Malcolm Gladwell was stunned
when he experienced his own saying, “I was totally stunned by how well the book
did. I never expected it in a million years. In fact, I still can’t explain its
success,” (3). To explain its success using his own three rules, the Tipping Point must have been found by
influential people (mavens, connectors and salesman) that then spread it to the
rest of the populace. However, alone their efforts would have been insufficient
to start a Tipping Point pandemic. In
order to reach the level of success that it did, the book had to have a
“stickiness factor” such as the simplicity of the message.
Too Simple?
In fact that is a regular criticism
of Malcolm Gladwell. It seems as though he succeeds too easily in explaining
complex phenomena in simple ways. People say its minimizing, ignores certain
factors of life, and too simplistic. While Malcolm Gladwell tries to break down
the driving forces of trends into three rules, he doesn’t (and maybe can’t)
tell what of those three rules make something take off. For example, despite
the fact that Gladwell spends a significant amount of time on the crime in New
York City in the Eighties, he throws out ideas for what could have stopped
it, but doesn’t nail it down
Really Guesses
While people could argue the Tipping Point’s tipping point was
mavens, salesmen, and connectors, spreading the sticky message within the
context of President Clinton using the phrase in a White House press
conference, that’s not a set formula. How can you prove that this was the case?
How can anyone test the reliability of Gladwell’s rules? Even if someone would
take case studies and apply the three rules to the situations, isn’t the same
as a bunch of guesses? In essence, Malcolm Gladwell’s three rules (stickiness,
context, and the law of the few) are the typical guesses that people make when
attempting to describe what drives a fad.
Why Read It?
When
reading this book, you want to learn what caused the fads, but often Gladwell
only gives several options without definitively nailing down the answer. Of
course part of the problem may be that there is no definitive answer. But if
you were hoping for one you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you are
wondering about the ins and outs of the remarkable things that happen right
under our noses, then Gladwell is an excellent author to read. Also, if you are
specifically interested in speculative theories about human behavior, then this
book will grip you.
Notes:
Sources:
Image Credit: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Cover Art
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