Posted 14 May 2004 - 01:26 AM
I actually reviewed this one for my organisational behaviour class. I'm not quite so impressed though. Have a read if you have the time!
The Tipping Point: how little things can make a big difference
The Tipping point is one of those bestsellers that runs with some interesting idea, and as such has a wide appeal. However, for all the wonder and symmetry of its ideas, I would put it up there with Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs for all the scientific content it displays. Malcolm Gladwell has written an entertaining book in simple language layman’s terms. As such it deserves its place on the bestsellers list, in a literary climate dominated by self help, romance and new age offerings.
It would be easy to come out punching, mouthing off in a superior fashion, treading all over this book with disrespect and arrogance, as I have above. There isn’t a lot about this work that fits the scientific mould. However there is quite a lot about this book that has merit. Not necessarily as a scientific work, or even as a guide to doing business, but as an entertaining attempt to understand trends. It attempts to explain the unexplainable in simple terms, using interesting, plausible examples in an effort to gain some credibility with the reader. Who knows! With a little research, it may be found that Malcolm Gladwell is on to something!
There are three main ideas presented in this book. They are what he calls “the three rules of epidemics” (Gladwell, 2000, p15). and are; the law of the few, the stickiness factor and the power of context. Malcolm Gladwell has managed to present them in a way that suggests that these “laws” have been researched and found to be true. However, only anecdotal evidence of the kind that appeals to people unused to asking the questions of ‘who says?’, and ‘how do they back it up?’ is presented. These are backed up with a couple of case studies and a stack of conclusions that appeal on an intuitive, if not a scientific basis. I shall attempt to give an overview of these ideas, without going in to too much detail. Let’s have a bit of a look at these three rules.
For the first rule, the law of the few, Malcolm takes a popular economics myth and stretches it out for his own purposes. The popular economics myth is the 80/20 rule, which purports that 80% of the work, whether that work is picking oranges, spreading disease or robbing banks, will be done by 20% of the people. No serious research has been done supporting this myth, however attractive it may seem. Malcolm suggests that a trend, or as he puts it, an epidemic, is started off by a small portion of the population, and that they effectively “infect” the rest of the population. We live in an age where health is dominated by the biomedical model, a fact which allows the reader to ‘feel’ the truth in this theory, as opposed to looking deeper for evidence. His use of a gonorrheae epidemic to back his claims is pure genius, presenting us with emotional content, as well as subliminally pulling us into an in-group, that of non sexually promiscuous individuals, in order to get us on his side. How could we possible disagree with him from here on? Damn those sexually promiscuous rabble rousers!
Malcolm presents this idea more fully in a three point explanation of sociological phenomena. The three parts are explanations of types of people that we can in all probability identify with, according to his criteria. The three types of people are as follows: connectors, mavens and salesman. Once again, there has been little research into his ideas, but Malcolm doesn’t let that sway him!
Connectors are purportedly people that connect other people in separate groups to each other. Once again, this idea is one we can intuitively agree with. Malcolm even goes as far as to refer to psychology studies to support his ideas, as is seen by his reference to the six degrees of separation study by Milgram in the 60’s. To Malcolm’s credit, this argument actually holds some weight. He takes the idea, a popular one in our culture, and delves into it more deeply, explaining that not all degrees of separation are equal, as some of us know more people than others. Well, duh! Good on Malcolm for being paid for stating the obvious! He even offers a test to allow us to identify if we are a connector, borrowing an old tool from glossy women’s magazines in order to help us to identify with and take ownership of his ideas. This is quite an insightful technique!
Malcolm’s Mavens are people that know stuff. We all know people like this. Generally we avoid them on account of them being annoying and smug, but when we need something we chase them down, shower them with the reward of our presence until we get what we want then we high tail it out of there. Malcolm goes on to tell us that a combination of a connector and a maven makes for a good mouthpiece. There is nothing new to report there, once again, supposedly self evident truths, with very little research to back them up.
The third type, salesman, is one essential to all forms of business and negotiation. Malcolm informs us that for any trend to start, it cannot get by without salesmen. Once again, these are tired old ideas, supposedly self evident but with little research to back them up. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t true, psychologists themselves will tell you that most of their research consists of stating the bleeding obvious and testing the statement. Here is the idea; all that is needed is the research! Malcolm goes on to attempt to identify what makes a good salesman, and comes up with nothing new. If one is really interested, there are lots of other books on the subject.
The second major idea, that of the stickiness factor, where Malcolm once again uses disease as a simile, is all about getting an idea into a persons head, and making it stay there. Here, Malcolm tells us that in order to get an idea to stick; one must take an old idea, and transform it slightly, so that it crosses cultural and societal norms. In this way it will be just outside of our zone of indifference. It will attract our attention. This is nothing new; psychology has been saying the same thing for years! In this case, Malcolm has taken an old idea with some interesting twists and made entertaining sense of it. He needs to do this from time to time in this book, as with an argument this broad, parts have to be falsifiable, in order for the reader to gloss over the parts that aren’t and accept the whole.
The final part of “The three rules of epidemics” (Gladwell, 2000, p26) refers to what Malcolm calls “the power of context” (Gladwell, 2000, p69). The power of context states that a trend is influenced by its situation, by its “Circumstances and conditions and particulars of the environment in which it operates.” (Gladwell, 2000, p26). Once again, this idea is one that appeals to us intuitively. However, there is little research currently to back this up in respect to trends. There is however lots of evidence that this is true for life forms such as germs, viruses and others. As most of Malcolm’s readers are in fact life forms, they will of course be drawn to a perception of reality that closely resembles their own. Malcolm even goes as far as to tell us that these ideas are liable to make intuitive sense to us, once again, positively reinforcing us for agreeing with him (if we do, that is)!
The rest of the book is dedicated to taking some examples of unconnected research and moulding it in such a way as to support Malcolm’s theories. Explanations of why and how crime was reduced in New York, why people commit suicide, start smoking and buy certain types of shoes are delved into. One of the more interesting things Malcolm has to say is that if you want to get your message across, you need to be creative about it. Once again, Malcolm follows his tendency of stating the obvious in a manner that is entertaining. And entertaining it is!
All in all, “The Tipping Point” is a good read. The language is simple. The examples used are attention grabbing. The book is an attractive size and the print easy to wrap your eyes around. While it may not be a scientific or literary masterpiece, it doesn’t claim to be. It hasn’t been written for those with Doctorates or PHD’s. It has been written with the common reader in mind. It has been written for people that don’t ask too many questions. People who like to solve the problems of the world around a couple of bottles of wine, or cans of beer over a BBQ. As I stated earlier, it would be easy to write “The Tipping Point” off, laugh at it with a new perspective given by some extra education. However, keeping an open mind is important. Malcolm Gladwell has raised some interesting possibilities. For anyone trying to make sense of the world this book could offer a couple of answers and some good ideas to experiment with. After all, the world is a competitive place. One needs to take advantage of every opportunity for advancement one can find.
By all means, I would recommend “The Tipping Point”. However, with the proviso that one does indeed keep the mind open to the possibility that it could be useful for nothing more important than propping up a leg on a wonky kitchen table. At least that would stop the pepper shaker from “tipping” over and rolling off the edge!
References
Gladwell, M. (2000). The Tipping Point. London. Little Brown and Company.
