Malcolm Gladwell: A Review
Tipping Point and Blink Target How We Think and What We Do
Malcolm Gladwell questions everything, no matter how big or small. A gifted storyteller, Gladwell examines social epidemics and rapid cognition in compelling narratives.
Malcolm Gladwell is an author full of questions about nearly everything: from the extraordinary to the mundane. This widely read New York Times writer has written two books that help us understand ourselves better. Albeit different in scope, both have enjoyed lengthy stays on the best seller’s lists.
Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000), Gladwell’s first book, is larger in terms of its ideas. The reader is treated to several fascinating anecdotes that explain phenomena from fashion trends and crime waves, to the success of television’s Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues.
Blink (2005), on the other hand has a narrower focus. The author delves into seemingly ordinary, everyday occurrences: split-second decisions. Technically known as rapid cognition, this field studies the "kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye." Gladwell wants business and other leaders to recognize the importance of one’s feelings in the decision-making process. Learning to value our first impressions will improve our decisions and leadership skills, says Gladwell.
Gladwell’s stories are his greatest strength and make the books worth reading, even if you don’t buy into his theories. Gladwell draws upon a handful of stories to demonstrate his ideas. All are artfully told and contain fascinating characters whose situations are further analyzed by numerous experts from the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology and others. This ability to incorporate experts from varied backgrounds not only adds depth to Gladwell’s theories, it further draws the reader in, exposing us to areas otherwise unknown – probably one of the main reasons to read in the first place!
Through these stories, Gladwell tells us how word of mouth can effect broad change (Paul Revere’s ride), how an old-fashioned shoe style became hot couture. In Blink, one of the main stories shows how some art experts who ignored their instincts were fooled by a fake, while another relates how soldiers can be taught to make life and death decisions.
Paul Van Riper’s riveting story, recounted in Blink, drives home the implications of rapid cognition. The drawback is that Gladwell takes so long to get there. Gladwell spends way too much time telling other stories and recounting his characters’ backgrounds. This holds true through most of Blink, which would have benefited from the tighter editing of Tipping Point.
The main reason to read these books, however, is to learn more about humanity – why and how we do what we do. Gladwell shows us how remarkable is our ability to reason and think, even though much ofour capabilities are under utilized. As Gladwell’s stories demonstrate, the possibilities are endless. Readers will be glad that Gladwell has decided to point it out to us.
