Dan In Focus

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell  ★★★★★

What makes a shoe that has languished in the market for years, suddenly popular and the latest fashion trend? At what point did fax machines go from being odd toys to ubiquitous business necessities? How did the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood go from completely dismissed to a national bestseller? These are the questions, among many others, Gladwell tackles in his book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.

Gladwell, like Jim Collins, spends his life asking questions and then researching the answers, looking for the catalysts for change. In Gladwell’s assessment, large events hinge on small, almost imperceptible events. He calls these Tipping Points, a moment of critical mass, the threshold, or a boiling point where drastic changes the outcomes occur. He likens it to a shift of a couple degrees of temperature and what was once rain becomes fluffy snow, the unexpected becomes expected and radical changes is more than a possibility.

Gladwell lays out three rules for a Tipping Point: the Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context. Each rules is accompanied by a lengthy and detailed argument for his theory. For example, the Law of the Few examines why Paul Revere of Revolutionary War fame was successful in his ride to muster and army to stop the British where others were merely late night riders annoying the slumbering towns. He examines the “stickiness” of Sesame Street and how Blues Clues took it one step farther. He then shows how the New York City the Power of Context to clean up a serious crime problem.

One section I really enjoyed was his discussion on Connectors. These are people who spend their time putting people together. They know all the right people and enjoy helping put these people in touch with each other when the need is perceived. These are the people, who after eating at a good restaurant, will be on the phone immediately afterward, cluing in their friends who will also like it. Paul Revere was one such gregarious person, which was the key to his successful ride.

Gladwell has some very interesting theories, but I couldn’t help wonder through the entire book if social psychology could be summed up so simply. He does present a case study in which the rules were applied by a marketing company to take an obscure sneaker and clothing company from a tiny niche market to a huge international success… and back. It is very interesting to contemplate and Gladwell makes a good case. However, in the end, the theory resonated with me as good ideas worth some investigation, but certainly not the complete answers to the questions.

I read Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking a few years ago and I intend to read his latest book, Outliers: The Story of Success. I enjoy Gladwell’s ideas and theories. His stories are interesting and support his points. He makes me think differently and look at other options. I just don’t buy into his theories 100%.

Perhaps it was the constant barrage of story after story and constant referencing back to previous stories that wore me down. Collins did much the same in Great By Choice, but his book was one-third the length and felt more believable to me. I struggled to get to the end of Gladwell’s tome. I found that I couldn’t toe dip – pick it up and read for a few minutes and come back later. It took at least twenty minutes for me to get under the surface of his writing style to enjoy the material involved. Once I got in the groove, though, I did enjoy it. I just didn’t have large blocks of time to devote to it until I finally became committed to finishing it. Unfortunately, that commitment was just a desire to get to the end.