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Dec
15
Outliers, The Story of Success
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“This is a book about the meaning of work.”
I became a Malcolm Gladwell fan after reading his first book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. His second book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, was equally engaging yet more of a shift from the business/marketing angle found in Tipping Point.
In his third book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm continues his journey toward pop-sociologist. Outliers is a fascinating perspective on success, and blows away so many of the myths we have for what success looks like and how we achieve it.
In typical Gladwell fashion, Outliers is packed with stories that bring research to life. A premise of the book suggests, “It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.” Gladwell says that “the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.”
A reoccurring theme throughout the book that Malcolm observes is the “ten thousand hour” rule. Every story of success can point back to a person who has invested at minimum and approximately ten thousand hours of practice. Bill Gates. The Beatles. Lawyers. Immigrants from Europe to America in the early 1900s who brought their experience in making clothes. The list goes on.
The power of the ten thousand hour rule (about 4 hours a day for 10 years) is that you’re ready to “succeed” when the time is right. It’s tempting to pick a trendy thing and attempt to get good at it, but the trend might be over by the time you’ve mastered the craft. Outliers suggests that we should get good at what we’re passionate about. “Practicing isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” Malcolm continues, “And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”
“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.”
There were two phrases in the book that deserve to be unpacked further, and Malcolm merely scratches the surface of their definitions. The idea of “social inheritance” and “concerted cultivation” are powerful allies in the journey of Outliers.
One should be careful when absorbing Outliers because a premise of the book assumes we all measure success in terms of wealth, health, influence and power. “If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires.”
The conclusion of Outliers gets personal as Malcolm tells the story of his own life and family background, including generations of slavery in Jamaica. Gladwell goes on to argue that more of us would become Outliers if we lived in a “society that provides opportunity for all.”
“Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”
Nov
18
“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance.” —Ronald J. Sider
Nearly 30 years ago, a bi-partisan U.S. Presidential Commission on World Hunger suggested that “promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to U.S. national security than most policy makers acknowledge or even believe.” The deepest causes for conflict in the world today, according to former U.N. Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali, are “economic despair, social injustice, and political oppression.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard much talk these days about overcoming foreign conflicts with generous giving, extreme kindness and courageous leadership with integrity.
Sider nails it when he says, “The rich often neglect or oppose justice because it demands that they end their oppression and share with the poor.” He continues, “We know that knowing more will make us morally obligated to change.”
So Now What?
“We must develop a theology of enough,” says Sider. “Christians in the United States spent $15.7 billion on new church construction alone in the six years between 1984 and 1989. Would we go on building lavishly furnished expensive church buildings if members of our own congregations were starving?”
“God casts down the wealthy and powerful in two specific situations,” says Sider, “(1) when they become wealthy by oppressing the poor; or (2) when they fail to share with the needy.”
Sider doesn’t mince his words. “Is the church really the church if it does not work to free the oppressed?”
But how much should we give? John Wesley gave a startling answer. One of his frequently repeated sermons was on Matthew 6:19-23 (“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” KJV). Christians, Wesley said, should give away all but “the plain necessities of life”—that is, plain, wholesome food, clean clothes, and enough to carry on one’s business. One should earn what one can, justly and honestly. Capital need not be given away.” But Wesley wanted all income given to the poor after bare necessities were met. Unfortunately, Wesley discovered, not one person in five hundred in any “Christian city” obeys Jesus’ command. But that simply demonstrates that most professed believers are “living men but dead Christians.” “Any ‘Christian’ who takes for himself anything more than the plain necessaries of life,” Wesley insisted, “lives an open, habitual denial of the Lord.” He has “gained riches and hell-fire!” Wesley lived what he preached. Sales of his books often earned him fourteen hundred pounds annually, but he spent only thirty pounds on himself. The rest he gave away.
John V. Taylor suggests that “the biblical norm for material possessions is ‘sufficiency.’” We see this concept of sufficiency throughout Scripture. Sider says that the “costly generosity of the first church stands as a challenge to Christians of all ages.”
He even goes so far as to dare church institutions to “undertake a comprehensive two-year examination of their programs and activities to answer this question: Is there the same balance and emphasis on justice for the poor and oppressed in our programs as there is in Scripture?”
Rich Christians is another one of those books that is either going to sit on a shelf filled with highlights and tear stains, or become a manifesto for change.
Nov
17
“The rich must live more simply so that the poor may simply live.” —Dr. Charles Birch
It’s no secret for the past few years I have been re-thinking and re-learning what life is all about when it comes to stewarding my resources. From what I get paid and how I live, to how I spend my time and what I give, my worldview has been messed up. In a good way.
Two years ago Jamaica and I downsized to a smaller living space in downtown Los Angeles, four blocks from Skid Row. Earlier this year we became a one-car family. Every year for the past three years we have decreased our spending and increased our giving. Reading books like Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, The Irresistible Revolution, Jesus Wants to Save Christians and Strength to Love haven’t helped much either.
The latest book to make me want to hide in a cave or move to another country and rot to death, is Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald J. Sider. It’s a 30-year-old book (with a new edition) that has sold over 400,000 copies. Its 270 pages are a real struggle to get through both for the overwhelming nature of the problem and the sheer amount of data to digest. This ain’t bedtime or beach reading.
I think the biggest statistical takeaway for me was learning that the global hunger problem could be solved solely by the amount of money we in the U.S. spend each year on weight loss. How ironic. Writes Sider, “The National Center for Health Statistics reported that people in the United States spend between $30 and $50 billion each year on diets and related expenditures to reduce their calorie intake.” So while two billion people try to increase their calorie intake every day to survive, here in the U.S. we spend billions trying to reduce our calorie intake for our thighs.
So how did those of us in the developed world get to this state of ridiculous indulgence? Sider points to the Enlightenment.
Theologian Patrick Kearns has argued that commitment to unlimited growth and an ever-increasing “standard of living” is really a sellout to the Enlightenment. During the eighteenth century, many Western thinkers decided that science was the only way to find knowledge. This thinking elevated all things quantitative and devalued all things nonquantitative. Thus intangible values such as community, trust, friendship, and the beauty of creation became less important. It is hard to measure the value of friendship, unspoiled nature, and justice. But Gross National Income (GNI) is easy to measure. The result is our competitive growth economy where economic success and material things are all-important to many people.
Regardless of the reason we’re in this period of huge disparity between the haves and the have nots, we all have some work to do. According to Sider, “Most of the poor want to earn their own way. They have enormous social capital: intact families, a desire to work, pride, and integrity. But they need some help.”
More tomorrow.
Oct
30
Tribes by Seth Godin
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I’ve been a Seth Godin fan for many years and appreciate so much of what he suggests through his books and his blog. As with most things that become increasingly popular and mainstream, my enthusiasm and interest has the tendency to dwindle a bit. I like discovering unknown people and ideas, as Seth was so many years ago. I realize this is a direct result of my own pride and arrogance, but I’m working on those issues. So forgive me if this reflection of Tribes is more a reflection of my temperament.
I had the opportunity to read Seth’s latest little gem, Tribes, this past weekend. The first third of the book is excellent. Fresh, insightful and worth the cost of admission alone. The remainder of the book, as with so many of Godin’s goodies, seems to be redundant and tangent-filled as you progress to the end. This is the case for most books so Seth is not alone. I’m sure it’s that balance between having enough pages to justify a book versus a booklet. I digress. Again.
The big shift for Tribes is that Seth has moved away from his familiar marketing speak to a different conversation about leadership. In his previous books, Seth suggests that “everyone is a marketer.” In Tribes, he suggests that “everyone is now also a leader.”
Being both a member of several tribes and a leader of a couple tribes, I resonate with so much of what Seth writes about. “You can’t have a tribe without a leader, and you can’t have a leader without a tribe.”
Seth’s big call to action is that there are tons of different tribes all waiting to be led and “We need you to lead us.” “It takes only two things to turn a group of people into a tribe: 1) A shared interest and 2) A way to communicate.”
If you’re looking for a fresh take on leadership, this is an easy-breezy read. Tribes will give leaders a game plan for:
- Challenging the status quo
- Creating culture
- Developing your curiosity
- Using charisma to attract followers
- Communicating your vision
- Committing to a vision
- Connecting followers to each other
Go tribes!
Oct
21
Jesus Wants to Save Christians
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Have you ever read a book and had that overwhelming sense that what you’re reading is not just another book? A book that has that ‘my-life-is-about-to-be-changed’ quality that doesn’t seem to go away, page after page after page?
It’s not often that I have this experience, but this latest manifesto from Rob Bell and Don Golden has done exactly that. Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile was so stirring, I finished it in two days and I’ve been reading it a second time to Jamaica this week. Wow.
Unfortunately, there is no way I can capture or convey my thoughts and feelings in a blog post or book review. This just doesn’t do it justice. But I’ll try.
Jesus Wants to Save Christians is a re-telling of the Bible in a way most of us here in America have never read or experienced. It’s the story of humanity and how we’ve been moving “east of Eden” ever since we were kicked out of the Garden. Not only have we been moving east, we’ve been settling there, establishing ourselves and getting further away from the way things are meant to be. “From the very beginning humans [have been] moving in the wrong direction.”
Oct
18
Strength to Love
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For awhile now, Jamaica has been lovingly encouraging me to read Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. I finally took her advice and wow, what a book. It’s a collection of sermons that King re-assembled into book form, but he was clear that “a sermon is not an essay to be read but a discourse to be heard.” Strength to Love could perhaps best be summed up into King’s pursuit of “a tough mind and a tender heart.” “Never must the church tire of reminding men that they have a moral responsibility to be intelligent.” His clarity is poignant: “A nation or civilization that continues to produce softminded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.”
King was a man of action, not one to let good intentions end there. “One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying.” He was also convinced that action by a few wasn’t enough, it would take everyone getting on board the justice train. “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”
The “worship of bigness” is something King wrote strongly against. “Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.”
But King aimed some of his choicest words directly at the church. “Nowhere is the tragic tendency to conform more evident than in the church… the church has hearkened more to the authority of the world than to the authority of God.”
He continues: “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
Speaking about the significant progress being made in America, King doesn’t mince words. “Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but you have failed to employ your moral and spiritual genius to make of it a brotherhood.” “But, America, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress.”
Strength to Love is a great book, but it would be unfortunate if it stopped there. This is a call to action!
Oct
14
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
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I just finished another Kindle book by Patrick M. Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I enjoyed Lencioni’s Three Signs of a Miserable Job so much I knew I’d like this one.
The five dysfunctions are really basic:
1. Absence of Trust, no one is open or vulnerable
2. Fear of Conflict, incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas
3. Lack of Commitment, no buy-in because trust and healthy conflict are lacking
4. Avoidance of Accountability, no commitment to a plan means nothing to measure
5. Inattention to Results, no individual accountability means collective goals are dormant
Another way to look at the five dysfunctions is next to their evil cover up. The dysfunctions look less dysfunctional because they disguise themselves in what most of us would dismiss as petty weaknesses.
1. Lack of Trust is because of Invulnerability
2. Fear of Conflict creates and Artificial Harmony
3. Lack of Commitment fosters Ambiguity
4. Avoidance of Accountability means Low Standards
5. Inattention to Results leaves room for Status and Ego
So with my teams, I am resolving to turn these dysfunctions upside down:
1. We will trust one another
2. We will engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas
3. We will commit to decisions and plans of action
4. We will hold one another accountable for delivering those plans
5. We will focus on the achievement of collective results
This won’t always be easy, but we can do it!
Aug
27
The Three Signs of a Miserable Job
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I’ve been on a book-reading binge with my Kindle! Next up, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees) by Patrick M. Lencioni. First things first, the title of this book is misleading. It appears the publisher—in all of their marketing wisdom—attempted to appeal to a mass audience of miserable workers. That may work for book sales, but it’s why I stayed away from reading it for so long. I don’t feel like my job is miserable so why did I need this book? Boy was I wrong.
Three Signs is really about how to help the teams that work for you have a fulfilling job and avoid the misery that often sets in with so many people in the workplace. The premise of the book is so simple you feel dumb for your delay in living out its wisdom. Somewhat empathetic to this, Lencioni affirms us with words from Samuel Johnson. “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”
In typical Lencioni fashion, as he has done with his other books, Three Signs is a fable, so you’re soaking up the principles by learning and living them through a story. Simple. Genius.
Lencioni’s three signs are:
1. Anonymity: People cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known.
2. Irrelevance: Everyone needs to know that their job matters to someone.
3. Immeasurement: Employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves.
The prescription to these three signs, in my own words that begin with the letter “m” so that I can remember, are:
Aug
25
The Starfish and the Spider
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One of the first books I read on my Kindle was the The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafmanand and Rod A. Beckstrom. It’s “a book about what happens when there’s no one in charge. It’s about what happens when there’s no hierarchy.”
The metaphor of a starfish and spider is spot on. Spiders can only operate when the central system (the head) is alive and intact. If you cut off the head of a spider, or cripple its legs, it will die or be destroyed. Starfish, on the other hand, do not have a centralized command system. If you cut off one of the “arms” they will either grow back or learn to function without it. There is not a head to a Starfish, rather an interdependent decentralized system that adapts and mutates.
Using this metaphor, the authors explore centralized and decentralized systems throughout history. They pay special attention to decentralized systems—including Alcoholics Anonymous, eBay, Kazaa and eMule—since the point of their book is the rise in power of powerless (or leaderless) organizations. “The absence of structure, leadership, and formal organization, once considered a weakness, has become a major asset.”
May
28
Finding Your Soul
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On the Personality blog I wrote a review of the book by Hamid Bouchikhi and John R. Kimberly called The Soul of the Corporation: How To Manage The Identity of Your Company. It’s a brilliant study on why organizations need to be aware of their soul and how their identity flows from that. The case studies were very enlightening and provided great context for the authors’ arguments.
I’m planning to use some of this stuff for a few upcoming talks I have later this year. It’s also a great setup for so much of the consulting work I do.