Malcolm Gladwell

I love Malcolm Gladwell. Some people say that his books, “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”, are vastly overrated and have done nothing but spawn a new series of corporate buzzwords. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know; I haven’t read them yet. All I know is that I love most everything of his that I have read (or listened to) to date (mostly his articles in The New Yorker).

Gladwell is a journalist who has a knack for finding remarkable social phenomena to write about, but that’s not what makes him truly great. What makes him great is his writing style. He takes one of these phenomena, gathers all of the expert research on it, studies it carefully, then writes about the research in a way that makes it fascinating: brief; full of anecdotes, examples, and personal reflections; and light on numbers and research method details. The solid research is all there but it’s hidden behind the curtain in his writing, because it is ugly and boring. Sure there are lots of people who try to do this sort of thing, but Malcolm Gladwell has a very real, intense curiosity that allows him to write about these academic subjects like he’s excitedly explaining them to a close friend who hasn’t the first clue about sociological research. His excitement makes you excited.

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Most of you probably don’t care, and don’t want to take half an hour to read one of his New Yorker articles or listen to him talk about spaghetti sauce, but here’s some of his work for those of you who have been blessed with that most definitive of nerdy qualities: curiosity.

Most Likely to Succeed
A New Yorker article about finding the right person for any particular job, and how most recruiters are doing everything wrong. This is a subject that I’m actually pretty passionate about. The one issue I have with Gladwell is that sometimes it takes him too long to get to the point, but it’s impossible for me to edit this down in a few minutes without screwing it up, so just read it. It’s worth it.

What the Dog Saw
The first Gladwell article I ever read. It’s about Cesar Millan and body language. I actually started reading it because of the really cool headline photo, but as soon as I finished it, I thought, “Who the heck wrote this? That’s one of the most interesting magazine articles I’ve ever read.”

Malcolm Gladwell at The Moth
This is Gladwell telling a hilarious (probably exaggerated) story about his early days at The Washington Post. The Moth Podcast is a brilliant podcast of people telling (mostly) true stories live and without notes. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a link directly to Gladwell’s story, so you have to click on the link above (to a This American Life episode), then click the orange “Full Episode” link on the left, then fast forward to 45:15 for his story.

What We Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce
First, a warning: Malcolm Gladwell is about the weirdest looking dude you’ve ever seen. This is a video of him speaking at TED about, well, spaghetti sauce, and why focus groups suck.

Million-Dollar Murray
I just read this one today. It's about how a very tiny fraction of the homeless population is chronically homeless. These very few people account for a huge portion of government health-care costs, and when these few people are given better housing, closer care, and constant supervision, they actually end up costing the system less money. Money is actually saved by giving these people constant care rather than fixing them up and sending them back into the street to get hurt again. I was reading this, thinking, "Yeah. This is so true. Why don't people do things this way?" when I realized, "Wait a second. This is exactly what God calls the church to do." He calls us to truly care for these people and to show mercy, not try to impose justice. When they tear up their rent-free apartment, get them a new one. For the few very worst cases, this really does seem to be the best approach. Read the article.