The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

As previously mentioned, I decided to go on a Gladwellian kick and read the books of Malcolm Gladwell's which I hadn't read yet. I guess I didn't look at the order that they were written, because I read his first work last: The Tipping Point. This book is about the big effect small things can have, and I like this concept because I am a huge fan of minimum efforts resulting in maximum results. Call me lazy, I guess.

Overall I think that this book was much better constructed and executed than Outliers, and the reason for this is simple: it's not as ambitious. Malcolm Gladwell excels at delivering a coherent argument about an interesting topic within 300 pages, and presenting that argument in easy to understand sections. This format works well when discussing a relatively finite topic such as the nature of social epidemics (as in The Tipping Point) or the power of human intuition (as in Blink), but when discussing something as wide ranging and subjective as success? Gladwell's ability to simplify concepts falls apart. The 10,000 hours of practice concept or the cultural legacy concept could each fill their own book, but instead they are oversimplified and repurposed to fit the constraints of Outliers.


The Tipping Point has no such problems. For those who haven't read the book, the central idea is that there is a threshold to all social epidemics (such as word of mouth, fashion trends, and even crime statistics) at which small changes become amplified in importance. For instance, one of the most interesting factors in the sharp decline in New York city crime in the early to mid 1990s was the cleaning of subway graffiti. You would think that cracking down on something as seemingly benign as graffiti would not affect murder rates, muggings, or robberies, but in fact, that small change in policy had a lot to do with a huge decline of those crimes in the subway. This is called the "Broken Window" theory, and it is one of many fascinating concepts in this book.

The Tipping Point consistently succeeds where Outliers fails, which is one of many reasons to read this book, but the main reason I recommend it is that it helps you to believe that change is possible. The enduring lesson of this book is that if you know where to look and how to apply your resources, you can accomplish great things.