Outliers
by Nico on Jun 27, 2009 8:00 AM PDT
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PrintI'm currently reading a book called Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. I'm only on Chapter 2 but it's an interesting book so far and it has some direct applications to sports. The book focuses on those "unlikely success stories," often people who rose from obscurity, or beat the odds, to become great at their craft. The premise of the book? These outliers did not succeed due to any "x factor" -- that unpredictable "je ne sais quoi" qualities we love to attribute to "unlikely heroes." In fact, Gladwell sets out to prove, behind every apparent "outlier" there are very specific circumstances that predicted their success.
And the circumstances -- the factors that correlate with success like "making it to the major leagues" -- are not the ones you'd think.
Because, Gladwell explains, the cutoff date for youth hockey leagues is Janaury 1st. January kids are thus competing against younger, less physically mature, kids -- kids sometimes less physically mature by as many as 8-11 months. The result is that the January kids will be identified early as "gifted" and thus will receive more coaching, will be placed in better programs with more games, will in every way be placed on a fast-track that prepares them better than their December counterparts - who as a group started out different not in ability but only in birth month - will be prepared. A small initial, and non ability-based, advantage breeds more, bigger advantages, and the gap widens until the rich have gotten richer, the poor poorer. It is tracking at its worst.
The other sport where this is seen is...yup...baseball. The cutoff date for most non-school baseball leagues is July 31st, so August babies have a distinct advantage over July babies. In 2005, Gladwell notes, among Americans playing major league baseball 505 were born in August, 313 born in July. Wow. A whole new way to scout.
Chapter 2 is just as striking, first looking at a study from the Berlin Academy of Music, where the school's violinists were divided into three groups: the "elite," judged to have a chance to become world-class soloists, those judged to be merely "good," and those judged unlikely ever to play professionally.
Everyone from all three groups had started playing at the same age (5), and all had practiced about the same amount early on. The difference found in the three groups? Starting around the age of 8, one factor and only one factor changed: practice time. The "elite" students each had about 10,000 practice hours logged at the age of 20, the "good" students each had about 8,000 hours, the last group about 4,000 hours.
Other studies are cited corroborating the correlation between 10,000 hours of practice and the emergence of musicians as elite, while "naturals" -- those who could practice fewer hours but still make it to the top -- simply cannot not be found.
So you want to scout the next athlete who will beat the long odds and will make it through single-A, through AA, through AAA, to thrive in the major leagues? Find someone born in August who, by virtue of his age, excelled early against weaker competition, was identified as "gifted," and was thus fast-tracked into the best programs that will give him 10,000 hours of practice by the age of 23.
You have yourself an "outlier" who was born to be a big leaguer.
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I want to know
when our hitters start to reach the magic 10,000 hour point. Or, heaven forbid, maybe they have already!!
The other really interesting things in this book— and Gladwell has the knack of weaving stuff together as he did in Blink and Tipping Point, whether it is all really connected or not— are a) how the high tech mavens and, way before them, the great turn of the century industrialists were in large part products of their generations. They most likely couldn’t have become who they were if they had been born ten years earlier or later; and b) the story of the Beatles, which John Lennon always maintained. It was the 4-5 years of intense effort— practice, if you will— in Hamburg and throughout the various circuits of clubs, fairs, union halls in northern England— their 10,000 hours of experimenting, changing, learning, adapting— before they ever had a hit record or were really famous that helped make them so great. Discounting Ringo, the other three— the core of the group— had been playing together for 5 years before Please Please Me and She Loves You.
It actually makes all realize that we have been spoiled these last ten years and that a bit of patience should go a long way with this current team. It may not be until 2011 that the pieces will start to mesh in a way that produces whatever greatness the newest A’s— and I’m including all the minor league hitters— will become.
I saw Gladwell in K-city four years ago, before that book,
I asked him – how do I get to Kaufman Park? “practice he said.”
alaska A residing in Idaho.
I'm a skeptic
In fact, Gladwell sets out to prove, behind every apparent “outlier” there are very specific circumstances that predicted their success.
Will those specific circumstances hold up to scrutiny in the future? Do they hold up now when not cherry-picking or examining things, empiraicall, ex ante? I have my doubts. But it all makes for some good reading and Gladwell is a damned good story teller.
Love the book, but can't read it ever again.
Anyways, the “birthday-cut off” is an interesting econometric issue. In many under developed countries, often times you must be a certain age or about to be a certain age to begin school, yet there is a three month or so window in which if you are born, you must wait another year to begin. At the same one cannot drop out until after turning a certain age. As you’d expect, those born in that “specific” range will have less schooling completed.
But yeah, my ex just loved that book and Gladwell (more than me I’d wager), and we’d discuss his work and that was all well and fine until that day came where she said “Moi Moi” to our hero.
I’m going to watch the NHL draft. Toodles.
Nico -
Does the book directly cover the effects of race/ethnicity on achievement?
I don't know about that specific book, but
Gladwell frequently touches on questions of race and achievement in his articles.
A couple years ago he had a book review on Flynn’s IQ book, which is largely about engaging the race-and-IQ question that had been stirred up by Watson/Saletan/Murray. (The review is, I mean; not the book.) There’s an audio interview, too.
One of Gladwell’s earliest New Yorker articles is a comparison of experiences of West Indian immigrants with those of African Americans whose heritage is in the United States, putting a new perspective on a lot of the same ideas raised by Sowell in the 1980s.
Go to Gladwell’s site or the New Yorker archive and search on “race” and you’ll find many more.
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
All I can say at the moment is that in Chapters 1 and 2, no
But I don’t know yet about the rest of the book.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
later on
in a chapter about parents teaching kids how to act socially, he does touch on base, but reversing the racial expectation by . ie, the poor white family hasn’t socialized its children, but the upper middle-class african-american family has raised children who know how to interact with adults.
in another chapter, the term race is eschewed while he writes about specific cultural circumstances of a people whose background is geographically determinable (they come from scotland, moved to the US and did not mix the gene pool much once here; if they weren’t “white” there might be a term on the US census to for them, but that’s the unraceability of whiteness for ya…) and causes them to act in a certain way.
later yet, in writing about korean plane crashes, he talks about ethnicity as a place where cultural traditions can affect the way people act with each other and if one wants to change that action, he sees the benefit of getting outside of that ethnicity.
he also mentions his jamaican roots toward the end.
in other words, he does talk about race, ethnicity, and culture, but purposefully to show that there is no INNATE reason for success or failure as a member of a certain culture, but that growing up in any culture does tend to socialize individuals into certain roles and avails them of or prevents them from certain recourses that in the long term do determine success.
don't care if i ever get back.
by AV on Jun 27, 2009 3:46 PM PDT up reply actions
Yeah, he never touched the base
Ump really blew that call.
"No matter what I talk about, I always get back to baseball." - Connie Mack
Baseball and Music are very different
Because in baseball as in most sports your physical build greatly determines your ability. For this reason I think the emergence of a natural, although possibly not skill wise, is probably much more likely because some people are just bigger, stronger or faster. Although, it could also be that at the upper division of sports everyone there is at such a high physical caliber that it does not prove to be a big enough stimulus and skill becomes more important anyway.
the difference between these fields isn't the point.
this isn’t about natural size or dexterity determining ability, it’s about WHEN that size or dexterity gets compared to others and what happens after that. it’s about who gets to receive that training at an early stage in life, thus guaranteeing success later on.
gladwell’s not saying that hockey players are necessarily successful because they were born in january. and he’s not saying that natural talent has nothing to do with being successful either. he’s saying that being born in january gives hockey playing boys a chance to develop their talent better. ie, of all the boys born in 2009 who will show interest in hockey and a little skill too, in January 1 of 2019, when it’s time to pick the players who will be sent to higher leagues and better coacing, the ones born in January will have “this” much more coordination, size, skill than the ones born in july and twice that of those born in december. they’ll be sent up, they’ll receive the better coaching throughout their lives, and by the time they’re pros, they’ll vastly outnumber the other months’ babies.
so, basically, if there was a selection every month to chose the players to go onward, each month would have a star (yes, probably still the biggest kids that month) and then you’d see a better representation of the population’s natural talent. but since it’s only picked annually, the stars happen to be the bigger/stronger/swifter kids BECAUSE they happen to have anywhere between 7-12 months more physical and mental development per year than their competitors.
so your point that at the upper divisions the talent is so high there shouldn’t be much difference, that comes way after the fact. the crux isn’t about who was born when once you’re a pro. the issue is that getting to the point that you’re a pro has more to do with what month you’re born because at the beginning of the career those jan-march kids have the edge to be picked for further training. the other kids just keep playing at their own level. sure, some will rise above and not all the high-trainers will make it. but the trend is there and it does show us much about how success happens outside of just hockey.
don't care if i ever get back.
by AV on Jun 27, 2009 4:13 PM PDT up reply actions
Well so much for that excuse for my execrable performance on the diamond!
I was born on August 1st. I had all the advantages, apparently!
Interleague Play: Celebrating Thirteen Seasons of Suck
by GreenNGoldSooner on Jun 27, 2009 11:25 AM PDT reply actions
I have been saying for years
that Crosby should be sent to toil in rice paddies, but no one listened.
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory. ----Hero Defector Montgomery
My birthday is February 1st
and I excelled in music, academics, and sports as a child. So what does that mean???
“Would you like fries with that?”…….. :)
Zeigler to Geren…."A-Rod? He’s my bitch." -alox
Causality and Coincidence
Were the violinists excellent because they put in 10,000 hours of practice by age 20 or did they put in the 10,000 hours because they were excellent? And how many of the violinists put in the 10,000 hours by age 20 and never excelled because they were hit on the elbow with an inside fastball?
"Have you heard? It’s in the stars.
Next July, we collide with Mars!"
-Cole Porter
A fascinating question.......
I hear Yo-Yo Ma had a nasty slider in little league…..
Zeigler to Geren…."A-Rod? He’s my bitch." -alox
Injuries absolutely affect violinists.
I’ve spent lots of time with professional orchestra musicians and they’re always talking about hand issues, elbow issues, neck issues, etc. It’s a very big deal.
And yes, careers are derailed by injuries. I have a good friend who now teaches violin at a state university and only plays occasionally in festivals because a hand injury from years ago left her unable to play at the pace required for a regular symphony job.
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
As I recall, she had Yo-Yo Ma John surgery,
where the left tendon of the elbow is grafted onto the right side of the bow. It takes 12-18 months before the patient recovers enough to realize the operation was a crock.
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
by the way
it’s not really about predicting. outliers isn’t about showing who will be the next rich guy and how to get in on the ground floor. and it’s not, absolutely not, about looking at any one person or entity and rationalizing wether he, she, or it will be successful in the near future. outliers is about the rusty mechanism of privilege. it shows that not everyone has an equal chance, as we’re led to believe, to be president or get into MENSA. and that, though we can increase our chances with dedication, it’s all still up to a set of circumstances beyond our control. so don’t go looking at some successful person and saying, “wow, aren’t they awesome genii?” look at them and say, “hey, weren’t they lucky to be at the right place, at the right time, and have the time/interest/ability to practice too, not to ignore bunches of luck, so that they could rise to the top of their field.”
it’s like shakespeare used to quoth, “blah blah blah greatness thrust upon them blah blah blah…”
or
it’s like my dad used to say, “what’s weirder, to think that shakespeare probably wouldn’t have been known if he’d been born in guam, guatemala, or ghana? or that there was probably a better writer than shakespeare born in guam, guatemala, and ghana but we’ll never know about him?”
outliers in a nutshell here, as gladwell gets interviewed by my friend.
don't care if i ever get back.
Thanks, AV - great summaries
I like Cindi. A. She never pretends to know more than she does. B. She has unbridled enthusiasm for her "Hotties," and isn't afraid to show it. -IM4Oakgal
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