Anderson Cooper: What do you think he’s interested in achieving? Is it that he’s got an opinion and he wants everybody else to agree with it?
David Remnick (editor of The New Yorker): Absolutely just the opposite. I think what he’s interested in is testing and pressing against received wisdom, most of the time what we think of our ideas about the world, it’s received wisdom. We’ve read them. We’ve assumed it’s correct. We don’t have time to test everything.
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So, what is Malcolm Gladwell up to? In his books, in his speaking, what is he trying to do?
I finally got around to watching the 60 Minutes segment on Gladwell: Malcolm Gladwell: The power of the underdog: David had an advantage over Goliath? Malcolm Gladwell talks with Anderson Cooper about the link between adversity and innovation. (watch the segment, and read the transcript, here).
Take another look at the quote from his editor at The New Yorker, David Remnick:
I think what he’s interested in is testing and pressing against received wisdom.
If we have learned anything, it should be this – what we think is right, correct, reliable… may not be right after all.
I think about the words being spoken and written this week in praise of Nelson Mandela. It turns out that many of the folks (many of our “leaders”) in the United Sates, including the then President, were totally condemning of Nelson Mandela. (If you have not read Newt Gingrich’s take on this, it is worth reading. Ta-Nehisi Coates quotes from Mr. Gingrich, and comments, here).
In other words, many of the “leaders” in our country accepted some unquestioned, practically unexamined “received wisdom.” And received wisdom can be wrong. And, yet, we don’t want to believe that it is wrong. And we fight, vigorously, defending the received wisdom. Until a voice finally rises up and says, “No! This is not right” — a voice that is loud enough to be heard.
That is what Gladwell’s book, David and Goliath is about.
In the 60 Minutes segment, Anderson Cooper profiles Vivek Ranadivé, the “nerd” Software CEO from India who took his daughter’s non-athletic, non-basketball-skilled girls to the state championship. By the way, he had never held a basketball in his hand before his started coaching the girls team. On the segment, we see part of his mathematical calculations on what it would take to win in basketball. Not many youth basketball coaches start here, do they?
They played like “maniacs” on defense. “We’re gonna play the most maniacal defense known to man. And we’re gonna score by stealing the ball and shooting lay ups. That’s it.”
It was not the “proper way to play basketball.” But, it worked. They won their league (were undefeated), and went to the championship round. The coach simply did not follow received wisdom.
Now, here’s the issue: What received wisdom might you be wrong about – in your life; in your organization? Isn’t it time to consider at least questioning it?
This might be the greatest value of reading a lot of Malcolm Gladwell – to help you question the received wisdom — wisdom that may not be so wise after all; that maybe you should not accept all that easily.
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Here are my takeaways from the book David and Goliath.
First Friday Book Synopsis 