DAVID & GOALIATH: Underdogs, Misfits and the
Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell (2013), Allen Lane - an imprint of
Penguin (Great Britain), p 305
We have grown with mythological stories of people who won over
their enemies even when they had much less visible strength. The biblical
text helps us understand this phenomenon through the winning spree of David
over Goliath. Gladwell takes that as a reference and weaves the threads
of different colors and translate that through this book titled David & Goliath: Underdogs,
Misfits and the art of battling Giants. The
efforts are put to narrate stories of different contexts and coincidences,
different time and textures, and different people and places yet being one in
spirit of underdogs defeating giants. The defense of the argument is placed in
such a way through the research findings of academicians and practitioners that
one tends to draw convincing conclusion towards the author's view.
In the behavioral sciences there are numerous works to the effect that
disadvantaged individuals have inherent strength of facing the challenges as
posed to them as compared to the ones who are advantaged. The drive of proving better and asserting
their positions are the learning that disadvantaged or suppressed individuals
go through in their formidable years of life.
This has been narrated by Gladwell in this title. He has tried defending the victory of David
over Goliath through different stories of people who have excelled in their
career and shown the world that their weakness is their strength.
The book starts with the story of Vivek Ranadive, an Indian born,
American educated engineer and entrepreneur, who is passionate about Basketball
and NBA. He coached his young daughter
and her friends to play in National Junior Basketball tournament representing
Redwood City. The strategy drawn, demonstrated and implemented in defending
themselves and competing against established teams make it important and
Gladwell traces the whole story to prove a point that Goliath is not quite
the giant he thinks he is.
The belief that powerful always wins tends to develop an arrogant
attitude which makes an individual or team Goliath and there are Davids who are
well aware of their physical (visible) weakness, yet they are convinced that it
is not just the physical strength that is required to win but a well crafted
strategy to attack at the given moment and given target which is more important
and this could make them winner or if not winner at least shall help Goliath
understand that size and arrogance does not matter.
I get reminded of the book by JimCollins – How the Mighty Fall where through organizational examples Jim
successfully convinces that it is the sense of arrogance in the Mighty Firms
which make them fall in the long run.
Goliath corporations have experienced that fall and David corporations
have succeeded through their effective strategies and their efficient implementation
in sustaining their growth.
I quite liked the section where Gladwell explains different
researches on American schools and colleges on the issues concerning choice of
subjects, choice of school/colleges, general perception of students/parents
towards them, performance of top/bottom students, physical facilities in
schools and their fees, and their effect on students’ achievement ultimately.
It is a real puzzle and it becomes extremely difficult to draw conclusion by
just having an apparent look.
As a classroom teacher the size of the class has always been one
of the issues that we have been discussing over coffee or in formal meetings.
The size or number of students in the class has a correlation with their
performance and it depends on various conditions and level that what could be
the ideal size of a class. It is almost
impossible to generalize their number at all levels or in all conditions or for
all types of students. However size does
matter. Gladwell explains through
various researches on American schools, colleges and universities and draws
that there is inverted U relationship with number of students and their
performance.
Selection of colleges has always been a challenge for parent and
children when they come out of school.
Top students of schools aspire to join best colleges for the want of
their better career. But since in the
top colleges all the students are top students, many of them tend to develop an
inferiority complex (as coined by psychologist Alfred Adler) and it gets reflected
in the performance of students. This is
quite evident across geographies just as the perception that better students
opt for STEM (Science, Technology & Maths) courses in their college. Through few examples and researches Gladwell
helps us understand this and help us develop a better perspective on the
reality. Top students, who chose lesser known colleges but concentrate on their
subjects of preference, tend to achieve better grades in their exams as
compared to their counterparts who have taken admission in better known
colleges. Arguably, this explains Big-Fish-Little-Pond
Effect (as
introduced by Herbert W Marsh).
I learnt about Cognitive
Reflection Test (CRT as invented by Shane Frederick) for the first time
while I was reading Kahneman’sThinking Fast and Slow, and while I used it with some students
myself, I found it really worth saying that it is one of shortest intelligence
test that we have today. Gladwell argues
using this test as a reference for the theory of desirable difficulty as
through fading off the print color (experimented by Alter and Oppenheimer) of
the same question of CRT which improved the performance of the students. He
further relates it to dyslexic people.
We have seen many prominent personalities like Einstein, Pablo
Picasso, Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Agatha Christie, Richard Branson, and many
more, who were dyslexic. Being dyslexic did not deter them to achieve greater
heights. Rather as Gladwell argues their desirable difficulty level was high which
drove them to concentrate and focus on the difficulty and that is what made
them winner at last. It could well be defended this way. However practically it is hard to believe
that just to increase the level of desirable difficulty any parent would ever
wish to have dyslexic children.
He narrates the journey of dyslexic David Boies from his difficult
childhood to his entry into law school and then of becoming one of the most
prominent lawyers of United States.
Similarly journey of Gary Cohn from unassuming treatment by teachers in
school to a job selling aluminum siding and window frames to becoming president
of Goldman Sachs is also very interesting.
‘Dyslexia – in the best of cases – forces you to develop skills that might otherwise have lain dormant. It also forces you to do things that you might otherwise never have considered… learning how to deal with the possibility of failure is really good preparation for career in the business world.’
The journey of Emil Jay Freireich has been narrated brilliantly
and in very exhaustive manner by Gladwell.
At times the account given in the text looks like a fiction. Freireich’s personality helps us understand
many more things than what Gladwell intended and expressed. However this is an exceptional story and any
kind of generalization shall destroy the defense that this book is eyeing
for. The story woven through the picture
as appeared in the New York Times taken on 3rd May 1963, by Bill
Hudson in Birmingham, Alabama, where Martin Luther King Jr.’s activists had
taken on the city’s racist public safety commissioner Eugene Bull Connor, is
excellent and narrates the contemporary politics and power and how the approach
and behavior of Wyatt Walker transformed the local behavior.
We have all different ways to dealing with the losses, some
resolve to take revenge, some put efforts to reason it out and tread through
their actions (e.g., Reynolds known for Three Strikes Law) and some consider it
to be the call of the nature and accept it and move on with life (e.g., Wilma
Derksen’s family). It is extremely
difficult to pass a judgment as to who/what is right and who/what is wrong. The
loss of a child for some parents is such a loss that throughout life they can’t
forget it and for some life moves on easily. It is part of their personality. This point has been expressed in few chapters
on the limits of power.
Dyslexia, single-parent childhood, individuals with low visible
strength, school dropouts, etc are not desirable traits even when they might
have proven as defendable strength through this text. The defense through
citing research findings makes this book rich, however it suffers from problem
of ‘selective perception’ to defend one’s argument as no scientific selection
procedure has been followed in choosing the research papers and literature that
is cited to prove a point or otherwise. Even the earlier work of Gladwell– Outliers, suffered from the same problem of
generalizations.
The lessons learnt from David and Goliath could be seen from the
perspective of organizations as well and that is where I feel this work
suggests some kind of direction. We have
seen arrogant and failing business organizations, we have seen big/giant yet
humble organizations. Historical facts,
events and personalities are so well contextualized that it provides a valuable
documentation for the benefit of reader who might not have had interest in
contemporary history. He needs to be
acknowledged for this contribution of him. Overall though Malcolm Gladwell succeeds in keeping the reader close to
the book till last, yet towards the end it goes beyond context and finds last few
paragraphs to establish connectivity. No doubt he is a great storyteller but at
times it seems he gets carried away with a feeling that he is writing
non-fiction and his kind of generalizations may not be welcomed by all of his
fans and readers alike.
