The first time I spoke with Malcolm Gladwell, I was struck by his relaxed, familiar style. His tone suggested we were old friends sharing a discussion on a serious topic of interest to us both. Even over the phone, the author was decidedly talkative and friendly, asking a half-dozen questions and intently responding to my answers.
Reading any of Gladwell’s multiple bestsellers, you get a similar impression: approachable and welcoming, while at the same time, brilliant and questioning. As one of the most original writers in America today, Gladwell has provided us novel and extraordinary insights into any number of topics. He has also contributed concepts to our everyday vocabulary, with “tipping point” and “outliers,” among others.
Gladwell now offers another opportunity for audiences to connect with him. Three of his books, each with more than 10 million copies in print, have been put together in a beautifully designed collection: Malcolm Gladwell: Collected.
The collection includes The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. A deluxe box set includes 22 CDs of Gladwell himself narrating each of his three books.
Hearing Gladwell read his own work with his personal emphasis is reason enough to invest in the box-set collection. The beauty of the hardcover volumes (printed in Italy) combined with the illustrations by Brian Rea, make a set worth a collector’s notice.
Gladwell’s books often show wear from being reread and passed around. With this collection, you can now loan your business colleagues your old dog-eared volumes and keep this handsome set for yourself.
Here is an overview of the three books contained in Malcolm Gladwell: Collected.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
If you haven’t read Gladwell’s transforming 2002 classic, it’s not too late — it is still on many best-seller lists and creating news with myriad novel applications.
A tipping point is simply when an idea or trend moves to a certain point, tips, and suddenly spreads rapidly. This applies equally to epidemics, fashion, food or popularity of a new product or celebrity.
The ideas in this book helped change the way people worldwide think about selling, marketing and promoting political, economic and social ideas. It should be required reading for every undergraduate business student.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
In this book, Gladwell challenges us to consider how we think without thinking — how choices that may seem to be made “in the blink of an eye” are never really that simple.
He reviews tough questions about leadership, intuition and instincts. He asks why some leaders are excellent decision makers, while others continually fall short. And how is it that it often seems that the best decisions can’t be explained?
The author draws from a wealth of examples, ranging from the failure of “New Coke,” to a psychologist who simply by observing a couple for a few minutes can predict whether they will stay married.
Introducing the idea of “thin-slicing” or filtering factors from a huge number of variables, Gladwell shows how this decision-making process determines success and failure.
Outliers: The Story of Success
Gladwell’s first two best sellers, The Tipping Point and Blink, got us talking about the impact of viral ideas and the importance of gut reactions, both topics with broad business implications. The third book in the trilogy, Outliers: The Story of Success, asks us to reconsider our ideas on that topic.
Gladwell’s take on it is provocative and challenging. Outliers is not a success book of the self-help genre; rather it presents the argument that the way we look at success is profoundly wrong.
Outliers are men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary. His list of examples includes business tycoons, rock stars and geniuses. But he doesn’t limit outliers to individuals — we’re asked to consider larger questions, such as why Asians are good at math or why the majority of successful hockey players are born in January, February or March.
Of particular interest to Kentucky readers is the chapter entitled, “Harlan, Kentucky: ‘Die like a man, like your brother did?’” Here Gladwell gleans from a host of well-known writers from the Commonwealth, including Harry M. Caudill, John Ed Pearce, and sociologist Paul Cressey. The chapter explores the “culture of honor” hypothesis that says success is formed not only by where you’re from or where your parents and grandparents grew up, but extends back many generations.