Is Success a 'Regression to the Mean?'

Hi Guys,

I have been reading the book ‘Thinking, fast and slow’ written by Daniel Kahneman. It is an interesting book on how our mind works and how we often get things wrong. Yesterday, I was reading an interesting chapter in the book titled ‘Regression to the mean’. In the chapter, he defines the formula for Success.

Success = Talent + Luck

Great Success = A Little More Talent + A Lot of Luck

Success is often attributed with Talent alone. More often than not, we hear people saying that a person was highly successful because he was very talented. People often forget the luck factor associated with it. An equally talented person might not be even half as successful as him.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book ‘Outliers’ would quote people with high IQ and explain how they were not very successful. People generally say that Albert Einstein had high IQ and that was a reason for his success. But, there are lot of other people in this world who have high IQ too, but they end up just being show pieces.

Gladwell would also explain the time factor as to how people who were born in the 1950s had significant advantage than others since when they graduated in 1970s, Computers were in the forefront and they capitalized on that. Not all people would have been benefited out of that, but a few people like Michael Dell and Bill Gates had that luck in them.

Being a cricket fan, I had some thoughts on the game. Most of the great innings would have had some luck factor associated with that. I am a big fan of Sachin and I don’t remember his famous Sandstorm innings at Sharjah against Australia when he hit back to back centuries. When I watched them a few days back, I saw that in the first century, he had an edge that fell between three fielders. In the final, he had an inside edge that missed the stumps by inches. On any other day, he could have got out. Have two chances in back to back matches and getting to be known as the greatest innings has a bit of luck along with his great batting.

If you see players like Mike Hussey or Mathew Hayden or Stuart McGill, they got into the team late. They were not able to get into the team despite the talent. If they were in their 20s today, they would have been selected easily into the team. But, now when the Aussie team wants big talents, they find it hard to get one.

Daniel Kahneman says that the law of averages will catch up with everyone. It is driven by maths and has always happened in the past. We often hear that sportsmen would be nervous after a good performance and would not perform properly. The opposite case would also happen and people would say that they had nothing to lose. But, Kahneman says it is how things happen. This is known as ‘Regression to the mean’. As per Kahneman, good or bad things are not bound to continue for a long period. Everything would tend to move towards the mean.

Just as I was writing this, a point came to my mind. Is Success a ‘Regression to the mean?’ Is luck the main factor that contributes to a person’s success? Sachin might have been a bit lucky here and there, but didn’t he outperform many other batsmen? How come Sebastian Vettel won 8 straight races? Is Usain Bolt lucky to win continuously?

I think that Luck is very much important for the initial success. But then on, you need real talent to go forward. How many batsmen would have got a chance to play for India? A few lucky ones. But how many among them has played more than a few matches? A real talented player would survive, but a player who was just lucky would be thrown away.

Gladwell would have written about the ‘10000 Hours’ concept in Outliers. For anyone to be successful to be in a field, they need to practice for 10000 Hours in order to be perfect. A real talented person who have done this.

There might be few exceptions everywhere. Some would be really lucky and some would be really unlucky. But generally, we can say that a talented person would be successful in life. But for him to reach the heights, he needs certain amount of luck too.

For a person to be one among the top, you need to have the right talent at the right time with a right amount of Luck!

Happy Reading!

Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell - Book Review

Hi Guys,

After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point’, I decided to read his other famous book ‘Outliers: The Story of Success’

Malcolm Gladwell has written this book with the aim of finding out what separates the successful people from the rest of the group. What is it that takes them to the highest level?

Generally we associate Success with Intelligence, Talent and Ambition. Gladwell argues that there is something apart from these factors that make some people successful. By taking real life examples and statistics, Gladwell has done a good job of finding out the factors.

The book is divided into two parts namely Opportunity and Legacy. In the first part he argues that how much ever talented a person is if he doesn’t get the opportunity he won’t succeed. He takes the case of Canadian Hockey Players and finds out how majority of the players are born in the early months of a year. Just because that the cut off date is December 31, the children born in January have a head start, they get more training, more opportunity and this small difference at the starting accumulates further. Similar things happen in the school life too where elder children always have an upper hand.

After this he comes to birth year and finds out how certain phases are brightest phases and how there are so many successful people from that phase. For example, he says all the Computer companies founders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell were born around 1955 and how it helped them to catch up with computer when they were in their 20s. He also finds out how excess opportunities helped them in the way.

Further he says that 10000 hours of practice is required to excel in any field and takes example from Bill Gates, The Beatles and associate with earlier examples. He argues that people with higher IQs can’t become Einsteins if they don’t get opportunity.

In the second part ‘Legacy’ he finds out how culture and history are important contributors to Success. He finds out how children from richer background are smarter than children from poor background, but have an inherent advantage due to the time their parents are able to spend with them. Further he analyzes the power distance relationship and finds out how certain countries perform in a different manner.

He then moves into an interesting topic of why Asians are good in maths. The main factor he says is the legacy of working in paddy fields which requires both hard and smart work. He compares different lifestyles and figure out the inherent advantage the Asian kids have (Asians as in Chinese, Japanese, etc as per the book. But I thought that most of the parameters he said are true with Indians too).

Finally he presents a case study of a school in USA, where the children are put into hard work so that they outperform others. It is interesting that he has concluded the book with his own history of how he became what he is, because of things that happened generations back.

This is what I interpreted from the book – Talent is required to be successful. But it is not enough. You need to work hard. You need to get the right opportunities. Your culture would have shaped you in a particular manner. If it is not suitable, you need to work hard to change that. Beyond that there are lot of uncontrollable things that can be called as Luck.

Some features in the book seem quite exaggerated or too simplistic. But it is an interesting book that would kindle your mind to think in new dimensions that you had never thought before.

Happy Reading!!!

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell - Book Review

Hi Guys,

I read the book ‘The Tipping Point’ written by Malcolm Gladwell a few days ago. After reading some very good reviews about the book, I started reading the book. The book is one of the best books I have read. The book revolves around the theme of spreading a Social Epidemic. The theme of the book is ‘How little things can make a big difference’

How does an epidemic start? A person is first affected by a virus or some other microbe. If the environmental factors suit the disease to spread, the epidemic is all set to grow. Similarly we often see many social incidences spreading in a very quick span of time. The recent example is the starting of Confessions page by college students across India.

Malcolm Gladwell analyzes the factors that contribute to the Social Epidemics with lot of examples from various fields. He defines ‘Three Rules of Epidemics’ to explain the mysterious behaviour.

The first one is the Law of the Few, where he says there are a few people who contribute to the spread of news. He gives them a name – Connectors. They are people who have contact with a large group of people and can convince people. There are also other people like Mavens, who know all the information around and Persuaders. With the insightful examples given, we are able to relate from our day to day life.

The next rule is the Stickiness factor, where he says that after the news is spread, you need something sticky for the Epidemic to remain sustainable. He gives example with the help of two Children programs in USA and how they were very successful for a long period.

The third one is the Power of Context, where he says that Environment is very important. He brings in example from New York about how Urban Crime was reduced. He says about the famous Broken Window theory which says that a small broken window paves way for more people to break bigger parts. Next he goes into a magical number principle where he says there is something very powerful with 150 and brings in examples from various places of how managing a group within 150 is very efficient.

After this chapter, he gives two case studies analyzing the various factors that were discussed earlier.

This is a very good book if you are interested in knowing about Human Behaviour, Psychology or how mind works. It is a very good book for marketing people to know more about marketing a product to a mass segment. The intuitive examples make the book a very interesting read.

The author has also written two other books – ‘Blink’ and ‘The Outliers’. Both the books are said to be as good as The Tipping Point or even better. I hope to read them soon.

Happy Reading!!!