David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Malcolm Gladwell's latest bestseller, David and Goliath, will leave you reeling. It nullifies so many things you thought you already knew. Just as you think you've recovered from all the eye-openers in Outliers, here he comes again with new revelations to knock you off your feet.I've heard Gladwell say that he's just a storyteller. but I say he's one of the great thinkers of our time...an historian who filters out the untruths, a mathematician who helps you solve all the puzzles, and a psychiatrist who gets into your head. Since the running theme throughout the book is that giants don't always win, he demonstrates it well with many cases. The truth about the biblical story of David and Goliath is shocking. Little David not only "flipped the script" by changing how the fight would proceed - not hand to hand combat, but utilizing the sling, a popular skill he had perfected. Goliath was vulnerable in many ways; he had a disease that affected his vision, he moved slowly, his armor was too heavy and it left an exposed forehead. David took his shot.Gladwell cites many examples to prove his point. Lawrence of Arabia with his motley crew also triumphed over 1200 Turks because they had an "advantage." Underdogs often have an advantage. His men happened to know the desert better... where the water was, how to avoid the snakes, how to survive. Find your advantage.You may have heard of the concept Big Fish in a Little Pond and vice versa, but not like this. Gladwell interestingly relates how each year millions of students are faced with the task of choosing a college to attend. But they may want to revise their thinking once they read about Caroline. She was smart as a whip, top of her class, loved science since she was a kid. She always knew what she wanted to be. Like most students, she chose the fanciest, most prestigious college that would accept her. When she got there, the environment was different, courses were harder, students more competitive and seemed to think on a higher level. Unable to comprehend the science work and feeling demoralized (The smarter the people in your class, the dumber you feel), she switched to the humanities. If Caroline had chosen her SECOND school, if she had been a Big Fish in a Little Pond, she would be a happy scientist today. (Gladwell says that many former math and physics majors are lawyers today.)This example is cited again with the impressionist painters in Paris in the 1800s, Monet, Renoir, etc. Their work was always rejected in The Salon, which was the most prestigious art show in the world (Rejects often committed suicide). Their work was different. They finally decided to start their own exhibit...become Big Fish in a Little Pond to beat the giant. Their work sells for millions today.The most interesting concept in the book is the "Inverted -U Curve." It will turn your own thinking upside-down. Gladwell says we operate in an inverted U- shaped world. You can disprove a prevailing universal belief by using it. Here's the math: Supposing you think money makes parenting easier, you'll note that the extra resources on the left side of the curve seem to show just that. And as you reach the level top, no real difference is seen. But as you head down the right side, money makes the situation WORSE. You'll want to read about it for sure. ( Dad, what do you mean we can't afford it and I don't value money? You have a Maserati and Mom has a Porsche!) Gladwell explains it clearly. It's the same principal for "smaller class sizes." Who would debunk the long-held belief that small classes are better? Not when you head down the right side of the inverted-U. (Not enough opinions for good discussion, and more.)You must read about the $50,000 private boarding school in Connecticut that had every resource you can imagine, and be shocked when you examine the right side of the inverted U curve here. Many things are WORSE (although the pianos are all Steinways, so if you're in a practice room playing Chopsticks, it's going to sound really good.) p. 61.Reading about the "Three Strikes" law in California and how it came to be initiated by a murdered child's father, is mesmerizing. It certainly would seem workable though...the third offense, they go in, 25 to life. They're off the streets. But it didn't work. It had to be changed. The right side of the curve shows why. ( No one looked at how criminals minds work. How they'll be punished is not on their minds when they do a job. Too distracting.)Even more surprising in Gladwell's book is the Civil Rights leaders using old slave trickery to fight the evil racism giant. Slaves had relied on the ways of trickster heros in folklore to get back at slave masters. Brer Rabbit, Anansi the Spider and others taught them cunning and devious ways. Read how Wyatt Walker, cunning and sly himself, got Bull Connor to do what he wanted in the name of advancing Civil Rights, and how he staged events history doesn't know about.Gladwell introduces the theory of Desirable Difficulties. Could being bombed produce a Desirable Difficulty? Perhaps. Three things can happen: you could be killed, you could be traumatized by the experience (called a Near Miss), or you could be made happier and stronger because you were spared a couple of times, and it makes you feel invincible. That's called a Remote Miss. Remote Misses appear often in the book.It's also desirable to have dyslexia, at least according to Gladwell. He says you can beat this giant too. Just look at the lives of people who did it. The most famous trial lawyer in the country couldn't read. He taught himself to memorize and perfected his listening ability. Others did unusual things, even bold things we wouldn't think of doing to excel. Read all about it. You'll love it like I did.

One of the reasons we love Malcolm Gladwell’s books is the way he uses the art of storytelling to contradict common assumptions about the way things work. In this aspect, his new book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, is full of well-researched, counterintuitive arguments that demonstrate patterns and connect the dots between seemingly unrelated events. In short, it does not disappoint.As we’ve come to expect from a writer of his caliber, Gladwell grips you from the start, with the timeless story of David, the Israelite, and Goliath, the Philistine, and why the duel between them revealed the folly of our assumptions about power.Gladwell argues that we “continue to make that error today, in ways that have consequences for everything, from how we educate our children, to how we fight crime and disorder.”“Why,” he says, “do we automatically assume that someone who is smaller, or poorer, or less skilled is necessarily at a disadvantage?” Especially when history shows us that underdogs win more often than we think. “That’s because underdog strategies are hard,” he notes.“To play by David’s rules, you have to be desperate,” he says. “You have to be so bad that you have no choice.” With stories from basketball to Lawrence of Arabia, he demonstrates how prestige and belonging to elite institutions (think MBAs), can actually limit our options. And how being an underdog and a misfit can give you the freedom to try things no one else has ever dreamt of.He goes on to demonstrate, with some surprising statistics, how too small a class size and too much family wealth can, both be disadvantageous to children, and why it’s wrong to assume that being bigger, and stronger, and richer, is always in our best interest.I found particularly fascinating the story of how the Impressionists succeeded by choosing to be the Big Fish in a Little Pond of their own creation. You’ll learn why the more elite an educational institution is, the worse students feel about their own academic abilities.So, if you did not make it through to the IITs (or Harvard, Yale or MIT), take heart. It’s better to be a Big Fish in a Very Welcoming Small Pond than a Little Fish in a Very Big and Scary Pond, says Gladwell. And going to that less competitive college might be the best thing you’ll ever do for your self-confidence and your career.While it might seem counterintuitive to talent hunters, statistics show that hiring the best students from “mediocre” schools would be better than going after good students from the very best schools. “We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is – and the definition isn’t right,” says Gladwell. “It’s the Little Pond that maximizes your chances to do whatever you want.”My favourite part, however, was when, using the fact that an extraordinarily high number of successful entrepreneurs (including British billionaire, Richard Branson) are dyslexic, he asks the controversial question, “Can dyslexia turn out to be a desirable difficulty?” Could it be that they succeeded, in part, because of their disorder?When something, like your sense of sight, is taken away from you, your brain compensates by sharpening your other senses. In the same way, could dyslexics learn to compensate for their reading difficulty by becoming better listeners and learning to understand the nuances of human communication better than their peers? That does seem to be the case. As Gladwell states, “What is learned out of necessity is inevitably more powerful than the learning that comes easily.”But the dyslexics who succeed also seem to have a special brand of stubbornness coupled with a highly developed ability to deal with failure, and the tendency to not care a damn for the approval of others - qualities that many a successful entrepreneur shares. These are the coping strategies they developed in a world that looks down on those who cannot keep up academically, but that gave them an advantage in the world of business, where disruption is greatly valued.Personally, I like to see these so-called disorders, that the psychiatric profession is so quick to diagnose nowadays, as “gifts” that help us see the world in ways that others can’t. I used to think it was just me (and a bunch of other people who believe in a more inclusive world) that thought this way, so Gladwell’s argument that being “differently-abled” can be turned into an advantage delights me.I believe that we will, one day, see the same argument put to people with autism. The evidence is already there. We just need someone like Gladwell to dig it up for us.In the vein of what doesn’t kill you make you stronger, his next chapter speaks of the acquired, uncommon courage of those who survive either an event like the bombing of London by the Germans, or of losing a parent in childhood.It reminded me of the courage of the people of Mumbai who are known for going back to work the day after a bombing by terrorists. With so many “remote misses” to create a feeling of invincibility, no other city in India can claim such nonchalance in the face of terror.It’s his chapter on Wyatt Walker that I find the most unsettling, where he defends Walker’s use of children in Birmingham’s civil rights marches. “Our definition of what is right is, as often as not, simply the way that people in positions of privilege close the door on those on the outside,” states Gladwell.Since Birmingham, child soldiers have been used by mercenaries like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone in their battle against the Goliaths they were fighting, with disastrous consequences for the children involved (if you want to understand what happened to the children drafted into the RUF, I recommend you watch the Leonardo DiCaprio starrer, Blood Diamond).So, no, I don’t think Birmingham is really the right kind of example to make in the David vs Goliath battles, no matter how worthy the cause.Weaving a common thread through the stories of crime in America, and the war between the Irish and Prostestants in Northern Ireland, Gladwell goes on to show how “the excessive use of force creates legitimacy problems, and force without legitimacy leads to defiance, not submission.”Gladwell wraps up the book with the beautiful and heartwarming story of Andre' Trocme' and the village of Le Chambon in France that protected Jews in defiance of the Nazi invaders. As he notes so eloquently, “The powerful are not as powerful as they seem – nor the weak as weak.”

Gladwell has a breadth and depth of knowledge about history that is unmatched. I think he is certainly one of the best non-fiction writers of our generation.

A lot to process after reading this book. The references are relevant but mostly about groups of people seeking equality in their many aspects of life.The stories are inspiring. The earlier chapters bring out the success of people/leaders who struggled with their learning disabilities, such as dyslexia. Yet, they changed the facet of their environment to their advantage. These are good motivating developments.I would like to know the struggles or the learning opportunities that these people had that led them to success. Did David learn how to kill with a staff and sling from a Sifu? How long did David take to learn that?

I have never read any Gladwell books but, after hearing him interviewed on the radio, thought he sounded interesting and thus would give one of his books a try. I really enjoyed it. It was easy to read and, at least on my part, made me rethink things that I'd always accepted; 'Well, of course that has to be right' - but does it? Was it, necessarily, a great surprise that a small, well trained protector of livestock would loose a battle against a weak, poorly sighted acromegalic? Does the smaller class increase the productivity of students exponentially? Do some 'disabilities' actually increasing some people's ability and success? Whether you accept all the facts Gladwell pulls on in his book or not I'm quite sure that it will make you think about things - it did for me anyway.

I'm a big fan of Gladwell especially his short stories and articles in The New Yorker. David and Goliath is a compelling analogy for the world in which we live today and had the making of a great book but I feel Gladwell fell short of the book's (and the point he set out to prove) true potential.The premise that the small can take on the big and mighty and win in today's fast paced and rapidly changing world is compelling. But his book fails to inspire and that is a disappointment. The premise had been well laid out early in the book and I expected it to progress to great current day learnings but the entire book labours a point that most readers will get and agree with early on. Gladwell would then have done better to show the learnings and pitfalls of the analogy rather than spending chapter after chapter proving a point that had already been proven.Some good stories, well written and easy to read but could've delivered so much more. A decent book but from Gladwell I expected something more.3 1/2 stars.

This is very enjoyable and entertaining reading. The main theme is the goldiocks principle - too little or too much of something won't work well - it needs to be just right ( or at least within a just-right range)Drawing on examples from education, policing, civil rights, and much else the book provides numerous anecdotes as well as statistical evidence to show that inverse U shaped curves apply to the effectiveness of most fields of human activity.I thouroughly enjoyed this book, although there is not much that is revelatory, and read it in just one day

Malcolm rarely disappoints, some wonderful anecdotes, brilliant references to the bible. An absolutely first class read and instruction manual for anyone male or female, any team, any department, any nation who need to fight on principles against the "big".I particularly loved the description of the David and Goliath story, it was told so vividly, I could see it in my minds eye, it made sense and created a series of paradigm shifts in my head regarding the way I have heard the story in the past.I will read this again and again, just like watching a good film, to spot the subtle nuggets I may have missed on my first reading.