BOOK BRIEFS
Appearing each issue, Book Briefs lets LTEN members share tips and takeaways from their favorite business books. Hopefully you’ll find inspiration and recommendations for your professional library.
Reading a training-compatible book that you’d like to share with your LTEN colleagues? Reach out to us at editor@L-TEN.org and we’ll help you provide a Book Brief!
Malcolm Gladwell
Book briefed by Pam Marinko
Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, a thematic sequel to his bestseller “The Tipping Point,” is riveting. He returns to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points — this time exploring their darker side, examining our role in fueling them and reframing the lessons learned in a new light.
In “Revenge of the Tipping Point,” Gladwell delves into the ethical implications for applying the principles he once championed, and adds a mea culpa: He got some things wrong.
He threads a series of provocative stories throughout the narrative, revealing fragments chapter by chapter to illustrate his overarching points, then pulling them together at the end into thought-provoking conclusions, leaving us with questions and profound self-reflection.
As a reader in the life sciences space, my ears perked up when I heard him interviewed — especially the moments when he mentioned the opioid crisis and the COVID epidemic in the same breath. He offers alternate histories for both.
He introduces three new concepts: overstories, superspreaders and social engineering. A compelling overstory explores small-area variation in medicine. Gladwell compares two nearly identical cities — except that one has significantly higher rates of a particular medical procedure. Data shows that when clinicians move between these cities, their behaviors shift quickly to mirror the norms of their new environment. Gladwell presents it as a striking demonstration of how strongly communities can shape behaviors — even in fields where we assume decisions are purely evidence based.
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Published: Oct. 1, 2024
For more information, click here.
Quote: “In Revenge of the Tipping Point, I want to look at the underside of the possibilities I explored so long ago. If the world can be moved by just the slightest push, then the person who knows where and when to push has real power. So who are those people? What are their intentions? What techniques are they using? Revenge of the Tipping Point is an attempt to do a forensic investigation of social epidemics. It’s time for a hard conversation about epidemics. We need to acknowledge our own role in creating them. We need to be honest about all the subtle and sometimes hidden ways we try to manipulate them. We need a guide to the fevers and contagions that surround us.”
I found the stories to be suspenseful and the conclusions surprising. In an interview, he said, “What (readers) want is to have a light shined in places that it never occurred to them to shine a light. So, I thought, rather than talk about the aspect of this phenomenon that we are familiar with, why not talk about the parts we’re not thinking about?”
This book does exactly that—and it challenges the reader to do the same. It’s a book worth reading!
Pam Marinko is chief executive officer of Proficient Learning and a member of the LTEN Advisory Council. Email her at pam.marinko@proficientlearning.com or connect through linkedin.com/in/pmarinko4.
