The Tipping Point

Great thinkers, writers and speakers don’t come to Hong Kong very often so I recently jumped on the chance to attend a seminar held by Malcolm Gladwell’s, author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers. Malcolm takes social phenomena, makes a hypothesis about how these things came to be and illustrates his points brilliantly through historical vignettes which back his thesis.

His Hong Kong talk was based on his bestselling book “The Tipping Point”. This book talks about what kinds of people start trends (mavens, connectors and salespeople) and how one event or a series of small events ‘reframe’ a product or service causing it to catch on like wildfire.

Malcolm is a wiry man, small in stature, with a crazy mane of curly hair. He has a calm, soft voice and was probably the kind of guy who excelled in his studies rather than in sports during his school years. Strangely, at least 3 females admitted to me that they had a crush on him despite his studious appearance. I guess ‘smart’ is the new ‘sexy’ and ‘smart’ can turn beta-males into alpha-males. Or, is it the more obvious ‘fame’ that makes him appealing? Anyway, I digress.

So the first half of his speech talked about a young intern that worked for RCA in the 1920’s. Back then, RCA produced the first radios which were these massive and expensive apparatus that cost the average layman 2 months salary. Sales for the radio at the time were non-existent as people still relied on newspapers- which at the time was the most popular form of media. The heads of RCA assumed that big problems called for big solutions, but that just wasn’t the case.

An enormously publicized boxing match came along which was one of the biggest in history. This ambitious young intern convinced his conservative bosses to let him broadcast the fight live on the radio. He wanted to plant radios broadcasting the fight in strategic locations all over town. Though the old-timers were not easily swayed, they were open to new ideas and allowed him to pull the publicity stunt on a zero budget. He somehow managed to find someone who knew how to borrow a radio transmitter from the army. He also knew another guy who could present the event. After the live broadcast, the radio’s reputation was ‘reframed’ and people started lining up the very next day to buy this product that could bring the world ‘live’ right into your living room.

The story illustrated perfectly how a certain type of person- namely the young intern- had skills which enabled him to conceive of the original idea (maven) sell the idea (salesperson), and to gather the people necessary to make it happen (connector). In the course of one event, with zero resources, this intern made sales for the radio reach its Tipping Point due to the ‘reframing’ of the product in people’s minds.

What was impressive was Malcolm’s story-telling abilities and how clearly he managed to state his point and remember this entire vignette without once stumbling. In addition, when the Q and A session came along, he answered each question perfectly with no pauses or ‘ums’ in between. Each question became its own mini-seminar. One person asked if there was a point in which the sales of his book ‘The Tipping Point’ tipped. He said he wished there was but sales were just steady the whole time. This proves that sometimes there doesn’t actually have to be a Tipping Point in order for something to be successful. Another observation I made was how many eloquently spoken and intelligent people there were in the audience that had interesting and relevant questions.

The latter half of his talk was about the financial crisis and how it was caused by ‘overconfidence’. Apparently successful people are somewhat deluded by their capabilities and believe in themselves unfalteringly. Malcolm talked about a concept called “the optimal margin of illusion”. Being confident in your abilities generally leads to success. However, as soon as one becomes too confident, starts resting on their laurels and becomes not humble enough to see that the world has changed around them, then disaster is inevitable.

Overconfidence is a miscalibration between what you think you know and what you actually know. It’s is an ‘illusion of control’- you feel that your control extends beyond what is rational. Overconfidence is an expert’s disease and time and again has led to disasters like the loss of wars and stock market crashes. Basically what Malcolm was saying is that if you are an expert on something- have outer confidence but inner humility and from time to time question whether or not you need to adapt to changing times to stay one step ahead of the game.

Thanks for all the wonderful tips professor Gladwell!
 

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