Writer’s ideas psych out business
Gladwell adds some fun to Time’s list of the most influential So just how tall is the male, white chief executive at your firm?
With an afro that could stretch nearly half a metre from scalp to hair tip, Malcolm Gladwell projects a clear example of how not every idea he dreams up catches on. But the Canadian writer for The New Yorker magazine has made such a respected name for himself that Time magazine put him on its list earlier this year of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Gladwell’s status as a business authority was confirmed in 2000 with his bestselling book The Tipping Point. It became mandatory reading for MBA students and supplementary reading for business executives wanting to understand why certain products and trends catch on while others don’t.
Time anointed Gladwell as Pop Purveyor of New Ideas in an annual list that also included Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs.
“ How can consumers tell us why they use credit cards?” Gladwell asked at a credit conference in Toronto this week. “ They can’t, because this behaviour is instinctive.”
Gladwell’s new book, Blink, explains how people make decisions without fully understanding why they do. In a process he calls thin- slicing, people instinctively extract the information they need from a given situation in an instantaneous decision- making process.
While researching this book, Gladwell called 300 Fortune 500 companies to ask how tall the CEO was. In the United States, 4 per cent of adult males are over 6- foot- 2, but Gladwell found nearly 33 per cent of CEOs were that tall.
Are boards of directors aware they have an overwhelming preference for white, male CEOs over 6- foot- 2?
“ I want to introduce people to perspectives they are unaware of,” the 42year- old, who grew up in Elmira, Ont., said in an interview. “ I don’t want to confirm what they already know.”
After graduating from the University of Toronto with a history degree, Gladwell couldn’t get a job at any of Canada’s top newspapers. Following his writing passion to the United States, Gladwell worked for the Washington Post for nine years and then assumed his current role as a writer for the esteemed New Yorker. The idea for The Tipping Point grew out of a New Yorker article with the same name, about crime. Gladwell is estimated to have received a $ 1 million ( U. S.) advance for the book. Most of Gladwell’s research starts by reviewing academic studies. Then he becomes the middleman between academia and the mass media. His job is to simplify, he says. And that’s a lesson businesses should learn, too.
Convention, for example, would dictate more consumers will buy an item if given more product choices. But consumers actually want simplicity. He cited a study by Columbia University business professor Sheena Iyengar, who found that 30 per cent of consumers bought jam if presented with six choices, but only 3 per cent made a purchase if presented with 24. The merging of psychology and business is still relatively new in the business sector, said Gladwell. Even a decade ago, Gladwell admitted, he wouldn’t have been invited to speak at this business conference. But, as business people become more aware of the impact psychology can have on revenue, people such as he can gain a following. Gladwell modestly justified his presence on the Time list by commenting the editors wanted to add someone fun to the list.
Yet, walk into a company or an MBA classroom, and you’ll hear Gladwell terms, such as tipping point, connector and stickiness factor. His afro, however, has yet to hit mainstream business style.