Outliers: The Story of Success

Surprisingly, I didn't receive a reply to the e-mail that I included in my last blog post. But, several days later, I did receive an e-mail that was sent to all the coaches. The message included instructions on how to be a great coach. An emphasis was made on the playing time policy of the league. I was pleased to see that they took action to make this a better experience for the children.



Our whole family (all 7 of us) and some extended family and friends went to Carson's next game to cheer him on. Normally, just Kathy or I go to his game. Carson was so excited that such a large crowd came to see him play. We all cheered him on like crazy and he played great!



His sister Brennah (right) and his cousin Marissa (left) surprised (and embarrassed) him with a sudden kiss when Kathy took this picture. He was so cute. We were so pleased to see him play and have fun and do so well!

Amazingly, I read something fascinating about this very topic just recently. We have a reading program at DVO that is designed to help each employee grow and develop and to help our company provide a better product and service to our customers. Each employee who does the weekly reading assignment gets to go to lunch with me. At lunch, we discuss what we read (and usually have a really good time too!). Since I'm paying for lunch, I get to choose the book.

This month, I chose Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers: The Story of Success." After what happened at soccer with Carson, I was fascinated by what I read. In the beginning of the book, Malcolm makes a shocking observation regarding the birth month of successful hockey players in Canada. About 80% of the boys on Canadian hockey teams are born in the first three months of the year. He says:

"The explanation for this is quite simple. It has nothing to do with astrology, nor is there anything magical about the first three months of the year. It’s simply that in Canada the eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1. A boy who turns ten on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn’t turn ten until the end of the year—and at that age, in preadolescence, a twelve-month gap in age represents an enormous difference in physical maturity.

This being Canada, the most hockey-crazed country on earth, coaches start to select players for the traveling “rep” squad—the all-star teams—at the age of nine or ten, and of course they are more likely to view as talented the bigger and more coordinated players, who have had the benefit of critical extra months of maturity. And what happens when a player gets chosen for a rep squad? He gets better coaching, and his teammates are better, and he plays fifty or seventy-five games a season instead of twenty games a season like those left behind in the “house” league, and he practices twice as much as, or even three times more than, he would have otherwise.

In the beginning, his advantage isn’t so much that he is inherently better but only that he is a little older. But by the age of thirteen or fourteen, with the benefit of better coaching and all that extra practice under his belt, he really is better, so he’s the one more likely to make it to the Major Junior A league, and from there into the big leagues.

Barnsley argues that these kinds of skewed age distributions exist whenever three things happen: selection, streaming, and differentiated experience. If you make a decision about who is good and who is not good at an early age; if you separate the “talented” from the “untalented”; and if you provide the “talented” with a superior experience, then you’re going to end up giving a huge advantage to that small group."

He continues...

"Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive."

I am so fascinated by this book! And, after my last blog post and the letter that I wrote to the President of the local soccer league, I worried that I had over-reacted. However, when I read this part of Malcolm Gladwell's book, I was encouraged and I felt validated (and a little relieved too). I'm glad I stood up for my boy Carson and all the other younger and "less talented" boys in the league who have been getting less playing time and an inferior experience.

We haven't finished this Outliers book yet but we're really enjoying it and looking for more good books to read. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!