Mindset

Book Review: Mindsets in The Classroom

by Mary Cay Ricci

Ricci begins by distinguishing between the concepts of fixed mindset and growth mindset: Fixed mindset is the belief that a person is born with a certain level of intelligence that can’t change.

Growth mindset is an opposing belief that a person’s intelligence can be developed through “persistence, effort, and a focus on learning”. (3)

She then makes the important point that neuroscience supports the notion of growth mindset in that recent brain-based research confirms the concept of neuroplasticity or malleable intelligence – that the human brain can change throughout a person’s life.

Unfortunately, students tend to move from a growth mindset to a fixed mindset as they move to higher grades.  According to Ricci, a fixed mindset is damaging for students at both ends of the learning continuum: For at-risk students, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure; for gifted learners, it results in “risk avoidance” as they shy away from difficult learning challenges. Hence, the major goal of her book is to suggest ways that all school community members can promote the belief in growth mindset.

In Chapter 2, Ricci explores several strategies that school leaders can use to build a growth mindset school culture:

• Have teachers reflect upon and pre-assess their beliefs about intelligence;
•  Educate teachers on the value of praising student effort, not outcomes (which includes careful attention to both verbal and non-verbal feedback);
• Educate teachers, students, and parents about malleable intelligence;
• Monitor, evaluate, and review school protocols with respect to growth mindset – including establishment of PLCs and Look-Fors for student and teacher behavior.

Classroom & school bulletin board displays such as
this example can help create a growth mindset culture

Noting that teachers must create a differentiated, responsive classroom in order that students grow intellectually, Ricci presents, in Chapter 3, “necessary steps” to such a classroom environment.  The first step is to pre-assess to allow for front-end differentiation, including possible remediation, enrichment, or curriculum compacting.  “Pre-assessment respects a student’s time and prior knowledge.” (35)   Other strategies include flexible groupings and use of anchor activities.  Anchor activities are meaningful tasks that extend or enrich student learning and are available at any time students complete regular classroom work.  Formative assessment, such as exit cards, is essential in a responsive classroom.  The author stresses that a teacher should clearly explain to students the dual purpose of formative assessment – to help the teacher better meet the student needs and to allow the teacher to grow in his/her capacity. 

Chapter 4 explores the relationship between critical thinking and growth mindset.  Critical thinking is a process that involves acquiring many higher order skills, including such abilities as analyzing, classifying, and evaluating.   Ricci argues that “… providing students with many opportunities to develop their cognitive abilities through critical thinking experiences impacts the child’s view of herself and contributes to a growth mindset.” (57)  Exposing students to challenging learning opportunities helps them develop “determination, motivation, and persistence” – growth mindset attitudes. (64)

 Failure is the topic of Chapter 5.  In order for students to develop a growth mindset, teachers must promote two beliefs about failure:

1. A student’s own actions and behaviours, not external factors, lead him/her to succeed or fail;
2.  Failure is an opportunity to reflect on errors as “data” that will help a student approach a future “challenging task in a new way or with more effort.” (69)

In Chapter 6, Ricci provides helpful advice for parents so that they can support the development of a growth mindset in their children:

•       Build resilience in their children by modeling a flexible, glass-is-half-full mentality, especially when things don’t go well;
•       Use growth mindset praise – “Always praise a child’s willingness to try, effort, patience, and practice. Do not attribute success to ‘being smart’ … but to hard work and perseverance.” (77)
•       “Help children find their own niche” (78) by providing them with a variety of opportunities.

In Chapter 7, the question Can Gifted Education and A Growth Mindset Coexist is answered.  The author’s answer is “Yes” but only if a concept of giftedness “ that emphasizes potential and possibilities” is adopted. (93)   By avoiding the overuse of the term gifted, and instead, employing terms such as “highly motivated” learner or “high-potential learner” (89), educators will prevent students from adopting a fixed mindset mentality.

Chapter 8 presents a number of strategies for helping students adopt a growth mindset.  Pre-assessment strategies include having students draw a picture of what they think their brain looks like, and having students respond Yes or No to a series of statements such as Some kids are born smarter than others.

One suggested learning task is a Guess Box in which a dried sponge is placed.  First, the students try to guess what object is in the box by asking questions that identify its attributes.  Once the students determine that the object is a sponge, they are asked How is your brain like a sponge?   Then, after pouring water over the sponge so that the students can see it grow and absorb water, the teacher says, “Every time you work hard and learn something new your brain grows and gets stronger.” (110)   

Building a neural network is also suggested as an effective hands-on activity.            Students hold the ends of a string to represent the neural connections that form when new learning occurs.   

When it comes to introducing students to growth mindset, the author recommends that students examine examples of fixed and growth mindset in characters in books, movies  and TV shows.  Likewise, students can learn to view failure from the standpoint of a growth mindset by exploring the lives of famous people who, through determination and  resilience, achieved success after initially failing.  Finally, students can create concept    placemats - collages of pictures which reflect growth.

Ricci concludes her book by identifying some ways that teachers and administrators can maintain a growth mindset school culture:

•       embed a focus on growth mindset in the school improvement plan;
•       create “fear-free zone” learning environments in classrooms (140); and
•       create “Look fors” that would demonstrate that students have acquired growth mindsets

You Can Learn Anything

Drive by Daniel Pink

Book Review: Drive

As author Daniel H. Pink states in the Introduction, the theme of his book Drive is motivation. 

In the first part of his book, Pink identifies two basic societal operating systems or drives.  Motivation 1.0 consists of our basic biological drives, such as seeking food and shelter for survival. 

Motivation 2.0 is the extrinsic system of rewards and punishments (proverbial carrots and sticks) that has dominated the world of business and commerce as well as education since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.   Pink argues that this system is passé and actually incompatible with psychology and current human enterprise: “Our current operating system has become far less compatible with, and at times downright antagonistic to: how we organize what we do; how we think about what we do; and how we do what we do.” (20) 

1. How we organize what we do: Both open-source production (free services such as Wikipedia) and for-benefit, as opposed to for-profit, organizations are new business models that do not operate on traditional rewards systems.
2.  How we think about what we do: People don’t always automatically choose the occupation or path that grants them the greatest tangible reward; instead, they do what they do “for significance-seeking, self-actualizing reasons.” (26)
3. How we do what we do: Rewards and punishments work as motivators for the completion of routine tasks but are ineffective and even counterproductive for motivating people to solve the difficult challenges of the modern workplace.

In Chapter 2, Pink identifies 7 reasons why rewards and punishments don’t work:

1. They have a negative impact on intrinsic motivation.  Rewards create what the author terms the Sawyer Effect – “They can transform an interesting task into a drudge” (35) because contingent (If-then) rewards create a loss of autonomy when it comes to performance.
2. They can diminish performance.  Several studies are presented as evidence of this.
3. They can crush creativity.  Contingent rewards narrow one’s focus in problem solving and stifle outside-the-box thinking.
4. They can crowd out good behavior.  Rewards move the focus away from altruistic behavior.
5. They can encourage unethical behavior.  “The problem with making an extrinsic reward the only destination that matters is that some people will choose the quickest route there, even if it means taking the low road” ie. cheating (49)
6. They can become addictive.  “Rewards are addictive in that, once offered, a contingent reward makes [you] expect it whenever a similar task is faced.” (53)
7. They can foster short-term thinking.  Once you receive the reward, your learning ends.

Pink acknowledges though that there are some occasions when rewards and punishments do work.  First, rewards do work as “healthy baselines” – that is, as perceived “adequate and fair” compensations in the forms of wages, salaries, and benefits. (58)   As well, rewards can be motivating for routine tasks that are neither particularly interesting nor require creative thinking.  The author suggests though that extrinsic rewards will work more effectively as motivators if they are offered only after the task is complete – that is, are viewed as now that as opposed to if-then. (64) 

In Part Two of Drive, Pink explores Motivation 3.0 – a “future-facing” operating system powered by three intrinsic desires: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

The theme of Chapter 4 is autonomy.  Pink argues that a sense of autonomy has a powerfully positive effect on a person’s attitude and performance.  He is careful to define autonomy not as independence but rather as self-direction or acting with choice. (88)  

 Pink believes that businesses should grant employees autonomy over 4 aspects of work: 

·        Task (what people do) An example is Atlassian’s FedEx Days – days set aside 4 times a year during which employees can work on any project they wish, but with the promise of delivering a contribution overnight.

·        Time (when people work) Flip the model of work from “putting in time” to “getting results” (100) – a results-only work environment ROWE).

·        Technique (how people work) This involves giving employees “decision latitude”. (100)

·        Team (whom people work with) “Research has shown that people working in self-organized teams are more satisfied than those working in inherited teams.” (104)  Social networks make choice in collaboration more possible.

The author concludes the chapter on autonomy with a powerful statement: Motivation 3.0 “… presumes that people want to be accountable – and that making sure they have control over their task, their time, their technique, and their team is the most effective pathway to that destination.” (105)

Pink begins Chapter 5 by connecting autonomy with mastery:  “Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement” and “Only engagement can produce mastery.” (109)  Mastery results when companies employ two tactics.  First, employees are assigned what Pink calls Goldilocks tasks, “… challenges that are not too hot and not too cold, neither overly difficult nor overly simple.” (116)  When a task is too hard, it triggers anxiety; when it’s too easy, boredom sets in.  However, when it’s a Goldilocks task, the result is flow (engagement)

Three laws of mastery are posited:

·        Mastery is a mindset – It requires an attitude that values continuous learning;

·        Mastery is a pain - It requires one to have grit;

·        Mastery is an asymptote – You can get really close to it but never fully realize it.

Chapter 6 opens with Pink’s assertion that “The most deeply motivated people … hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves.” (131)  Hence, to be successful, a business must place an emphasis on “purpose maximization”. (133)  One strategy for this is to spend less time on how to perform a particular task and more on why it is important.  Another suggested strategy is allowing employees to spend one day a week pursuing an aspect of their job that is most meaningful to them.  Lastly, “handing employees control over how the organization gives back to the community” will help them find meaning in their work. (140) 

Teachable Moments

Ottawa - October 22, 2014

On Wednesday,October 22, Corporal Nathan Cirillo was shot to death by a lone gunman while he stood guard at the Cenotaph in the heart of downtown Ottawa.  The entire area was placed in lockdown for much of the day as the perimeter was swept by law enforcement officers.  Area schools were placed in Secure mode.

It was a teachable moment. 

EMS personel transport Cpl. Cirullo from theCenotaph  

Following the October 22 incident, there were many lessons which teachers conducted in elementary and secondary schools throughout the Nation's Capital.  In addition to reviewing the many safety protocols and measures in place in schools to keep students safe and secure, teachers used this terrible incident as an opportunity for students to learn about threats to public safety from radicalization and terrorism.  However, they also drew students attention to the remarkable way in which Canadians responded to the death of Corporal Cirillo.  Canadians reacted with sadness and an outpouring of sympathy for his family, but they also showed great resolve in refusing to be intimidated by those who threaten our peaceful, free and democratic society.  Canadians also displayed great pride and admiration for our men and women of the military who risk their lives in defence of our great country.

Flowers, flags, & poppies adorn the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier  

at the Cenotaph following the shooting of Corporal Nathan Cirillo

Students and teachers from St. Anthony School even went so far as to make time during a planned excursion to downtown Ottawa in late October to pay their respects to Corporal Cirillo by visiting the War Memorial.  An Ottawa Police Service officer was so struck by this gesture that he worked with others there to allow the students to gather beside the Grave of the Unknown Soldier to have their picture taken.

 On Friday, October 24, I was one of over a 100 Ottawa Catholic School Board employees who, in a spontaneous gesture of sympathy and resolve, spent lunch hour standing along West Hunt Club Road (outside our Catholic Education Centre) in order to watch the hearse bearing the remains of Corporal Cirillo make its way towards the Highway of Heroes and his final resting place in Hamilton, his home town.

The hearse bearing Cpl. Cirillo passes along West Hunt Club

Catholic Education Centre staff pay tribute to Cpl. Cirillo
 as his hearse passes by

Vimy Ridge Commemoration

Another teachable moment occurred several years ago when I was principal of Holy Trinity Catholic High School.

It started when a grade 10 student by the name of Lucas Wiseman came to see me about a multi-school trip overseas that was being arranged for April 2007.  The trip would be to France and Belgium as a part of the 90th anniversay of the successful Canadian assault on Vimy Ridge.

Each student was to select a Canadian soldier who was a casualty during this famous battle.  Lucas came to see me in my office because he recalled that, when I visited his history class, I had told the students that my great-grandfather Joe Dunlop had died at Vimy.  Lucas asked me if I would let him represent my grandfather.  I told Lucas I would be honoured and pleased.

My great-grandfather, Joe Dunlop

I shared some photos I had of Joe Dunlop and a copy of both his Attestation (enlistment) papers and Casualty Form. The latter indicated that Private Joe Dunlop died on April 13, 1917 from a gunshot wound received on April 9 - the first day of the assault on the ridge.

Casualty Report for Private Joe Dunlop

I had known from family history research I had previously conducted that Joe Dunlop was born of April 9, 1880, and the sad irony that he was fatally wounded on his birthday.  However, what Lucas revealed to me later was nothing short of remarkable - His birthday was also April 9!

The coincidences in this story were so striking that Global National did a feature on it on Remembrance Day 2006.

Global National Remembrance Day Feature - Nov. 11, 2006

Global National Remembrance Day 2006 feature

Going overseas to Vimy to be a part of the ceremony commemorating the 90th anniversary of the assault, and representing Private Joe Dunlop, was a teachable moment for Lucas - one he would share with his children and grandchildren, as he said in the Global National feature.  It was also a teachable moment for me.  It not only taught me about the enormous impact that real-world learning can have on students but as well reassured me that our young people will not "break faith" with those brave soldiers who died in the defense of Canada. 

Private Joe Dunlop & Lucas Wiseman - share the same birthdate - April 9th

     



Leadership that Cares

Shepherd Leadership

Several years ago, I read Blaine McCormick and David Davenport's thought-provoking book Shepherd Leadership, Wisdom for Leaders From Psalm 23.  The authors used the metaphor of the good shepherd to build a framework for pastoral leadership.

The shepherd image indicates that good leaders avoid directives and aloofness, choosing to model the behaviours they desire and walk with their flocks: "Shepherds do not issue a lot of memos and orders from the corner office; rather, they get out in the field and model and guide." (7)

The shepherd leader is highly empathetic, committing "considerable time to listening to the flock." (14) 

They are capable of discerning the goals that need to be met and possess the capacity to lead their staffs to reach those goals: "The good shepherd leader must master both the mountain and the valley, being able to find the right paths and lead people along them." (38-39)

The shepherd leader is a consensus builder, even when faced by apparently contradictory views: "Shepherd leaders need to be both-and not either-or thinkers. (58)

Most importantly, the shepherd leader knows when to step to the front and lead the flock, when to walk alongside the flock, and when to step to the back and allow others to lead: "To shepherd effectively, one must know when to lead, when to follow, and when to get out of the way!" (58)

Appreciative Leadership

by Diana Whitney, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, & Kae Rader

From their exploration of leadership, including personal observations, interviews, and focus groups, authors Diana Whitney, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, and Kae Rader have developed a framework for what they call appreciative leadership. 

In Chapter 1, they define appreciative leadership as follows:

• It is relational – tuning into existing patterns of collaboration;
• It is positive – respecting all people and seeing the best in them;
• It turns potential into positive power; and,
• It has a rippling effect.

In Chapter 2, the authors emphasize that appreciative leadership seeks everywhere – even unlikely places - for positive and creative potential: “Appreciative Leadership is like mining.  You know the gems are there, you just don’t know where they are.” (21)  They offer 8 “mining sites”, including people’s stories of past successes, their edgy ideas, and even their cynicism.  With respect to the last source, they quote Peter Lange: “Behind every cynical statement is a dream wanting to be expressed.” (37) 

Chapters 3 though 7 present the 5 core strategies of appreciative leadership: inquiry, illumination, inclusion, inspiration, and integrity.

The chapter on inquiry begins with a challenge to leaders to ask more than they tell – to be mindful of their ask-to-tell ratio. (30)  Leaders are also encouraged to challenge people’s thinking by asking values-based questions.   Most importantly, leaders must learn how to perform the Flip: turn a negative issue or problem into a positive question. When presented by someone with a problem or complaint, a leader can accomplish the Flip by following 3 steps:

• Listen carefully and repeat what was said;
• Ask, “What is it that you really want?”; and,
• Reflect on what you heard by describing in a 2 or 3-word phrase what the person really wants.

The authors stress that “Appreciative leaders flip questions about problems to questions about success.” (45)

The authors add that habitual problems are prime candidates for the Flip.  The 3 parts of an appreciative question are as follows:

• Value-based affirmative topic - a 2 to 4-word phrase that conveys a core value
• Rapport-building lead-in  - 3/4 sentences that explain the topic and its meaning through  a high-point experience of it; 
• Empowering probes – W5H questions that analyze the specifics of the high-point story.

Chapter 3 ends with a great statement on the value of inquiry: “Inquiry is a silo buster.  It gives people who need to (but don’t) work together a way to come together and learn about and from each other.”(52)

Illumination, the second core strategy, is the theme of Chapter 4.  Four illumination practices are identified: seeking, seeing, sharing, and aligning the best of people and situations. (59)  Seeking and seeing the best of people can be achieved by starting conversations and beginning meetings with the appreciative check-in – simply asking people to share a recent success story. Strength spotting in people essentially involves active listening skills.  Coaching is a highly illuminating practice through the collection and analysis of stories and observations.  Illuminating also involves aligning of people’s strengths with each other and organizational core priorities.  Finally, illumination seeks to get at the root causes of success through asking people two questions:

• Describe a time when you experienced us at our best;
• What caused us to be at our best in this situation? (80)

The chapter closes with the suggestion that the optimal ratio of positive to negative conversations is 5 to 1.  

The 3^rd core strategy, inclusion, is explored in Chapter 5.  On a personal level, leaders are challenged to attend to their inner dialogues – “what [they] think, feel, and talk to [them]selves about” other people. (92)  Inclusive leaders reflect and think about the strengths of others rather than be judgmental.  In conversations, inclusive leaders create conditions that make it safe and invitational for all people to speak up. 

Inclusion has 2 dimensions – both wide and deep.  “Widening is the practice of extending the reach of your social network, to include more and different people”, while “deepening … is the practice of enhancing the quality and strength of relationships”. (106-107)  Effective strategies for deepening relationships are facilitating conversations between improbable pairs and practicing improbable participation.  The latter strategy involves inviting the least suited people into projects and programs.  Appreciative leaders “create a sense of ‘we’ among a diverse group of people.” (113)

In Chapter 7, leaders are offered strategies for inspiring their staffs.  One technique is to tell stories of success.  Another is the regular practice of expressing appreciation in creative and meaningful ways.  A third approach is the sharing of a compelling vision.  A vision will inspire when it is:

• Desired by your staff
• Inclusive, meeting everyone’s needs
• A believable stretch – that is, a lofty but obtainable goal;
• Requires collaboration to be achieved; and,
• Requires creativity.

The authors summarize their views on inspiration as follows: “Inspiration is evoked when people share stories of success, use elevated language, and paint compelling visions of the future.” (152)

The final core strategy, integrity, involves aligning all elements of an organization to worthy principles.   A leader demonstrates integrity by always making value-based decisions.  A leader with integrity always keeps his/her word and is relationally responsible.  Being responsible towards others means being honest, forgiving, and when appropriate, apologetic.  An appreciative leader “…follows one of the cardinal rules of improvisational theater, which is to say ‘yes and…’ even to mistakes”, turning them into opportunities. (190)
  

The authors conclude their book with three essential ways that appreciative leadership will have a positive impact:

•  It will cultivate the character of the leader that practices it, making him/her a better person
•   It will liberate other people’s creative potential; and,
• It will promote collaboration. 

Malcolm Gladwell's What The Dog Saw

What the Dog Saw 

by Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell acknowledges in the Preface that What the Dog Saw is a somewhat loose collection of articles he wrote for The New Yorker.  He states that the genesis for most of these articles was “Curiosity about the interior life of other people’s day-to-day work”. (xvi) The articles are grouped in 3 sections:

·         The first part is about obsessive personalities – “minor geniuses”;

·         Theories is the topic of section two; and,

·         The last section concentrates on predictions we make about people – and Gladwell’s skepticism about such judgments.

From Part One

In “The Pitchman”, Gladwell tells the story of the Morris-Popeil clan – “the first family of the American kitchen.” (4)  Many members of this extended family made fortunes pitching various kitchen gadgets like the Chop-O-Matic and the Veg-O-Matic.  The genius of these pitchman – with Ron Popeil the most adept and successful – was their ability to both entertain and sell.  They would showcase their products in humorous, dramatic, and compelling ways that left audiences mesmerized. Then, they would execute the turn - seizing the “perilous, crucial moment where [the pitchman] goes from entertainer to businessman” (12), and convince audiences that although the gadget was innovative of great benefit to them, it was easy to use and cost effective.

Also in the first section is “Blowing Up”, in which Gladwell contrasts the investment strategy of Nassim Taleb (of Empirica fame) with that of traditional investors such as Victor Niederhoffer.  Niederhoffer’s investment strategy was based on the conventional belief in market stability: “You and I, if we invest conventionally in the market, have a fairly large chance of making a small amount of money in a given day from dividends or interest or the general upward trend of the market. We have almost no chance of making a large amount of money in one day, and there is a very small, but real, possibility that if the market collapses we could blow up. ” (66)  However, Empirica’s investment strategy was based on market instability: “... every day brings a small but real possibility that they’ll make a huge amount of money in a day; no chance that they’ll blow up; and a very large possibility that they’ll lose a small amount of money.” (67)  In the end, Niederhoffer was the one who “blew up” and lost a fortune while Taleb made (and kept) a fortune.

“True Colors” is a particularly interesting article which shows how two advertising copywriters – Shirley Polykoff and Ilon Specht – ingeniously made millions of dollars for their companies’ hair colouring products because they “...managed in the space of a phrase to capture the particular feminist sensibilities of the day.” (90)  Polykoff wrote “Does she or doesn’t she?  Only her hairdresser knows for sure.” for Miss Clairol, and for Nice ‘n Easy, she penned “The closer he gets, the better you look.”  She also authored “If I’ve only one life, let me live it as a blonde” for Lady Clairol.  Specht coined “Because I’m worth it” for L’Oreal.   

A Miss Clairol ad that 'captured feminist
sensibilitiesof the day'

In “What the Dog Saw”, Gladwell writes about Cesar Millan, a dog whisperer.  Millan’s calm, non-aggresive approach to training dogs is, for the author, an example of an individual who possesses the unique quality of presence, which he describes as the versatility to “play different tunes, in different situations” and be reactive.  Presence, Gladwell elaborates, is not about having a bold personality –

“Certain people, we say, ‘command our attention,’ but the verb is all wrong.  There is no commanding, only soliciting.” (144)

From Part Two

The first essay in Section 2, “Open Secrets” is about the Enron scandal.  Gladwell uses this well-known company collapse to point out the difference between a puzzle and a mystery.  A puzzle emerges when we simply lack sufficient information about a problem to resolve it, whereas a mystery results when we have plenty of information - and perhaps even “too much” (154) - about an issue but judgements are required and “assessment of uncertainty”. (153)  In other words, there is a clear factual answer out there waiting to be discovered for a puzzle while a mystery remains shrouded in ambiguity.  Gladwell’s analysis of the Enron scandal, which he labels a mystery, not a puzzle, is a lesson to us that “... the complex, uncertain issues that the modern world throws at us require the mystery paradigm.” (169)

The Enron Scandal - a mystery, not a puzzle

“Million-Dollar Murray” is an examination of the issue of homelessness.  Gladwell argues that our failure to combat homelessness is due to our misunderstanding of its nature.  We invest in shelters and soup kitchens because we think that homelessness “... is a problem with a broad and unmanageable middle [rather than] a problem at the fringe that can be solved.” (186)  Homelessness isn’t an issue with a bell curve distribution – that is, a problem that impacts a large sector of the population.  Instead, it has a power law distribution with only a small minority of the population affected.  His solution then is to simply invest money in providing decent housing and employment opportunities for this small sector of the population.  He argues that, ultimately, the costs of such an investment to end homelessness would be much lower than the huge amounts of money we currently invest in services such as soup kitchens and treatment problems that, rather than end this “social wrong”, simply manage and ultimately perpetuate it. (187)

In “Something Borrowed”, Gladwell explains how his perspective on intellectual property and plagiarism changed as a result of a controversy over the borrowing by a playwright of material from one of his articles in The New Yorker.  At first, he labeled Bryony Lavery’s borrowing of several passages from his magazine profile “Damaged”, which was on serial killer studier Dorothy Lewis as “theft” (227) – that is, a case of plagiarism.  However, after greater deliberation, he came to realize that there is a big difference “... between borrowing that is transformative and borrowing that is merely derivative.” (236)  He grew to realize that Lavery wasn’t just creating her own profile of Lewis and simply lifting his words off the pages of his article, but rather, using his intellectual property “as a building block” to create in Frozen “something entirely new” – a dramatic and moving play “.. about what would happen if a mother met the man who killed her daughter.” (240)

Gladwell draws a distinction in “The Art of Failure” between two types of reaction that lead to failure.  Panic occurs when an individual fails to sufficiently think his/her way through a problematic situation, and instead, reverts to instinct.  Choking, however, is the opposite reaction – when an individual thinks too much, over analyzes a situation, and ends up losing the capacity to act instinctively.  Since panicking often results from an individual’s lack of experience in a scenario, it is for Gladwell a form of “conventional failure”, while choking is a “paradoxical failure” (much more difficult to understand) because the individual has plenty of experience. (275)  

From Part Three

In “Late Bloomers”, Gladwell refutes the popular notion that genius is the exclusive domain of the young.   He not only provides examples of people whose genius was not realized until later in life (ie. Cezanne and Mark Twain) but explains that late-blooming geniuses are experimental in approach to their fields of study while precocious geniuses are conceptual.  Due to their trial-and-error approach, “On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure.” (305)

Mark Twain - late-blooming geniuses

Gladwell turns his skeptical eye, in “Most Likely to Succeed”, towards traditional methods intended to predict an individual’s job readiness.  He states that, ”There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they’ll do once they’re hired.” (317) Two such occupations are NFL quarterback and teacher, which he contends are  “ ... so particular and specialized that there is no way to know who will succeed at [them]”. (323)  

The particular and specialized skills set required by a teacher that Gladwell identifies include:

• Awareness of and regard for student perspective (differentiation of learning)
• Ability to provide high-quality feedback
• Withitness (the ability to be aware of students’ behaviour and respond intuitively)

 Gladwell concludes that “Test scores, graduate degrees, and certifications – as much as they appear related to teaching prowess ...” are poor predictors of teacher success. (330)   Since it is too difficult to predict teacher success, he concludes that we shouldn’t be raising the standards for teacher certification or hiring.   Instead, “Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree – and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before.” (333)

Oddly compared by Gladwell:
NFL Quarterbacks and teachers

“The Talent Myth” should be required reading for anyone responsible for hiring and assembling a management team.  Gladwell defines the talent myth as follows: “... the deep-seated belief that having better talent at all levels [of a business] is how you outperform your competitors.” (358)   In other words, it’s the belief that an organization’s intelligence is simply the sum total of the intelligence of its employees – particularly of its managers/leaders.  In debunking the talent myth, Gladwell points out that the link between a person’s IQ and job performance is, according to research, “distinctively underwhelming”. (360)   Successful managers/leaders are not necessarily book smart; instead, they possess “tacit knowledge” such as “... how to manage {themselves} and others and how to navigate complicated social situations.” (361)   He also points out that flawed manager types such as the Narcissist or Homme de Ressentiment (one who “seethes below the surface and plots against his enemies” – p. 365) are proof that an employee may be very smart but unethical and ultimately destructive for the organization.

In “The New-Boy Network”, Gladwell argues that the traditional job interview is a flawed and biased process.  It’s inherently flawed, first of all, because of the human tendency to form snap judgments based on first impressions: “The first impression becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; we hear what we expect to hear.  The interview is hopelessly biased in favor of the nice.” (384)   The other factor, according to Gladwell, that undermines the effectiveness of the interview is the Fundamental Attribution Error – our tendency “... to fixate on supposedly stable character traits and overlook the influence of context.” (386)