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)