The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

This book was one of the top ten management books in 2006 according to a publication. Having read this book, I would say that it does offer a few lessons to learn. But for me the biggest takeaway was that people conduct some crazy experiments to determine some really weird things.

For starters, “Tipping Point” is a wonderful phrase. If Malcolm Gladwell did come up with it, he has to be applauded. For me, it is a phrase that should be used as fervently by the Marketing honchos as any of their other jargons. Because “Tipping Point” is essentially a market phenomenon, especially in the business management context. And every CEO worth his salt would love to have his sales triple in a year or two. That is, it is wonderful if a company can make a product, which is barely selling, “tip” on its edge and have it accepted by millions of consumers.

The book starts of explaining this phenomenon of tipping point, why it happens, who causes it and eventually how can someone deliberately achieve it. As far as the logic of the argument goes, it is pretty sound. And examples are quite relevant. The one real good thing about the book is that it is not in just a business context. It has got a social context with business relevance. The other thing that I like is that there are plenty of examples to support the theory that the author is purporting. And while the theory is pretty obvious (like all management theories tend to be) the examples are quite counter-intuitive, varied and thorough. In fact what the author does is collect a lot of experiments, which were conducted for their own specific reason, bind them in a common theme of finding the causes for the tipping point, and present it as a package. So in that sense, the book is quite complete. Though while giving some of the lengthy examples, the fact that the book is about tipping point, is a bit lost in the background.
However, I didn’t feel that the exploration of the phenomenon of tipping point was really scientific. It was a bunch of examples and some thoughts of the author which, really, only give a structure to something we all know. As I said, it states the obvious, in a structured way. Still, all in all, I thought the book was a good read. Primarily because of some of the examples and other research that are described in fair amount of detail. And though the book wasn’t particularly enlightening, I did learn quite a few new things. And therefore, I have no regrets on reading this one. However, to rank it as one of the top ten management books is a going over the top really. But then strange are the ways in which the best-sellers syndicate operates.