Malcolm Gladwell on Diversity, Success, and Changing His Mind

At a recent Authors@Wharton event, Wharton’s Adam Grant spoke with Malcolm Gladwell about his latest bestseller, ‘Revenge of the Tipping Point.’

Malcolm Gladwell’s seventh bestseller, Revenge of the Tipping Point, wasn’t supposed to be a full volume of new material.

His publisher wanted to reissue his breakthrough debut, The Tipping Point, on its 25th anniversary, so Gladwell was tasked with writing an updated prologue. But for a storyteller who’s considered one of the world’s most influential thinkers, a few pages of prose seemed inadequate to capture all the changes of the last quarter-century. The first book explored the science behind viral trends in business, marketing, and behavior; the second reframes those lessons through the lens of social engineering.

“There were things about COVID, and particularly the opioid crisis, that I really, really wanted to talk about, and I couldn’t see a way to fit those two things in a simple revise of the original book,” he said to Wharton management professor Adam Grant during an interview for the lecture series, Authors@Wharton.

Grant, who is good friends with Gladwell, ribbed him about revisiting the past. A self-described “fervent disbeliever” in nonfiction sequels, Grant said Gladwell’s book is so provocative that it changed his mind.

“No one should write about the same topic twice. You’re just going to end up being the musician that is perpetually stuck singing your first great hit over and over. You made me rethink that,” Grant said.

Easy laughter punctuated much of their nearly 80 minutes on stage together, as Gladwell shared his thoughts on a wide range of topics he explores in the new book, including the art of admitting failure.

A chapter in the original book focuses on Bernie Goetz, a white man who shot four Black men as they approached him on a New York City subway in 1984. The case sparked intense debate about crime and race in America. Gladwell said he reevaluated his writing after a casual conversation earlier this year with Dr. Eugenia South, a Penn physician and professor of emergency medicine. She noted that he spent most of his words on Goetz and only two sentences about the young men who were shot, evidence that he “bought into the narrative” of white people as victims and Black people as criminals. Gladwell said her criticism was especially devastating because he is biracial, the son of a Black Jamaican mother and a white English father.

“I want to find every copy of The Tipping Point and just rip out that chapter. It’s mortifying. But it doesn’t diminish me as a person,” he said. “She’s offering me an opportunity to redeem myself by pointing out what I did wrong.”

Gladwell’s mea culpa intrigued Grant, an organizational psychologist whose research includes rethinking assumptions. “You go to unusual lengths to make your embarrassments public. You don’t have to tell the whole world. Why this impulse?” he asked.

Gladwell said he learned intellectual humility from his father, a math professor who relished the opportunity to reconsider his position when given new information. Besides, Gladwell said, “The fastest way to make something go away is to say, “I was wrong.’”

Below are some additional highlights from the conversation:

On the Benefits of Diversity

Gladwell cited a study about an American town with a higher-than-average rate of teen suicide. The town seemed idyllic — families were financially comfortable and the schools were high-performing. But Gladwell said the study identified the “monoculture” of the community as the root of the problem. Teens who didn’t fit into the narrow definition of success didn’t have alternative groups to seek out and find a sense of belonging.

“Parents moved to that community because they thought they were leaving these kinds of social problems behind, and instead they created an even bigger one,” Gladwell said, adding that the finding poses an interesting question about how a lack of diversity may affect people in other settings.

Grant put the question in a business context, saying that studies on startups show that when founders emphasize a culture fit when hiring new employees, the business is less likely to fail at first. But as the company grows, that monoculture no longer works. “Once you become a bigger organization, you end up too homogenous, and you have a lot of groupthink, and it becomes harder to change and innovate,” Grant said.

Gladwell said he’s come to believe in quotas because diversity’s strength is in numbers.

“It’s not just about having people who are different,” he said. “It’s about having people who are different in sufficient numbers so that they can be themselves, and they can change the culture of the group that they belong to.”

On the Joys of Mediocrity

Gladwell praised the utility of sports for teaching traits such as discipline and collaboration. But he doesn’t think people need to be good at them to reap the rewards. He mentioned California Institute of Technology, where athletes need not be elite to join the school’s track team.

“They are so slow, it’s hilarious. But they’re right,” he said. “If you’re a slow-miler, you get all the benefits of being a runner that you get if you’re a good miler. This fixation with being good at it is just preposterous.”

On Accepting Less Success

Reading questions from the audience, Grant asked Gladwell how a high-achiever can stop identifying with their own accomplishments. The idea prompted some reflection about age from Gladwell, who is 61.

“This is the question you confront when you are out of your prime. There’s going to be a point where you’re not going to have the same success you had when you were younger, and you have to figure out how you’re going to deal with that,” he said. “I think it’s the central question of getting old.”

On Changing His Mind

Gladwell produces and hosts Revisionist History, a podcast that takes a second look at something from the past to determine if it was misunderstood. Grant asked him if any topic is off-limits from reconsideration.

“Why would you take a stand like that? I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t change my mind about,” Gladwell said.

Grant replied: “I don’t want to call you formulaic or predictable, but I did write down ‘no’ as your expected answer.”

Then Gladwell, who recently became a father for the first time, quickly revised his answer.

“I will never change my mind about the belief that my daughters are cute. They’re cute. They’ll always be cute,” he said.