"Cap rate": The human potential of communities and cultures
I am not a huge Malcolm Gladwell fan. Let me re-phrase that: I don’t mind Malcolm Gladwell. But I must admit, I was particularly excited when he was billed with Mark Kingwell in “Well Well, an evening of dialogue on social change.” To my dismay, the double threat was not as hard hitting as I thought it would be. Gladwell took some of the best social marketing campaigns that have changed behaviours (like anti-smoking and seatbelts) to illustrate his point that many things – not just communication – are required to tip a system.
Kingwell, meanwhile, deconstructed the biblical image of Cain and Abel to demonstrate that social change requires empathy. An interesting take, but a rather meaty one to tackle at 6pm and make all appropriate connections. Judging by the faces in the crowd, most were thinking about meat of a different sort. Journalist versus philosopher. It was a tough discussion, one that seemed to need another hour or so to flesh out and make real headway (and not the hour sitting between the audience and their dinners).
It was with apathy that I bought my ticket to another Malcolm Gladwell lecture. To be honest, it was the title of the speaker series, “Integrative Thinking” that caught my attention. If the lecture had been billed as it should have been (“Gladwell discusses his latest book, Outliers“) I’m not sure if I would have attended. But I’m really happy I did. This was Gladwell in his element (as opposed to Gladwell-light, like the last time). He sat across from Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Business and an old family friend of Gladwell’s, brimming with a quiet yet electric energy (personally, I think that’s why his hair grows so curly). Most importantly, this time, it was really all about social change.
Gladwell quickly dug in his heels to discuss his latest tome, which tries to better understand the careers of really successful people — people who are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience as to be considered “outliers”. He is interested in the fact that groups of people who have been persecuted historically share similar qualities (such as doggedness and persistence) which have led them to be resilient and successful. He starts with the family unit and explains that there are four “buckets” that people can fall into based on growing up with advantages and disadvantages. The most interesting to Gladwell was the bucket of “born” disadvantages, but can become advantages or as he put it “things that turn out to be good in the long run.”
Along these lines, some of us capitalize on our strengths as oppose to others that compensate for weaknesses. Gladwell argues that the latter is the stronger position but that western societies have systematically shut out people in this category, or at least made it really difficult for them to integrate into society.
The conversation then turns to “capitalization rate,” a measurement that Gladwell borrows from James R. Flynn, which rates the ability of a system, community or culture to utilize its human capital, or what Gladwell bluntly frames as: “how good a society is at exploiting its members.” Westerners are inclined to think that we are the best at exploiting our own members. Not so, says Gladwell, and makes his point by using a topic he often comes back to: sports, since “it’s what Americans care about most.”
How come Kenyans are the best long distance runners in the world? Contrary to our belief that it may be anything to do with genetics, it’s rather a case of capitalization. More than one million teenage Kenyan boys run 10 miles a day. Balancing that out with their population rates, makes Kenya’s cap rate for star runners a staggering 95 per cent. Comparatively, America ranks remarkably low at capitalizing on its potential talent, in everything from athletic ability to professional careers.
Gladwell takes the example of an inner city community in Los Angeles, where kids have to cross gang lines to go to high school, so they just don’t go. Many youth from this community excel in sports and look to scholarships to release them out of a life of crime and poverty. Sadly, the uptake of these scholarships is only one in six, since many of the promising athletes/students would be incarcerated or killed before seeking a better fate. Gladwell glumly proclaims that their cap rate, a community within one of the wealthiest cities in the world, is zero.
The underbelly of Gladwell’s book is that we exist in a system geared towards self-help and promoting those who capitalize on their advantages. The problem is that this can only take us so far as a society. In terms of self-help, we have reached our capacity and the way forward is about collective help and the distribution of opportunity.
One of my favourite things about Gladwell is his ability to story-tell using the most illustrative, sometimes obscure examples. Rosetta, a tiny community in Mississippi, was populated by immigrants that came from a small town in Italy, also called Rosetta. In Rosetta, health was a function of social equality as opposed to the health standards that we try to live by. People of Rosetta lived a robust, Italian (“unhealthy”) lifestyle, which included copious amounts of starches, red meat, wine and cigarettes. Curiously, they were also living well into their 100s. Although Rosetta was “totally unhealthy” in the traditional sense, their culture of caring for those less fortunate and looking out for their neighbour seemed to be key to their standard of living and subsequent longevity. Gladwell sums up: Don’t start with the individual, start with the community and work backwards.
The talk left me with some important questions:
- When it comes to innovation, are we reaching our maximum cap rate?
- How can we all be more inclusive and aware of societal norms that systematically shut out potential talent?
- If we are keen to pursue new ways of problem-solving, how do we remain open in the face of cultural norms?
- How can we flip systematic disadvantages/discrimination on its head? (The final takeaway is a hint.)
- How do we flip from “me” to “we”?
One final takeaway: Did you know that the majority of entrepreneurs are dyslexic? Here’s an example of a systematic disadvantage that has become an advantage. Since dyslexics rely on keen communication skills, they are excellent team builders. Over 80 per cent of dyslexic entrepreneurs were team sport captains growing up in school (compared to 27 per cent of non-dyslexic entrepreneurs). I’m sure Richard Branson didn’t see his dyslexia as a disadvantage, but rather, as a driver that made him work that much harder to achieve such stunning success.
For a sneak peak at “Outliers”, check out the following excerpts:
Lisa manages social innovation projects for the Social Innovation Generation (SiG@MaRS) program at MaRS.
