I am reading Malcolm Gladwell's latest book right now, called Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know, and I am intrigued by the chapter on Sylvia Plath's unfortunate suicide and the concept of "coupling." The idea behind coupling, which stands in contrast to displacement, is that when someone makes the very sad decision to commit suicide, it can often be coupled to a particular place or context.

Malcolm starts by giving the example of "town gas." Prior to it being phased out in the 1960s and 1970s, most homes in Britain relied on a form of gas that contained carbon monoxide. And sadly, it became the most popular way for people to kill themselves. When Sylvia Plath took her own life in 1962, the death-by-carbon-monoxide-poisoning stat was 44.2% of all suicides in England and Wales.

The concept of displacement, on the other hand, surmises that if somebody wants to kill themselves, they will eventually find another way. But Malcolm convincingly argues that that is not necessarily or very often the case. As town gas was phased out of British homes, the number of suicides also declined in lockstep. Turns out that many of the previous suicides had been coupled to that particular tool.

Why this is potentially valuable to this blog audience is that this same coupling phenomenon can happen within our cities and to particular places. Malcolm gives the example of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which has been the site of many suicides since it was first erected in 1937. The same, of course, can be the said about many subway systems around the world.

But again, there's evidence to suggest that if you can save somebody on the Golden Gate Bridge (a suicide barrier was erected in 2018) or on a subway system by installing safety doors, there's a good chance that many of those people will never actually find another way to commit suicide. In other words, you can save a bunch of lives by having the right provisions in place and not assuming that something is a foregone conclusion.

Photo by Chris Leipelt on Unsplash

As many of you know, I am huge of Malcolm Gladwell. And one of the things that he has popularized through his writing is this idea that we all need to spend at least 10,000 hours specializing on someting in order to become truly exceptional at it. The Beatles did this because of all the time they spent playing music. Bill Gates did this because he was fortunate enough to have access to a computer at an early age. And Tiger Woods did this because his father gave him clubs as a toddler and got him to start practicing the game of golf. But is this truly the rule or the exception?

In this recent TEDx Talk by David Epstein (embedded above), he argues that we're actually ignoring one of the less intuitive but more common journeys. For every Tiger Woods, there are many Roger Federers. For every success story that hyperspecialized at an early age, there are countless examples of dilettantes who dabbled -- and perhaps struggled -- across different fields, only to find their true passion later in life. And so while it may seem like they're not making progress, or even falling behind in the short term, this may not be the case in the long term.

All of this reminded me of a post I wrote early last year about finding meaning in life and business. In it, I cited an article from New York Times Magazine recounting the outcomes of Harvard Business School graduates -- some of which went on to be happy and wildly successful, and some of which ended up miserable after school. The takeaway here was that non-linear paths, experimentation, and a bit of struggle along the way, is nothing to be ashamed about. In fact, it may be exactly what is needed in order to prepare for today's increasingly complex and wicked world.

I am a huge fan of Malcolm Gladwell (and not just because he is Canadian and also went to the University of Toronto). Last week he kicked off a new Munk Dialogues series focused on the world after COVID19. (The next Munk Dialogue will be with Fareed Zakaria on Wednesday, April 15 from 8 PM to 9PM Toronto time.)

In case you're not familiar with the Munk Debates, they are normally a biannual event held here in Toronto. Their mission is to help people rediscover the "art of public debate" and they do that by convening some of the world's brightest and most creative thinkers. Right now they are doing that online.

In this Q&A with Gladwell, they touch on a lot of the topics that we are all debating right now on Zoom calls with our colleagues and friends. When will we get back to "normal?" What will change forever? Is working from home the new normal? Will people still want to go for Mandarin buffet? I won't spoil it for all of you, but I did want to mention three points that I found myself agreeing with (I guess that is partially spoiling it).

The first is his analogy to weak link sports such as soccer. Here you're only as good as your weakest player. This is in contrast to strong link sports such as basketball. In this case, you're only as good as your best player. If you want to win a championship, you get someone like Kawhi Leonard. Gladwell argues that this pandemic has further exposed us as a complex weak link society. We don't even have the basic PPE and testing in place to fight this virus.

The second is about whether this will create a more permanent shift to working from home. I have said before on the blog that I think it's easy to overreach at a time like this. We might think that everything will change, but we also have short memories. Gladwell takes it a step further and argues that the exact opposite will happen. This pandemic will actually set working from home back a generation. We are going to be so sick of isolating that we will race back to what we had before.

Finally, I like the point that right now is an opportunity for experimentation. This is true of all crises. It's a lot easier to question the status quo when the status quo has already been disrupted. And we are seeing this happen at all scales, from people experimenting and learning new things at home to new companies being formed. Hopefully there will also be lasting benefits to our public health systems.

Anyway, I would encourage to watch the video. If you can't see it embedded at the top of this post, click here.