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Introduction & Chapter One

Summary: Introduction

In the eleventh century BCE, Palestine’s coastal-dwelling Philistines invade the Israelite kingdom to their east, in the mountains. Soon, the two armies are camped on opposite sides of a valley it would be foolish to attack across. When a giant Philistine warrior, Goliath, dares the Israelites to end the standoff by single combat, the Israelites send a shepherd boy, David. In the coming chapters, Malcolm Gladwell plans to tell stories of people who, like David, faced oversized challenges and had to find ways to respond. Out of such contests, Gladwell writes, come “greatness and beauty.”

However, Gladwell believes that lopsided contests are often misunderstood. With David and Goliath, we should understand that David was, in reality, far from outmatched. For one thing, a lightly equipped warrior able to hurl deadly stones with a sling from a distance has the advantage over a heavily armored warrior ready to fight at close quarters. Also, Goliath’s fearsome size was likely caused by a pituitary tumor. The tumor would have pressed on his optic nerve, making it hard for him to see David clearly. The lesson: “the powerful and strong are not always what they seem.”

PART ONE: THE ADVANTAGES OF DISADVANTAGES (AND THE DISADVANTAGES OF ADVANTAGES)

Summary: Chapter One: Vivek Ranadivé

A few years ago, Vivek Ranadivé was the coach of his daughter’s youth basketball team. Because most of the girls had never played before, Ranadivé realized that for the team to win any games, they would need an unconventional approach. He decided on the full-court press: on defense, instead of letting the other team advance to midcourt unopposed, his players would contest every inbound pass and always make the other team work to bring the ball to midcourt. After a highly successful season, the team went to the national tournament and won its first two games, before a referee in the third game began calling inappropriate “touch fouls” on the girls as they swarmed their opponents. Forced to adopt a more conventional style of play, the girls lost.

According to Gladwell, Ranadivé’s experience illustrates a general principle: the underdog who adopts a David-like strategy has a good chance of winning. According to a study by the political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft, in military contests the David-like underdog wins almost two-thirds of the time. One example is the successful Arab uprising against the modern, well-equipped Turkish army that occupied Arabia during the First World War. A band of unskilled Bedouin guerillas led by T. E. Lawrence (famous as “Lawrence of Arabia”) sabotaged railways and telegraph lines, and at one point mounted a surprise attack that killed or captured twelve hundred Turks with the loss of only two men from their own side.

Ranadivé’s basketball team was not the first to make effective use of the full-court press. A notable earlier example is Fordham University’s 1971 team, which in a famous game beat a much more talented University of Massachusetts team. Strangely, only one participant at that game, a freshman reserve player named Rick Pitino, took the game’s lesson to heart. He became a successful college coach by making regular use of the full-court press. 

This raises a question: if the unconventional strategy regularly wins, why does it remain unconventional? The answer is that the unconventional strategy is hard. T. E. Lawrence’s guerillas marched long distances through the desert, foraging for water and sometimes suffering deadly snakebites. Ranadivé’s girls had to endure practice sessions that consist mostly of conditioning drills, to build up the physical stamina that their strategy required. On the basketball court and on the battlefield, the organization that can stick with the conventional approach will usually do so, because it is easier. The organization that tries something different is the one that has to.

Analysis: Introduction & Chapter One

Gladwell uses various real-life examples to build his argument that defeating a “Goliath” is wholly possible if a “David” is willing to reframe the problem. His argument has two distinct parts, and he begins by discussing the successful full-court press strategy Ranadivé employs with his daughter’s basketball team. First, Gladwell claims Ranadivé’s advantage is his lack of basketball knowledge. Ranadivé, like anyone who approaches a domain without expertise, offers an outsider’s perspective, recognizes a flaw in the way the game is played, and develops an innovative strategy. Second, Gladwell claims many people avoid using unconventional methods for two reasons: they are afraid of going against the status quo and they know implementing and executing new strategies is hard work. The use of constant full-court press requires Ranadivé’s players to work harder and be more physically fit. Gladwell argues that the application of this technique shows Ranadivé understands the value of hard work and has a strong work ethic because of his life as an immigrant. Ranadivé, then, is better equipped to triumph in unlikely circumstances. 

Underdogs understand that challenging giants in conventional ways is futile. Gladwell uses the story of Lawrence of Arabia for two purposes. The first purpose is to further illustrate how disadvantages are beneficial. Lawrence’s men had a different skill set than traditional soldiers, thereby making it possible to catch their opponents off guard. Giants hold positions of power because they assume others will play by their rules. The second purpose in using the Lawrence of Arabia story is so Gladwell can draw comparisons between the men in Lawrence’s army and the players on Ranadivé’s team. Society assumes both groups are weak because they lack certain resources. Neither the soldiers nor the girls are incapable of winning, and neither approached the giants in a way that exposed their own weaknesses. Giants are often blinded by their own confidence and fail to anticipate anything that deviates from the status quo. Gladwell claims that thinking outside the box is one of the most effective ways to beat a Goliath.

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