When I finish it I will summarise my learnings in a future post, but I just had to share this funny excerpt that describes what happens when communication breaks down.
According to Professor Cohen, in case after case, patients, nurses, pharmacists, and other physicians do not question the prescription.
Take, for example, the strange case of the “rectal earache” reported by Cohen and Davis.
A physician ordered ear drops to be administered to the right ear of a patient suffering pain and infection there.
But instead of writing out completely the location “right ear” on the prescription, the doctor abbreviated it so that the instructions read “place in R ear.”
Upon receiving the prescription, the duty nurse promptly put the required number of ear drops into the patient’s anus.
Obviously, rectal treatment of an earache makes no sense. Yet neither the patient nor the nurse questioned it.
The important lesson of this story is that in many situations where a legitimate authority has spoken, what would otherwise make sense is irrelevant
The case of the rectal earache
What does it mean for marketers?
The excerpt above is a hilarious example of one of my favourite quotes from George Bernard Shaw in action:
The problem with communication…is the illusion that it has been accomplished
In research circles this is often referred to as branded message take-out, which I think is one of the most critical metrics for any piece of communication.
So basically, if your communications aren’t scoring high in this metric, your customers end up suffering rectal earache.
Outliers is the third Malcolm Gladwell book, following best sellers The Tipping Point and Blink. In Outliers, Gladwell investigates the real reasons for success. It challenges everything you thought you knew about the best and brightest.
Outliers by Malcom Gladwell
Gladwell has an amazing knack for finding unique case studies to explain complex phenomenon, and I thoroughly recommend his books to anyone interested in how the world really works. In the CNN interview below, Gladwell highlights some of the key insights from the book.
My personal big 5 learnings from reading Outliers were as follows:
According to the 10,000 hour rule, to be considered a master of any discipline, you need to have a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice under your belt. There is no secret to it, to be the best you just have to work the hardest.
IQ doesn’t really matter, you just have to be ‘smart enough’. The brightest people don’t necessarily make it to the top. The people who work the hardest, think outside the box, and can influence others, are the ones who make it.
When and where you are born matters. To make it to the top you need to have been in the right place, at the right age, at the right time. Basically there is a big element of luck. In other words, if you make it to the top, be humble!
Your heritage matters. If your parents were hard workers, you are more likely to have a great work ethic as well. Thanks Mum and Dad!
Avoid flying with any national airline that has a high Power Distance Index. If the Co-Pilot respects authority too much to speak up when their Captain is doing something wrong, your plane is more likely to fall out of the sky. Same thing goes in business, SPEAK UP!
Posted by Chris Maloney 
