David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants Paperback – Illustrated, 7 April 2015

This is the first book review I've ever forwarded to Amazon; as a busy CEO of a performance-improvement business I have little time to do spare on such things normally. I am therefore not a 'professional reviewer' with aspirations to become as renowned as the author, neither do I wish to use the platform of a review to demonstrate how clever I am or how many associated works I have read, in some way diminishing the author's innovative work. I have done so simply because, having devoured and reflected on this book over a few days (as with all Malcolm's others, which I've bought in numbers for my people) I found it absolutely inspirational in adjusting my thinking in several key areas. Having read the first few reviews, I felt moved to give it the unqualified praise and admiration I feel it deserves. It is to me is the best book I've read for years (and I am looking at 200+ now in my office). Its key messages have application to so many of us in so many ways. For example, as someone integrally involved with education and training for 30 years, the insights about class size accords with our own experiential discoveries and should be informative to educators generally. The big pond little fish insight will halp many undergrads to focus on the most appropriate University for them personally. The insights about the legitimacy of authority, whether relating to policing (Brownsville), the military (Northern Ireland) or the justice system (California)should be informative to everyone involved in these activities, and especially those responsible for policy-setting -the essence of each being that humans are more influenced in decision-making by innate emotions than rational thought (as neuroscience has been discovering in recent years). A truth which is all too often completely ignored. The theory of desirable difficulty as applied to dyslexia will help me empathise with employees who have that disadvantage, perhaps by making their assignments harder to read, which I now see will improve their attention and outputs! All in all, this is a truly compelling read for anyone willing to look at apparently counter-intuitive ideas and open to adjusting their thinking as a result - surely the unique genius in all Malcolm Gladwell's books. Malcolm - come to the UK and speak to our policy-makers!!

Malcolm Gladwell has justifiably become one of the more popular non-fiction writers - his previous books such as The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference or Outliers: The Story of Success have done an excellent job of synthesizing scientific research that was perhaps not always intuitively appealing into a very readable and easy to digest format.Partially the current book - 'David and Goliath' - follows in the same vein. He is still one of the easiest writers to read and the concept, namely that the cards are often stacked against the more powerful 'Goliath', is a common, if not often acknowledged one.The book starts well enough with the original David and Goliath story and then progresses through plenty of individual cases on how the weaker side successfully took on the conventionally more powerful one. The examples range from basketball, dyslexia, to the treatment of leukemia, the civil right movement, Northern Ireland and the 'three strike policy'.If you are looking for a well argued scientific treatise, the book will possibly disappoint. While research is often used to strengthen the points the author tries to make, it is less pervasive than in his other books; here much more is based on individual case studies.Nevertheless, if you use the book primarily as a 'food for thought' material, there are certainly plenty of interesting cases to work from here and the author (sometimes narrowly) avoids the trap of claiming that the position of the weaker, disadvantaged party is by definition the preferable one. He ably demonstrates that there are certain strengths that can be drawn from a position conventionally defined as the weaker one, from never giving up, not playing according to (informal) rules, avoiding your opponents' strength, to building on the mechanisms that helped you overcome your weakness...Quite some of the points are not new, and some recent Po Bronson non-fiction books such as Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing or Nurtureshock: Why Everything We Thought About Children is Wrong perhaps demonstrate them with more scientific support, even if they do not read quite as fluidly as this here (they are very close, though).So overall not the most memorable Gladwell but still an interesting book that can help the more reflective manager, strategist or general thinker play out intriguing scenarios and understand some basics of 'David and Goliath' mechanics.

Malcolm Gladwell never lets you down. Another great piece.

I'm a big fan of Gladwell especially his short stories and articles in The New Yorker. David and Goliath is a compelling analogy for the world in which we live today and had the making of a great book but I feel Gladwell fell short of the book's (and the point he set out to prove) true potential.The premise that the small can take on the big and mighty and win in today's fast paced and rapidly changing world is compelling. But his book fails to inspire and that is a disappointment. The premise had been well laid out early in the book and I expected it to progress to great current day learnings but the entire book labours a point that most readers will get and agree with early on. Gladwell would then have done better to show the learnings and pitfalls of the analogy rather than spending chapter after chapter proving a point that had already been proven.Some good stories, well written and easy to read but could've delivered so much more. A decent book but from Gladwell I expected something more.3 1/2 stars.