Gladwell discusses research that was completed regarding the question of why, as a group, Chinese immigrants to the United States were outperforming white Americans in the U.S. The Chinese arrived with no money and limited or no language skills. They knew nothing of American culture, yet over time they were more likely to succeed (defined as achieving positions in high skilled and high paying areas) than the Americans.

He references a study that took a group of American ten year old children (any race) and Chinese ten year olds and gave them a difficult math problem to solve. The Americans gave up on average two minutes into their efforts. By contrast, fifteen minutes later the Chinese children were still working at the problem. The cultural attitudes toward persistence and effort are much different.

Gladwell’s books include Blink, The Tipping Point, Outliers and What the Dog Saw.

If you are interested in the development of human potential you will enjoy spending twenty minutes with Mr. Gladwell. That’s our challenge to you, to take twenty minutes to focus on Gladwell’s outstanding lecture. Keep in mind as you listen how he defines the term “capitalization rates.” In this lecture the capitalization rate is the rate at which a given community capitalizes on the human potential of those in its midst.

PopTech 2008 | Malcolm Gladwell from PopTech on Vimeo.

Special thanks to Poptech for posting this video.