The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point

The tipping point is that place where “something has gathered enough momentum or reached a critical mass and begins to multiply out of control.”

For example, imagine a simplified flu epidemic. Assume that flu has a transmission rate of about 2% percent, meaning that 1 in 50 people who interact with a flu-carrier will get flu themselves. In a city, a typical person with flu interacts with about 50 other people when sick, including those whom they sit next to on the bus, co-workers, family members, and people on the street. The flu virus is then in equilibrium. Each person with flu interacts with 50 people and passes it on to one person. The rate of flu within the population remains constant.

However, during winter people cluster indoors hoping to stay warm. Suddenly, the number of people a typical city dweller interacts when they have flu increases to 55, divided by the original 50, or 1.1. For every 10 flu victims, an extra person is infected and the flu rate increases exponentially.

1^st infection 10 people with flu
2^nd infection 11 people
3^rd infection 12 people
10^th infection 23 people
20^th infection 60 people
30^th infection 158 people
50^th infection 1067 people
100^th infection 125 278 people

We can see how the flu epidemic can begin to increase quickly due to such a simple cause as cold weather. “The Tipping Point” is all about social epidemics and how a tiny difference at the right place and time can lead to very big results. Tipping Point concepts have been used in a number of organisations to achieve phenomenal outcomes.

Gladwell tries to describe when tipping points occur, and thus, how epidemics start. He also tries to show how we can create tipping points ourselves. He proposes three laws of tipping points:

The Law of the Few

Messages/Epidemics are actually passed through a relatively small number of people. Pick the right people for the right job and you have the makings of an epidemic:

Mavens: Gather information. They know a lot about a lot. Mavens are also trusted by those who know them.

Connectors: They know a lot of people. They are the socialites. Connectors can transfer the advice of a maven across social boundaries that a maven might not be able to breach.

Salespeople: They are persuaders who have the ability to sell, regardless. Salespeople persuade when we are un-convinced. It takes a salesman five minutes to build trust and rapport. It takes others an hour. When the connectors get the message through to the salespeople the effect multiplies exponentially.

The Law of Stickiness

The Stickiness Factor is a law about the actual informational content and packaging of a message. Connections and the personal character of the people trying to spread a message can certainly help it spread, but if the message is not worth spreading, then it is doomed to failure. The stickiness factor says that messages must have a certain character which causes them to remain active in the recipients' minds. Moreover, they must be deemed worthy of being passed on.

Gladwell admits that the exact characteristics of a message which make it sticky are very difficult to pin down. The stickiness of a message can often only be determined by testing and experimentation

Law of Context

The law of context is a rule about the environment in which a message spreads. Small changes in the context of a message can determine whether or not it tips. Thus, these social epidemics can fail if the geographic location where they are introduced is wrong or if the current mental state of the population is not prepared for the message.

Gladwell argues that the maximum number of members that can reasonably exist in a human group is 150. He believes that biological limitations in our brain mean that any group larger than this will automatically segment into factions and decrease efficiency. The existence of small groups helps the spread of a message because each member of the group knows every other one and thus the message can easily diffuse through the whole group.

Gladwell has argued that if we want to spread a message, the audience has to be ready for the message (the context), the message has to be worth spreading (stickiness), and the message must be given to the right people (the few). Phrased this way, the information set forth by Gladwell does not seem terribly new. In fact, it just seems like common sense. But common sense is not always common practice.

See our September newsletter for a book review on “The Tipping Point”.

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