I always liked factor analysis as a strategic tool. To begin with, statistics were never a strength of mine. Factor analysis is different; there is nothing arcane about it. It is simply a method of observing linear combinations of attributes or factors. They may or may not be accurate measures of interdependencies. Multiple attributes can be highly correlated with no apparent reason. And if important attributes are missed, the value of the analysis is reduced accordingly. That said, marketers often use them successfully to construct perceptual maps and other product positioning devices. At the very least, it is a neat, almost elegant, way of capturing and presenting information.

Factor analysis was a tool used cleverly by Steven Levitt, the University of Chicago economist who, with N.Y. Times journalist Stephen Dubner, co-authored Freakonomics in 2005. The subtitle of Freakonomics is apt: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Cause and effect were turned upside down as they searched for interdependencies and correlations that to others seemed, at best, coincidental. They were able to debunk commonly held theories on many topical issues…as, for example, why the crime rates in New York City fell precipitously under the watchful eye of Rudy Giuliani.

Without being referred to specifically, factor analysis was also used by Malcolm Gladwell in his very clever new best-seller, Outliers: The Story of Success. It takes a leap of faith the size of the Grand Canyon to suggest that Bill Gates’ ultimate success was the result of accumulative advantage starting as an eighth grader when he had unlimited access to a computer, access denied even to university students. Ditto for hockey players who took advantage of the age cut in minor hockey to jump ahead of the pack.

Cultural legacy provides the basis for an even more startling leap from rice paddies to Chinese aptitude for math and deference to Korean Air pilots being the unwitting triggers to a succession of horrific crashes.

Gladwell is near-Holmsian in his ability to apply observation, deductive reasoning and inference to reach his conclusions. But he has the numbers to back up the anecdotal, if anomalous, evidence.

This is a fun book. It is, like Gladwell’s other books, breezy and easy to read. And while some of his theories might be a stretch, they aren’t as silly as, say, the Paul Revere stuff in The Tipping Point. It is replete with interesting concepts and enough terminology – divergence testing, orthogonal intelligence, concerted cultivation and mitigated speech – to wow even the stuffiest psychologist.

Like Levitt, Gladwell makes you think. Unlike Levitt, he offers up the basis, if not the blueprint, for making the most of your potential.

It’s all in the numbers. And, as you know, numbers don’t lie.