I'm a fan of Malcolm Gladwell--not because he's always right or because his research is flawless--but because I love to follow his insatiable curiosity about life and how things happen and how things work. Every book of his has caused me to think more deeply or differently about something fairly commonplace, and that's good for me!

The title of this book comes from his modus operendi of just being curious about all sorts of random things and asking questions. In his exploration of the "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Milan, he found so many people wanting to know what Milan goes on in Milan's head when he does his magic. What Gladwell thought would be interesting was to consider what goes on inside the dog's head at the same time. Thus What the Dog Saw.

This book is different from his others in that it's a compilation of essays that have appeared in the New Yorker. As such, it was more disjointed, and I got bogged down in some of the sports details and analogies. A few of the chapters that I found fascinating, though, were worth reading the book.The section called "Personality, Character, and Intelligence" and especially the chapter called "The Talent Myth," were particularly interesting. It's got some fascinating information, observations, and opinions about management consulting firms and their different philosophies on the selection and deployment of "talent." It includes some interesting back-room stuff about the role that McKinsey & Company played in the culture of Enron and then contrasted the culture of Southwest Airlines. The chapter called "The New-Boy Network" was also an interesting discussion of how people make judgments when they are interviewing someone, what makes good impressions and what doesn't, and how little they correlate to later performance of that interview candidate.