Humility

Crimes Against Critical Thinking in the Face of a Good Story

Crimes Against Critical Thinking in the Face of a Good Story

As the saying goes ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’. But it truly is quite remarkable how readily we will override our capacity for critical thinking in the face of a story we want to hear. As we will see, if the message on offer appeals enough to a particular desire or bias, it appears we will happily overlook whatever shortcomings in methodology and inconvenient flaws in logic are apparent. In this way, we can be active participants in ‘group think’.

We might then question our roles in upholding the conventions that abound in performance sport. Upon closer inspection, there is rarely logic in convention. It is beguilingly easy to fall prey to participating in such group delusion. On some level, we could argue that we willingly enter into this to prop up a particular tenet of our belief system in relation to theory and practice.

The Tyranny of Safeguarding in Sport

The Tyranny of Safeguarding in Sport

A provocative title, so allow me to specify at the outset what exactly I am highlighting and the limits of the argument. Firstly and most importantly, let me make it clear that I am excluding from the discussion the necessary and vitally important domain of child-protection and the protection of vulnerable adults under law. What I am specifically referring to is the concept creep that has seen the safeguarding approach extended to sportsmen and women at senior level, who are otherwise (in the eyes of the law) deemed responsible adults capable of providing informed consent, making decisions and advocating on their own behalf. I am also excluding clear cases of misconduct that unamibiguously violate professional ethics and the boundaries of the athlete-coach relationship - for instance, sexually inappropriate behaviour or physical abuse. What I am also highlighting is the mission creep of those charged with investigating such claims and the present danger of over-reach. Why I feel these trends need to be challenged is that the safeguarding system if left unchecked threatens to penalise coaches simply for carrying out their proper duties.

What You See Is Not All There Is

What You See Is Not All There Is

To explain the title, one of the most common cognitive biases in how we see the world is encapsulated as ‘what you see is all there is’. In other words, we have a tendency to overlook what is not immediately visible or obvious. We tend to assume that what we see in full view constitutes the only aspects at play. We are slow to consider that there might be additional unseen factors at work that might lead us to an alternative explanation for what we are seeing. In most circumstances we are dealing with incomplete information and there is always some degree of uncertainty and ambiguity involved in human performance. These are not bugs in the system that must be fixed, but rather features that we need to learn to navigate.

Diversity and Inclusion in Elite Sport

Diversity and Inclusion in Elite Sport

Elite sport is not immune to shifts in cultural norms and conventions in wider society. The number of diversity and inclusion roles have increased 60% in the UK over the past five years, and this has started to be mirrored in sporting organisations. The governance and national sport systems for Olympic sports are government funded, so it perhaps unsurprising that these organisations might be prompted to adopt policy that is becoming the norm in other sectors. That said, professional sports have also begun to follow this trend, notably in the US. In this post we consider what diversity and inclusion means in the context of sport at elite level.

Honing Professional Judgement and Decision-Making

Honing Professional Judgement and Decision-Making

Coaching is characterised as a judgement and decision making process. Practitioners and indeed most professionals who work in human performance are de facto coaches of humans. As such, the quest that unites coaches in different sports and practitioners across disciplines is to develop our professional judgement and our ability to make better choices and decisions over time. There is no endpoint to this journey and so the need to continually hone our judgement and decision making applies irrespective of what stage we are might be at in our career. That said, the question of how we best develop these skills for practitioners at the start of their career versus catering for these aspects in continuing professional development thereafter will likely require different solutions.

Beyond the Bubble: The Utility of a Neutral Third Party

Beyond the Bubble: The Utility of a Neutral Third Party

One of the problems with our natural preference for those who think as we do is the tendency to find ourselves in an echo chamber. Leaders can of course combat this by recruiting for cognitive diversity, but even within a diverse group our thinking inevitably tends to become socialised as a natural consequence of spending time in the company of the same group of people. Our colleagues will also to some degree share the same biases and are subject to the conventions that are inherent to the sport. Professional sport in particular is a bubble - at present quite literally, but even under usual circumstances. It follows that it is important that we escape the bubble periodically. A related countermeasure is to strategically enlist a neutral third party to break up the usual routine and expose team members to perspectives from outside the bubble at regular intervals. Engaging with an outsider can serve a performance staff in a number of different ways as we will explore.

Continuing Our Education

Continuing Our Education

As many practitioners will testify, it is after we have completed our formal education, professional training and certification that the real learning begins. The day to day experience of solving problems with live humans is when we discover the limits of our knowledge. It is also here that we find out that the reality is quite different to what is taught in class and the version that appears in (most) textbooks. Individuals, organisations and certifying bodies alike recognise this need to continue our learning once we are working in our respective field. The terms continuing education, continuing professional development and variations thereof will be familiar to most practitioners across disciplines (sadly it is not so well established in the coaching profession). What is less clear is how we might best tackle this ongoing quest and make good choices from the growing array of options with regards to content and the modes of delivery that are available to us.

Achieving an ‘Integrated Support Team’

Achieving an ‘Integrated Support Team’

Multi-disciplinary support teams have become ubiquitous in Olympic sports and institutes of sport, and professional sports teams in Europe and elsewhere have since used their impressive budgets to assemble ever-growing support casts who increasingly outnumber the performers on the field. More recently the major professional sports in North America have followed this trend, with more and more teams in the league transitioning to a high performance model for their staffing and provision of athlete support. Whilst it is relatively straightforward to replicate an organisational structure, the central challenge that everybody continues to grapple with is how to make this work in practice. Coordinating a disparate group of individuals to provide seamless support to performers is no small task. Integration is what everybody still seems to be searching for; true collaboration is the holy grail that we all aspire to, but that is several steps further down the path. With this latest offering we explore these questions and consider lessons from other realms such as the special operations forces that might help us to achieve these elusive outcomes.

Realities of 'Performance Consulting'

Realities of 'Performance Consulting'

It is increasingly prevalent for forward-thinking individuals within various organisations to seek insights from other domains and explore novel practices that have been applied with success elsewhere. Coming in as an outsider also allows the separation and distance that is necessary to offer an objective assessment of where things currently stand. In either scenario it is becoming more widely recognised that there is merit in seeking out different perspectives. A different way of considering the problem naturally opens up new possibilities for solutions. One route to achieving this cognitive diversity is via recruitment and employing individuals different backgrounds importing expertise from overseas bring experiences from other sports. An alternative strategy as we will explore is to engage individuals in a consulting capacity.

Triangulating a Position

Triangulating a Position

As the value of cognitive diversity becomes more recognised, what is striking is how slow we have been to realise the need to revise our habitual ways of consuming information and interacting with those who hold contrary views. Whilst pioneers who think different are celebrated in modern western culture, in reality we are far less amenable to entertaining disagreement and diverging ideas. In the professional and academic realm we are quick to follow an authority and align with a school of thought. The hordes are likewise quick to leap into the breach to defend the doctrine against perceived challenge or dissenting views. If anything debates in all circles are increasingly polarised, as the assembled masses flock to either one side or the other. We might appreciate cognitive diversity on a conceptual level, but on a practical level we are clearly not there yet. So what steps can we take to enjoy the benefits of cognitive diversity and open our minds to the possibilities as we form our opinions?