Imagine you are in a post-season meeting discussing how and why this defensive shift failed. Why did it fail? How did teams attack this? List these things. Gather your staff and imagine that the season is over and this defensive idea was an abject failure. You decide just before practices begin that you are going to implement this defensive change. Let’s say you and your staff were considering a shift in defensive playing style and you are excited about all the positives this shift could bring. What went wrong? How can we prevent it from happening again?Ī pre-mortem is different and takes some imagination. A post-mortem is looking back at possible causes for an unfavorable outcome after the fact. In his book Black Box Thinkingauthor Matthew Syed offers a helpful exercise that could guard against optimism bias – the pre-mortem. ![]() It is better to prepare your team for the inevitable chaos than to cling to the optimistic belief that things will go perfect. Practicing in perfect world conditions reflects an unwarranted optimism that perfect world conditions will exist in competition. An offense that does not build in safeguards is not accounting for the fact that their opponent will disrupt it. Optimism bias can be reflected in tactical decisions as well. The climb up this continuum is often gradual. ![]() Without the sudden infusion of better quality talent, coaches should not expect to skip steps on this continuum. If your team is average you will not “coach” your way to elite in a season. Without a sudden infusion of talent, even the best coach will have a hard time getting his or her team to rise more than one of the above categories in a given season. Your optimism led to anguish when a more realistic expectation would have led to a degree of satisfaction. If your perception of your program is off by a category (or more) you will be in turmoil when your team performs to what may be its actual ability. ![]() It is easy to see how optimism bias can lead a coach to have unrealistic expectations. There is an illusion of invulnerability which can lead to disappointment. Examples: I will not get a divorce, because I am a good husband/wife I will not have a wreck, because I am a good driver I will not have a bad team because I am a good coach. In other words, we believe we have the unique skills and ability to change the outcome. We experience the optimism bias more when we think the events are under our direct control and influence. In her book The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot offers an explanation. Optimism bias would also suggest you are much better able to place a rival team or a team from your conference in the correct category than your own. Being passionate about a team (your own) can make you think that team will be more successful than they can reasonably expect to be. Optimism bias would suggest that you cannot. Can you accurately categorize your team on this continuum? Seems easy enough as you, better than anyone, know what it does well and what it does not do well. We are better able to estimate the probable outcomes of others than our own probable outcomes. Ask a newlywed the percent chance their marriage will end in divorce and they will likely respond with “0%” despite the fact that divorce rates are much higher.įurther, ask the same newlywed of the percent chance that a friend’s marriage will end in divorce and they will likely respond with a much higher estimation. While coaches (and other leaders) may view themselves as rational and logical, there is research to suggest they are overly optimistic. The optimism bias is defined as the difference between a person’s expectation and the outcome that follows (Sharot 2011). ![]() One such bias is the optimism bias and failure to guard against it can lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointment. Coaches can and do fall prey to these biases as well. There are numerous cognitive biases – or mistakes in reasoning – humans are susceptible to. Read more on Cognitive Biases and how they relate to coaching: Optimism Bias can lead to unrealistic expectations, disappointment and emotional turmoil for coaches who do not guard against it.
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