Training Lessons from Sports: Cue & Pattern Recognition

 The amateur watching a soccer game sees a swirl of activity, a seeming chaos of players darting back and forth. In contrast, the expert immediately recognizes patterns and detects small irregularities.  Ditto football. To the uninitiated a running play is a confusing pile of players.  The expert detects minor changes in blocking and defensive schemes that amount to big advantages.  

As the psychologist and performance researcher, Anders Ericsson points out: "A hallmark of expert performance is the ability to see patterns in a collection of things that would seem random or confusing to people with less well developed mental representations.” 

Why does this matter?  As physical ability levels out, cognitive abilities—such as pattern recognition skills—play a greater and greater role in sports.  At the lower levels of competition, physical ability and rudimentary differences in skills matter more. As players advance to higher levels of competition, the differentiators lie in more refined elements. And at the upper echelons these differentiators are almost entirely in the cognitive realm. (This holds in any pursuit —football, carpentry, medicine, mandolin…)  All NFL defensive backs are strong and fast.  Within this elite grouping, strength and speed alone tell you little about a player's relative performance. The good ones have a more refined ability to read situations and detect patterns. The greats have ingrained this ability so as to act on an almost instinctive level. 

Staying with the football example, think about how quarterbacks prepare. They study film, watching and analyzing play—and then go to the field and practice against similar defensive configurations. Effectively, they're developing cue & pattern recognition skills. Making the right decision a fraction of a second faster can mean the difference between a great play and a disastrous one. 

This same phenomenon applies in the corporate world, especially in professional interactions such as sales meetings, negotiations, and customer service encounters.  Experts can detect cues and recognize patterns that go undetected by less experienced people.  And, as in football, quick cues and small changes can amount to big swings in performance.  

We have innumerable options to train people in communication and interaction skills. Most of these, however, are what learning & development (L&D) experts call “weak” methods—methods designed to apply across a span of situations.  Such methods have an advantage in that from the trainer's perspective  they're efficient. With little or no adaptation trainers can provide the instruction to a range of employees, using a range of delivery options — books, manuals, e-courses, webinars, classroom training.  Yet, such methods alone rarely work because they fail to address the specific situational and contextual factors—the small nuances—that make all the difference when you’re in a real-life encounter.  

One of the hidden scandals in the L&D world is that performance in corporate training is a poor predictor of on-the-job performance.  (Let that sink in for a second!)  What explains this?  Part of it is simply that what’s addressed in formal training is the easy part, leaving the employee to master the more critical, harder parts on their own. For example, the general constructs used to train sales or customer service are usually pretty straightforward, in fact, most of them are ridiculously simple.  Anyone can learn, say, the 5 stages of a sales process and some phrasing to advance a sale with a willing buyer.  What’s harder is knowing when to do so —detecting the signals that indicate the buyer is in fact willing.  After all, buyers don’t announce “This is a buying signal” or “I’m about to put forth an objection.”  Detecting those cues in the throes of the back-and-forth customer exchange takes a degree of specialized expertise.  

In short, learning the general model is easy, mastering the specific situations is hard. 

I don’t want to overstate it—it’s not rocket science. But cue & pattern recognition is a critical driver of performance; it’s a skill; and like any skill it’s developed only through study and hands-on practice.  Absent those offline activities, employees have to rely on real-life experience to get through the learning curve. That can take a long time and comes with a cost.  

In sports, coaches use video, collected best practices & written analysis, computer simulations, and targeted re-enactment drills in practice to help players along this development cycle. On the corporate agenda, we need to adopt a similar approach—equally deliberate, determined, and methodical—to training cue & pattern recognition. 

The Knowledge Inversion Problem

 People often learn things in one order but encounter them in another order.  This is called knowledge-inversion. For example, medical students learn about a bodily function, then about ailments in that function, and then about the symptoms associated with those ailments.  However, when they meet with patients they encounter this information in the reverse order.  The patient starts talking about symptoms.  The doctor must then try to associate a given ailment or disease. 

In short, in school, the information flow is "Given ailment X, you'll see symptoms, A, B, C."  In practice, the flow is "Given symptoms A, B, C.… the patient might be suffering from ailment X."   On paper, this seems like a minor difference. In real life, it can result in enormous complications. 

This knowledge inversion challenge appears time and again in professional settings.  Many occupations call for a similar diagnostic process.  For instance what customer service reps, or car mechanics, or consultants, or technical support professionals do is similar to the doctor's diagnosis exercise.  They listen to customers present issues (symptoms) and try to ascertain the source problem (ailments).  (And then, ideally, prescribe a solution.)

The medical profession has overcome this challenge through variations of experiential learning, in particular through the use of the case-study.  A case-study captures a representative scenario, in which learners wade through noise in order to identify, extract, and analyze the meaningful points of information.  The process can be messy, inexact,  and tainted by biases, and the resulting conclusions are often subject to fierce debate.  Which is perfect -- because so goes life.  Think about how often patients receive drastically different feedback when they seek second opinions.

As workplace encounters become more complex and employee development time more precious, organization professionals will need to work in variations of case-study training and other aspects of experiential learning.  Here, we can draw an instructive parallel from medical communications training. 

Medical physician has been a profession for thousands of years, as far back as documented history takes us.  And medicine has been a formal study for centuries.  Yet, it's only in recent decades that educators zoomed in on the medical interview --the initial discussions between patient and doctor--as a target of formal communications training.   As the medical field became increasingly complex, they found that this brief encounter became increasingly more critical.  Obviously, an incorrect or missed diagnosis can be a problem, but, there's more at stake.  This encounter also serves to frame the doctor-patient relationship, helps assure the patient of competence, and even determines whether the patient will adhere to the ultimate recommendations.

That brief discussion--usually no more than 2-3 minutes, sometimes as quick as 30-45 seconds--drives the patients' health outcomes and shapes the reputation of the doctor and the institution.  Do it well, and things go well.  Miss a step…. and the physician's years of study and the institution's vast technological, pharmaceutical, and other applied resources are rendered useless.  As the saying goes, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link. 

An advantage the medical field has is that by now this communications training process has matured.  Specifically, the knowledge-base is well-documented and systematically reviewed, analyzed, and updated.  In contrast, in most work-place domains, we're in virgin territory.  Very little is encoded.  On average, an established firm will codify 10-20% of the facts and heuristics used in everyday business.  And that's being generous. The only reason it's even that high is because of rapid technology adoption in recent years.  Firms have been forced to document more knowledge in the process of implementing new systems. 

The knowledge exists of course.  And firms do send out employees to handle tricky encounters every day.  Yet while this knowledge exists at the institutional level, that doesn't mean it's captured and circulated.  That is the info exists in the minds of executives and seasoned staff, but is rarely documented and converted to training tools. 

Training professionals will have to help overcome this problem.  As business solutions become richer, more complex, and more infused with technology, the human interaction--the interface between the firm's solution and the customer--invariably becomes more pivotal.  In order to work with and understand and improve and analyze these encounters we have to have the home-spun wisdom captured.  Importantly, if we want to leverage technology, we have to capture and act on this information.

Moravec's Paradox

 

The roboticist, Hans Moravec, observed that it is relatively easy to get computers to achieve feats of higher cognition, but, difficult to get them to achieve feats of perception and mobility. 

Paradox: “Contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but, low-level sensorimotor skills require enormous computational resources.” (1)

Counterintuitively, and perhaps ironically, certain IT engineers and analysts face higher risk of being displaced than do gardeners, cooks, and receptionists.  

Note also that it's easier to build specialized, single purpose robots than it is to build general purpose robots. Thus, jobs that require multitasking through layers of sensory, motor, cognitive, communication, and decision oriented skills are particularly resilient to automation. 

 

Many jobs that we consider “routine" involve a deceptively wide range of tasks.  For example, at first glance a receptionist job seems fairly specific—a single purpose role.   Yet, receptionists do more than answer phones and field questions on predefined topics.  They straighten magazines, sign for packages and interact with the delivery people, direct visitors to parking lots, wave and smile at guests across the lobby, schedule elevator repairs, leave notes for the security guards, water plants, screen unscheduled solicitors, and, in the course of a normal day, make dozens of decisions on an assortment of topics.  These are exactly the nuanced, layered sensorimotor skills that are difficult to automate.  

 

If anything, AI and robotics serve to make the human role more critical. With advancing technology we can automate more and more of our business processes; yet we rarely outsource entire processes.  Humans stubbornly remain in the loop.  We need humans to sort uncertain conditions, make decisions, and interact with other people.   Naturally, there will always be displacement in some jobs; and naturally, skill demands will shift.  But overall, people in multi-faceted roles—in particular those who lean on what we euphemistically call “soft” skills—will ride out the technology waves quite well.  

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Reference: 

(1) The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, page 29

The Role of Mental Energy in Intellectual Performance

In his essay in the Genius and the Mind ((1) David Lykken cites mental energy as a likely heritable characteristic of genius.  No doubt, mental energy--or mental stamina, as I describe it --drives performance.(2)  Tackling big problems requires sustained focus, long periods of heavy concentration.  History is filled with folklore of geniuses with prodigious mental energy.   Galileo, Archimedes, Franklin, Edison.  We all know the Einstein quote: "it's not that I'm smart, it's just that I stay with a problem longer."

Consider a business example.  Edwin Land, the founder of and energy behind Polaroid, was renowned for pulling overnighters. His employees tell stories about arriving in the morning to find him still at his desk, oblivious of the time, absorbed in some mental challenge.  Once Land  supposedly put in 36 hours straight struggling with a single problem.

Let’s put this in perspective.  Staying awake 36 hours is hard enough, but, sustaining mental focus is a different proposition altogether.  Most people  work 7-10 hours a day; but, even that's not all on task. We're not concentrating for 7-10 hours.  Even in knowledge-based jobs we spend much of our workday on ancillary tasks, tasks that may be necessary but don't require the same mental energy.

Personally, I can work 2 or 3 hours at a stretch on intellectual tasks.  Reading, thinking, writing, extrapolating thoughts, wrestling down problems. I love that stuff.  So perhaps I might be able to push myself to 4 hours, that is if I'm particularly motivated, intrigued, feeling energetic, and the conditions are otherwise just right.  But sustaining 30+ hours?  No way. I can't even fathom that.  

How do we account for such a feat?  It's hard to unravel which element to attribute to IQ (nature), which to motivation (nurture), which to sheer physical energy (a mix).

That the intellectual giants of history always seemed to have demonstrated extraordinary mental energy suggests mental energy is likely genetic, at least in part. Lykken is surely onto something.  It’s worth clarifying that mental energy is not simply general discipline applied in a cognitive realm—that it’s more than mere habit and will-power.  We see too many examples of people with otherwise strong discipline in one realm who are simply unable to channel that discipline to cognitive focus. (3)  In turn, while mental energy surely correlates with IQ, it can't correlate perfectly.  Obviously not all with a genius IQ can focus like Galileo or Edwin Land. And not all who focus like Land have genius IQs.  

It's also self-evident that mental energy works in tandem with physical stamina.  You need sheer endurance to endure grueling work sessions.  This might explain why great intellectuals usually peak early in life.  For example, mathematicians usually make their breakthroughs at a young age, and rarely contribute after the age of 40.  That's a long established fact.

There has to be something specific at work, beyond the traditional explanations--IQ and nurture-- for intellectual prowess, for neither alone explains why intellectuals peak early.  Consider.  If, on the one hand, you believe intellectual prowess is mostly genetic and shaped by IQ, this wouldn't explain this phenomenon of the "early peak" since your IQ doesn't drop as you age.  Of course, the brain, as an organ of the body, ultimately will break down and you'll eventually suffer some form of mental deterioration.  But, that's well into old age. For a normal, healthy person, your IQ certainly wouldn't show a material dip by the age of 40.

Alternatively, if you believe prowess is mostly a function of environmental factors, then, if anything we should see greater intellectual contributions from older academics. After all, as you age you accumulate more knowledge, more experience, and should have more fluency with logic and intellectual skills.

So neither IQ nor environmentalism explains the early peak.

But, if we add mental energy to the mix, it all begins to make sense.  We can see why the "under 40" phenomenon would hold.  For, again, mental energy must work in tandem with physical stamina.  And physical stamina--more broadly all of the attendant physical traits that enable prolonged concentration--does indeed ebb as we go through our thirties and forties.  If you're healthy and take care of yourself, you may feel and look fine.  But physically, you're simply not the same as you were at twenty-four.  And applying mental energy--focusing, engaging in deep thinking--is deceptively exhausting.  You don't have to lift weights or run marathons or even tax your large muscles to physically tire.  Think about how stress tires you out, or grinding away on a report, or being in an intense work meeting.  These things are physically draining.  Mustering and maintaining prolonged focus is especially draining.

When you hit middle age, your IQ will hold.  You'll have accumulated more knowledge.   But, if intellectual prowess hinges on mental stamina…and mental stamina  relies on physical stamina…then, we can see why many intellectuals peak early.

It's a tough thing to isolate and directly observe; but, mental energy is likely a distinct, explanatory factor of superior performance; and it's likely to be, at least in part, genetic.

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Reference:

• 1. Genius and the Mind, Oxford University Press 1998 
• 2.  Stamina the Unheralded Virtue
• 3. Physical Versus Mental Discipline 

Stamina - The Unheralded Virtue

"The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue." Napoleon Bonaparte

 

If you look closely at CEO's and other high-speed leaders one thing that jumps out is that they all have tremendous physical stamina.  I'd assert that stamina correlates more closely with performance at this level than does intelligence, education, family background, or any other factor. 

To one extent, it's basic math. Someone with the stamina to work 12, 15, 18 hour days has an enormous advantage.  They're getting in twice as much work time.  

It's more than that though. Physical discipline begets mental discipline. When you work that long and hard, you inevitably tackle tasks when you're feeling--mentally, emotionally, physically--below par. 

It's easy to crank through a document in the morning when you're rested and even jazzed up on a pleasant caffeine jolt.  It's easy to have a good meeting when you're confident and loose and in good spirits. 

Try it when you're tired.   And, invariably, those key moments come when you're tired.  Cramming for a big proposal.  Handling a crisis with a customer.  Business travel. (Are you ever rested on a business trip?)  Think of those late-night sessions, when people start getting punchy, or snapping, or otherwise wear down.  Someone who's able to keep it together under stress--just when others fade--is invaluable.  And again, such moments are typically the "moments-of-truth" on the work agenda.  Stamina matters.  In fact, the high-performers have not just the ability to focus in those moments; in a perverse way, they almost thrive on it.  

Finally, consider the edge in self-development.  By definition, getting out of your comfort zone means facing stress and uncertainty.  Nowadays, many of us can only be dragged out of our comfort zones with the crutch of $75 per hour personal trainers…if then.   If you have the discipline to tackle it yourself, to weave self-improvement efforts into your routine, you have a decided edge.  And, if you thrive on pushing yourself out of your comfort zone you're in the bonus.  

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Like anything else, stamina is built.  Part of it is sheer physical, part is habit.  In truth, if you're already in your mid-career, flabby habits can be tough to overcome.   As with working-out or diet, those who've build the habit from a young age will have an edge.  It's hard to go your whole life eating donuts and then leave the couch to train for a triathlon.  But, couch potatoes can and do go on to run triathlons.  In turn, you can learn the ability to stay on task--physically and mentally--at work. 

Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion, describes classroom exercises his teachers use to help students build a form of writing-endurance.  Basically, they start by having the students write--steadily, without pause--for short periods of time, and then gradually increase these periods until the students can learn to focus for longer stretches.  The students build stamina in concentration and writing, just as they'd build stamina in swimming or jogging.  Apparently, this approach works and the pay-off in student performance is worthwhile.  

There's no reason we can't do the same thing with oral communication skills.  In fact, with today's tools  (like ours!) it's even easier than writing. Through a progressive series of speak-aloud exercises we should be able to build up our stamina reasonably quickly.  The ability to speak coherently for stretches at a time is a valuable skill.  When you consider that since many of us get anxious in professional communications events, and that anxiety exacerbates the fatigue, the need for stamina is even more critical.  For many, interviews, presentations, panel discussions, can be draining events.  

Benjamin Franklin-- himself the epitome of stamina--said, "Energy and persistence conquer all things."  Perhaps you don't aspire to be a CEO or work 15-hour days.  But, wouldn't it be nice to know that, if need be, you were up for the conquest?  

Nurture versus Nature: How the Mix Changes when the Game Evolves

Experts agree, almost universally, that performance is a function of both nurture and nature.  The question is only in what balance--how much more of a role one would play in a given domain.  I hypothesize that this balance is not static, that external factors create an interplay between innate and environmental factors. Specifically, as a domain matures, the balance tilts to innate factors. 

 

In the 1980's, NBA player Larry Bird became a superstar and a model of workmanlike habits.  Reputedly, his was the classic case of perspiration over talent, of nurture over nature.  He couldn't run.  He couldn't jump.  Yet, he came to dominate a game that revolves around running and jumping.  And while Bird was big and strong, size and strength certainly don't explain his success.  Compared to fellow NBA players--an elite selection of athletes-- he was by no means physically impressive.  Bird outplayed his peers by out-practicing them.  With Bird it was "nurture" all the way. 

 

One quick caveat.  Bird was known as a smart player.  So, perhaps he did benefit from some heritable cognitive advantage.  In basketball, as with all sports, the mental dimension grows increasingly important at the advanced levels.  But, hold aside the mental dimension for now, as that only complicates the discussion.  Mental prowess is subject to the same nature-versus-nurture debate as physical prowess.  Ultimately, we'll wind up in the same place anyway. 

 

Consider. Expertise in a sport (in most pursuits) is a comparative phenomenon.  Performance is not measured on an absolute scale, but is instead a function of how much better or worse you are than the competitors. Larry Bird was obviously better than his peers. Yet, he surely wasn't more naturally gifted than his peers.  Another way to look at this is to say he reached more of his potential than others did.  That is, perhaps Bird played at 85% efficiency, while others played at, say, 70%.  These numbers are, of course, arbitrary.  But we could reasonably expect a similar variance between superstar performance and average performance.

 

Here's the issue.  Basketball doesn't stand still.  No domain does. The sport advances and we see higher performance in virtually all aspects of the game.  Fitness and nutrition improve.  Coaching methods grow more sophisticated. Scouting becomes more data-driven and efficient.  Technology improves--enabling deeper technical knowledge and wider distribution of expertise.  We can record, play-back, and analyze video.  We can circulate YouTube clips and how-to articles.  We can launch coaching academies and tap the power of statistics and other forms of analysis.  Even shoe design and apparel technology noticeably improve.  In short, as the sport evolves, the average player has increasingly more resources at her disposal to help improve her game.  As a result, the average efficiency yield (what we hypothetically posed as 70%) will continue to climb.

 

Here's what that means.  In basketball--or again, in any domain--because of advancement in domain factors, we become better at maximizing a given player's potential.  

And here's what we can reasonably conclude: as all of these factors advance, genetic factors play more of a deciding role.  We all have access to the same YouTube clips and Nike shoes. We don't all have access to the same genes. 

 

Back to Larry Bird.  If, for the sake of this argument, we assume that Bird's maximum potential --his performance at 100% efficiency-- is less than the average NBA player's potential, could he achieve the same relative performance today?  You'd have to conclude, no.  As a given domain matures, it becomes harder and harder for a Larry Bird to thrive.  As domains evolve, environmental factors matter less and genetic factors matter more. 

 

The 10k hr Rule - Another Perspective

Why the Famous Finding May Not Mean What You Think

By now, everyone knows this one: On average performers must put in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice in order to attain expertise.

Not to split hairs, but, the average number is actually closer to 11,000.  But, that's less critical.  The 10k-hours-or-10-year-rule sounds catchier anyway.  What's more critical, and more striking--yet hardly, if ever, mentioned--is the range of hours.  

In one study of chess experts, one player reached master level in 3,000 hours while another took 23,000 hours.  The true working range for attaining mastery in many domains may be even wider, perhaps 5,000 to 45,000 hours. Who knows.  Sure, the average may settle on a nice quotable number --10 years or 10,000 hours-- but that doesn't tell us much.  It certainly doesn't buttress the rabidly pro-nurture conclusion that typically accompanies the 10k hour discussion.  

When we read about the 10k-hour rule, we eagerly latch onto two comforting takeaways: 

1. "Anyone, even I, can attain world-class skills;" and 
2. "Given the findings, I now know what's needed to do so: commit to a uniform practice regiment of about 10k hours!" 

Unfortunately, that's not quite true. The sheer range behind that average effectively undercuts both of those takeaways.

Look at it this way.  If a thousand hours works out to be about a year of practice, the range discussed above represents a difference of several decades!  Hardly a uniform practice regiment. And here's another way to look at it: Some people need to practice 8-9 times as much as others to reach the very same level of proficiency.  (Talk about injustice!) 

Why would this be? What explains that vast difference in training requirements?  Most likely it's what experts call The Matthew Effect: People innately more gifted in a given dimension respond better to training.*  As David Epstein points out in his book, The Sports Gene , the participants initial traits and  conditions matter-

"If one person learns each chunk in nine seconds and the other person eleven seconds, those small differences are going to be amplified.  [sic] It's a sort of butterfly effect of expertise.  If two practitioners start with slightly different initial conditions [...] it can lead to dramatically different outcomes, or at least to drastically different amounts of practice that will be required for similar outcomes." 

And people always have different initial conditions.  Always.  So, to say that environmental factors fully explain expertise is misleading. If we mean that given enough time engaged in the right or "deliberate" practice, most people can attain a given threshold of performance…ok, maybe. But, in most worthwhile pursuits, it's not the absolute performance level that matters--it's the relative performance that matters.  It's not enough to practice a bunch and get good at, say, hitting a baseball. You have to hit better than the other guys (many other guys).  

Certainly in any field where people compete for a finite number of slots--say professional athletics or medical surgery-- those who start out with an innate advantage will dominate those slots. If you're just a little faster or a little smarter, you'll respond better to training.  Perhaps just a tad better; but as Epstein points out those small difference amplify over time. In other words, innate factors make all the difference. While time in the practice arena will determine our fate, it's often our genes that serve as the ticket to the practice arena.

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*Or to paraphrase Matthew in the New Testament, “The rich get richer…”