MIT Sports Analytics Conference, Boston
A deep understanding of psychology and behavioral economics informs and is informed by data analytics. In competitive businesses and markets, the two disciplines are inseparable.
We're hearing a great deal here about the role of data analytics in understanding and exploiting an opponent's weaknesses and contingent vulnerabilities. Successful leaders such as New England Patriots' Coach Bill Belichick don't merely capitalize on an adversary's weakness; they create the conditions for that weakness to emerge and flourish. They just don't wait around for statistical probabilities to occur, they force the occurrence with their own intentional behaviors. This is a pervasive logic and practice of effective leaders in highly competitive environments.
Poker superstar and best-selling author Dr. Maria Konnikova powerfully underscored this point here today. The PhD in psychology from Columbia said, "You need to understand how everyone else is thinking if you are to out-think them." She takes it a notch further, however, by creating Belichick-like conditions that actually change how opponents think and act, compelling them to make mistakes. The fact that she's a woman also messes up the minds of some of her sexist opponents who, even today, still don't know how to accept losing to a woman - let alone an "egghead" as somebody here said today.
Yes, Konnikova is deeply informed by competitive data analytics. She builds on that knowledge, however, to deploy her considerable background in psychology in order to pattern people's mistakes. She applies her well-developed powers of observation to anticipate those errors, and then she capitalizes on them. "Some folks get very emotional in stressful situations, in losing scenarios," she said. She referenced Daniel Kahneman's work in behavioral economics and the idea of "logical fallacies" adding, "Once you've been playing for 12 hours over seven days, your biases come out no matter what you think or what you try to do to hide them. You're exhausted," she told us.
Come to think of it, part of Belichick's success is that he likes to create and exploit that particular
weakness - fatigue. He engages in a pace of play designed to convert tired defenses into exhausted surrender.
So, those of us engaging in or advising sports, military, or highly competitive businesses will benefit greatly by applying high-quality data to our own performance and that of our opponents, using that data to understand and exploit weakness and advantage, creating conditions that exacerbate an opponent's mistakes, and then feeding that experience into the next round of data analytics.
A deep understanding of psychology and behavioral economics informs and is informed by data analytics. In competitive businesses and markets, the two disciplines are inseparable.
We're hearing a great deal here about the role of data analytics in understanding and exploiting an opponent's weaknesses and contingent vulnerabilities. Successful leaders such as New England Patriots' Coach Bill Belichick don't merely capitalize on an adversary's weakness; they create the conditions for that weakness to emerge and flourish. They just don't wait around for statistical probabilities to occur, they force the occurrence with their own intentional behaviors. This is a pervasive logic and practice of effective leaders in highly competitive environments.
Poker superstar and best-selling author Dr. Maria Konnikova powerfully underscored this point here today. The PhD in psychology from Columbia said, "You need to understand how everyone else is thinking if you are to out-think them." She takes it a notch further, however, by creating Belichick-like conditions that actually change how opponents think and act, compelling them to make mistakes. The fact that she's a woman also messes up the minds of some of her sexist opponents who, even today, still don't know how to accept losing to a woman - let alone an "egghead" as somebody here said today.
Yes, Konnikova is deeply informed by competitive data analytics. She builds on that knowledge, however, to deploy her considerable background in psychology in order to pattern people's mistakes. She applies her well-developed powers of observation to anticipate those errors, and then she capitalizes on them. "Some folks get very emotional in stressful situations, in losing scenarios," she said. She referenced Daniel Kahneman's work in behavioral economics and the idea of "logical fallacies" adding, "Once you've been playing for 12 hours over seven days, your biases come out no matter what you think or what you try to do to hide them. You're exhausted," she told us.
Come to think of it, part of Belichick's success is that he likes to create and exploit that particular
weakness - fatigue. He engages in a pace of play designed to convert tired defenses into exhausted surrender.
So, those of us engaging in or advising sports, military, or highly competitive businesses will benefit greatly by applying high-quality data to our own performance and that of our opponents, using that data to understand and exploit weakness and advantage, creating conditions that exacerbate an opponent's mistakes, and then feeding that experience into the next round of data analytics.
Image courtesy of RobotEnomics.