Benefit from exceptional minds - Charlie Munger, Noam Chomsky, Danny Kahneman, and Nassim Taleb. Study doesn't oblige us to accept every lesson.
Study thinkers in sport like cricket's Ed Smith, selector of the English national team from 2018-2021. "Innovation begins with a simple insight." He argues, "There is value to skepticism."
"The role of the selector is to bring it all together in an overarching process." Selection shouldn't be "pub talk," as in "I like this guy." There is a team dimension. "How do we create a team that's more than the sum of its parts?"
- What are our priorities?
- What are our needs?
- Who's the opposition?
- What's the best lineup?
"Quantity and quality of data" change every way of life.
- Data
- Scouting
- Feedback from coaches and captains
- Psychological and medical insight
- What you see
- Personal insights and intuition (eyeball test)
"The strategy of a sports team is about tradeoffs and judgments." "If you're focusing there, you're not focusing in another area."
One game doesn't define a strategy as valid. "There is loose correlation between decisions and outcomes (uses the poker analogy of Annie Duke)." Over time, "you hope decisions translate into success."
Smith asks, "do you know what's going on?"
"Innovation brings about innate risks," an "insult to conventional wisdom." The pressroom, dominated by ex-players, celebrates conventional wisdom from another time.
Kasparov created "advanced chess" combining both a computer and a person.
You want better data and analysis by skilled analysts.
What would we do differently the next time? Smith felt team was at its best when unconventional in lineup.
"There's a distinction between truths that help you and spin which helps you look better than you are." On the inside, you may have information that cannot be revealed.
There is a baseline of performance. Your goal is to elevate it through selection (and ultimately training and strategy). His program wasn't to be innovative but to solve problems. He learned a lot from other domains (including investing, from his friend Howard Marks). Being different and better risks being different and worse. Your job is to "get more right than the next guy."
Some people think sports people aren't intelligent. They're intelligent in a different way.
"Get the next decision as good as possible."
"Data shows you how the game is changing." Algorithms can also extract better interpretation of the data. Get better data and better analysis. "Data helps you to understand reality."
"Teams are typically too cautious." "Data can show the relationship between aggression, risk, and winning." "The power of having something unpredictable will become powerful."
When asked for an example of innovation in sport he discussed Daryl Morey (when at the Rockets).
"If you know what the optimal play is, you'll be able to defend it better."
"The game changer (unpredictability) becomes valuable..."
"You can't plan for pure spontaneity...for randomness."
"No one can predict perfect randomness."
"The value of the human being is when they're most human."
"If you have confidence in your ideas...they'll be proved better in the long-term."
Summary:
- Study great thinkers across domains.
- Create teams more than the sum of their parts.
- Data alters our perspective.
- Get better data and analysis.
- Learn what's going on.
- Innovation is seen as an insult to conventional thinking.
- Goal is to surpass the baseline performance.
- Data reveals how the game is changing.
- Being better and different risks being different and worse.
Lagniappe. Snake and finish, pullup, floater...
