Examining The Coaching Process Through The Lens of Poker (Coach As A Resource)
While reading the exceptional book The Biggest Bluff you get a pretty good first hand look at different biases that humans have to face while they are making decisions. Much of the research has been focused on how these different biases effect our thinking as humans. Almost all of the research is interesting and presents problems that you can identify throughout a given day. I don’t want to so much focus on the biases that we face on a daily basis but rather look at the difficulties we face when we are trying to fight them off to make better decisions. Maria Konnikova is the author of the book is a researcher in this area of cognitive science.
Throughout the book she presents information in a really easily understandable way. I think the information that she presents on biases might not be the first time that many readers of the book will have heard of them. Konnikova is an interested person in that she knows about the biases and how they effect our thinking. She is still unable to shake them throughout the book and her journey to learn poker at the elite level. There is a lot to learn from her experience. She understands many of the things that make our human thinking fragile but is unable to make the changes in many cases.
Her learning process is also something that I have found interested throughout the book. I’m not going to be giving too much away from the book but the plot boils down to the fact that she is trying to learn to play poker and wants to compete at an extremely high level. Almost immediately she realizes that she needs a coach to help her in her learning process. What becomes immediately clear how helpful the idea of getting a coach is to help increase her skills. As you follow the plot though her coach transforms from one person into multiple, and her process of learning is very messy along the way.
What I found to be really interesting is how she is able to build a community of coaches and poker players who can help her improve along the way. Instead of just relying on one coach she is able to build kind of a quasi team to help her improve quickly. Along with this one thing relates to coaching is the fact that her original coach didn’t make her only learn from him. He was able to suggest different experts for different parts of her game. The coach is able to understand his own limitations and where the author can gain more and different insights from his own. The coach is used more a resource than as the guru. The coach is able to send her to learn more about different aspects of learning, and where she needs to go to learn different parts of the game.
I’ve always been a really big fan of this type of coaching. Rather than relying on one input to gain information and learn from the ability to find multiple sources and seek out the information that is most useful at that point of your learning should be the goal. The video below is a really good explanation of how the role of coach as a resource can and should be leveraged more.
If you view Maria’s Coach from a teaching perspective there are a few areas that we can look at as well. A few that jump out to me while reading from a coaching perspective. It is pretty clear right away the connection that Maria and Eric Slidell. Not only is the connection one of safety where she is able to go to him and ask questions, and seek insights. But it is more interesting how the Coach is able to give her feedback while also making adjustments to the course of the learning.
Another area that I really enjoyed to look at is how Maria and Eric Slidell are able to continuously “Move the field goal posts” each time she is able to learn and grow. This idea of continuous growth is interesting as it playout in the book. The idea is never that you accept what is happening as good enough and that the a good coach is always moving on to new and updated goals with the player. Often times once players have reached a particular goal we are sufficient with the results and we make it so that we are satisfied. Within The Biggest Bluff we see Eric slowly shift things further out front as Maria learns and grows as a player.
Another area that I think deserves more focus is when Maria is just starting out and playing Online Tournaments. At one point she mentions that she is playing tournaments online and recording the screen so that she can go over the film with Eric at a later point. I think that this is a great way to help players and coaches reflect on what is happening. I’ve always been a big fan of using film to analyze not only players but coaches. This is an idea that is championed in a lot of places in coach and teacher development but one that I think could be overlooked. The film allows the coach and player to review different situations that may have popped up during play.
Along with the film Maria is continuously journaling and writing down her thoughts and again situations that pop up during play that she wants Eric’s thoughts on. This is a great way not only for her to reflect on what is happening but allows her to create a process around reflection at different points in her learning. She is able to write down these situations so that she can worry about them at a later time without taking up cognitive space to remember what she wants to reflect on.
Bringing this back to baseball and coaching I think that this is probably how to role of a coach in baseball has changed. The ability to work with multiple different parties, and stakeholders. Knowing what you know, and what you don’t know, and directing learners to appropriate challenges along their learning journey. Think of how coaches use Analyst, Motor Learning Specialist, Movement Analysts, Technology, Mental Skills Coaches, is a lot. The ability for one coach to know all this areas is important. The problem is that you can’t master each one of these areas. Knowing a little bit about all these areas is probably the best route to go. While also knowing who to go to when you have a question.
The coach as a resource is only beginning and knowing who you need to go to or send players to or who even you can go to when you have questions is an areas of unexploited value. One that I think people are getting better at. But when you area a resource to players you need to be able to get answers, and ask the appropriate question at the correct time to help direct players development.
How Maria goes about learning and the process in which she takes is one that I think deserves greater thought, and reflection by everyone when it comes to learning. Overall the book is something that I would recommend to anyone who is looking to learn more about learning. I don’t often write reviews of books that I have read, but I thought that this one deserves a deeper look for coaches and anyone who is interested in the learning.
