"The Art of Thinking Clearly"

All opinions in the blog are solely my own. 

Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly offers us 'better thinking' tools. Let's unearth some. 

Nobody can read everything. Libraries store vast amounts of information we can never know.

Tools exist to help us. In a toolbox with a hundred tools, most go unused. Apply the best ones better. 

1. Champions are not one-player enterprises. The book notes "the fallacy of the single cause." The Patriots were not all Tom Brady. Westborough was not all Quinn Anderson. They had solid defense and potent serving. 

Their 'ace percentage' of 16.4 percent helped drive their offense. 

2. Outside information influences everyone. Family, friends, news, education, and experience impact us. History tells us that one person can drive movements for good or for evil. 

We are subject to in-group, out-group bias. Some call this 'tribalism'. Readers here find more information about Melrose than other top programs like Newton North, Barnstable, Westborough, Andover and so on.

Within any group, objectivity suffers. Group members overestimate their experiences and overvalue 'theirs'.

3. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Dobelli emphasizes "feature positivity." Imagine the prestige of owning some 'luxury car'. Two of the three most expensive cars to maintain are BMWs. Some 'hidden features' are hidden costs.  

Competition provided by reserve players doesn't show up on leaderboards, but shows up on scoreboards. 

4. Experts can be influencers. Should they be? Legendary Detroit Pistons coach Chuck Daly said, "I'm a salesman." Coaches work to sell their philosophy, methods, and process. It's a 'zero sum game' as for every winner there's a loser. 

Dobelli notes that luck comes into play and there's also strategic misrepresentation. One former campaign manager said, "I have no obligation to be honest with the media."

Humans are 'wired' to believe what we see and what we hear. Our ancestors who ignored a noise in the brush could fall prey to a lion on the savannah. In the movie Swordfish, John Travolta reminds us, "Misdirection. What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes."

Recruiters are more favorably predisposed toward a player when coaches provide a familiar, high-quality "comparison" player. 

5. Know "the power of negative thinking." Coach Bobby Knight said, "basketball is a game of mistakes." He believed that teams prone to committing fewer mistakes often came out on top. "Do more of what works and less of what doesn't." 

Every volleyball 'possession' scores a point. Some score by positive actions from servers or receivers and others score on errors committed. Strong teams "win" more points. Teams with high error rates on serves, attacks, or defense fall by the wayside. 

If not scoring on back row hitting, opposite attacks, or setter dumps use them less. 

Critical thinking requires that we process ideas through filters of 'mental models' and 'cognitive bias'.  

Summary: be aware of

• Multiple causation
• Bias
• Hidden features or bugs
• Flawed experts
• Negatives 

Lagniappe. Nothing in the video will make you a better player or coach, just better informed.