THE TIME FOR DECISION IS NOW, OR IS IT?

Timothy Galloway, in his book ‘The Inner Game of Tennis’, explores the possibility that concentrating too much on a skill has profound negative effects – especially during the coaching phase of skill acquisition.  In short you can concentrate too much creating the conditions of indecision, or paralysis by analysis.

I have often wondered at which point in time is a human decision made? When, and how does a thought transmit into a behaviour, and equally important is a decision without a visible behaviour really a decision.  I once heard a story about the Commanding Officer of the SAS, he would personally interview new young Officers arriving at Hereford, and without exception he would always make the same statement.

“Right decision, well done. Wrong decision, unlucky; learn for next time. No decision, unacceptable!”

I have repeated this story many times when trying to coach someone into becoming decisive and taking action. Indecision is the friend of procrastination, delaying the call for momentum that acts as a precursor for a positive, or even negative, choice.

The question still remains, when does the decision take place, and is deciding to do nothing still a valid decision?

To help answer this interesting suggestion perhaps I could look at the decision making process of a TT motorbike racer, performing thousands of life or death decisions each lap of the infamous Isle of Man TT course. Athletes often describe a Zen like state called ‘flow’, in which everything falls into place without thought. The scientific minded people would ask how do we quantify this ‘flow’ and how do we know when exactly an athlete has it, what is present during flow that is not present without it?  The simplest explanation could be the surrender of the decision making process from the conscious mind to the unconscious mind. If the common hypothesis is true that the conscious brain can process around 7 bits of information (plus or minus 2), at any one time, surely there would be reliance on recruiting other resources needed to deal with incredibly fast processing of the world around at 180 mph. Decisions would need to be made instantaneously, without the benefit of hindsight, and without time for an effective review of the various options available – the right decision, every time, with no second chances.

Ayrton Senna once famously backed of a flying qualification lap; around a blind corner an accident had taken place without his knowledge. Had Senna attacked this flat out corner he would certainly of collided with the wreckage of the car in front, something told him to take is foot of the accelerator in a split second decision?  Somehow Senna had interpreted information outside of his conscious awareness leading him to make this incredible decision – he had effectively listened to his gut feeling! Senna at the time was the biggest star in F1; he was accustomed to all eyes being on him during races and qualification. This corner was different somehow, when the footage was reviewed of Senna’s approach to the corner the thousands of eyes usually looking at Senna were not, they were looking to their right at the crash scene, this piece of information, outside of Senna’s conscious awareness, was enough for him to abort the lap on the strength of a split second feeling inside his gut.

So, if an athletes ‘flow’ is achieved in the surrender of decisions to the unconscious brain could accidents occur when the conscious brain tries to muscle back in on the act? This can be quantified most clearly with footballers taking penalties under extreme pressure. Most missed penalties are a result of indecision that can be observed early in the attempt. Getting ‘caught in two minds’ suddenly becomes an ironic commentators pun. Contrast this 2 minded approach often seen by footballers taking penalties with that of the rugby player Johnny Wilkinson, he makes every aspect of the kick a ritual, almost entering a mild trance in which he can silence all around and hand over the task, in its entirety, to his unconscious mind.

The difference, however, between the decisions of footballers and rugby players should not be compared to TT racers. Richard ‘Milky’ Quayle once said, from his hospital bed after a 150mph crash, that the 37 mile course was incredibly hard mentally and that often he would have to battle to ‘stop his mind wandering’. This wandering of the mind could be the switch backwards and forwards between conscious decision process and unconscious decision process, science would suggest that travelling at 170mph through Kirk Michael village with houses either side added to the almost infinite other pieces of information, represents more than the 7 afforded to our conscious brain?

Science and neuroscience are providing us with some of the most incredibly interesting research on the point in time when a decision is made. Research from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences suggests that a decision is actually made up to 7 seconds before we are consciously aware, which in and of itself provides ideas and theories to be explored in future blogs.

One thing is for certain though, through heightened awareness comes a heightened reliance on the unconscious mind. Information processing, situational awareness and decision making all require cognitive skill, perhaps there is no greater example of this than the men who average 130mph around a road circuit sandwiched between houses, hedges and stone walls.

Timothy Galloway discovered that rather than over coaching specific details, if he asked his tennis players to think only of bounce – hit, in time with the game, they had incredible results. The surrender of the skill to the unconscious brain allowed them to achieve the ‘flow’ so sought after by athletes.