What WERE they thinking?

Being a bit of a cricket fan I, like most other people around the world, am astounded by the revelations that have come out of South Africa regarding Australia’s ball tampering at the weekend. I mean, what WERE they thinking? What was going through their mind?

It’s difficult to write a concise and pithy piece on the subject as there is simply too much going on. “what possessed them to do it?” “who knew?” “have they done it before?” “how did it crop up as an idea?” “what should the punishment be?” I could go on.

One of the most powerful and challenging messages in coaching is that no matter how difficult, overwhelming or daunting the situation, ultimately, we always have options and choices.

If you get the chance to read Prof. Steve Peters’ ‘The Chimp Paradox’ or look up Dr Daniel Siegel’s work on memory, you’ll find that both talk about how the brain stores experiences so that when we come into similar situations in the future our internal ‘super computer’ (brain) can quickly and easily go into the mind’s reference library and react.

It’s an inherent survival technique going back to early man. ‘look there’s a bear at the mouth of the cave…what shall I do?’ ‘What happened last time there was a bear at the mouth of the cave?’ etc etc. Auto select kicks in.

What their research also shows us is that we can reprogram the ‘super computer’. If it can remember certain behaviours by instinct, then through exposure, new learning and practice of new thinking we can provide the brain with more options of how to react. Over time, we can increase the speed of our own processing of the choices we are about to make – interrupting the auto select option. This is often called ‘conscious practice’.

Like with most other things, the more we practice the better we get at it, until it becomes 2nd nature. With practice it can enable you to pause, think, be more self-observant in the moment and make better choices and… do it at speed.

If the Australian leadership team had spent as much time on their conscious practice as perhaps they do on batting, bowling, fielding etc. would they have made the same choices on Saturday afternoon? I suspect not.

As for losing 10 wickets for 50 runs…well that’s another blog for another time.