I don’t watch cricket anymore, but did catch the video of Dhoni’s very colourful exchange with Manish Pandey in the 2nd T20 vs South Africa earlier this year. Interesting as it was, what really caught my attention was how Dhoni calmly hit a six in the very next ball! Think about it – you’re annoyed about something but able to quickly not just get over it, but do a spectacular job in the next few seconds! This not a one off incident, because this is essentially how the man earned the “Captain Cool” moniker.
I related it to this fantastic long read at Farnam Street about how fighter pilots technique quick and accurate decisions. It’s called the OODA loop and the letters stand for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast & Slow is one of the most insightful books I have read, but I wished there would be an application guide on how to practice it in daily life. I think the OODA loop is the best practitioner’s guide I have seen.
It is obviously not easy and requires tremendous focus. In the professional sphere, the ability of this framework to help in decision making – frame, assess and act – is fantastic whenever I have managed to successfully do it. But what I also realised is that as one practises this more, it increasingly becomes a standard operating procedure in life outside work as well. By doing this frequently, one is also able to shed the baggage that sometimes leads to sub optimal decisions. The resulting levels of clarity is nothing short of amazing.
Kahneman had explained in the book how System 2 (deliberate thinking, most often slow) is a resource hog and how evolution has equipped us with System 1 (quick, intuitive, mostly heuristic based) to deal with life situations in real time. But I do wonder, can constant practice give the brain an opportunity to start using System 2 as default, or at least consult it more frequently? The speed of System 1 and the quality of System 2, maybe that’s what differentiates a Dhoni from the rest!
P.S. Related read – What does a batsman see?