Instinct, Skill, and Decision-Making on the Court

One of the biggest challenges for any adventurer, commander, or entrepreneur is making decisions—sometimes very quickly—about which way to go when there isn’t a clear or sure path ahead. How do we make those calls? Just going “with your gut” or emotions can be a disaster. One of the reasons pilots of small airplanes (and mountain climbers) don’t have a better safety record is that they suffer from things like “get-there-itis”, which is the gut desire to a) believe that you’re tough enough to overcome the challenges you’re facing and b) avoid giving up the satisfying goal of getting to your planned destination, even when circumstances make that goal a riskier proposition. That, along with other factors, tends to make people say, “Yeah, I can do this,” when the facts don’t necessarily support that conclusion.  Yet, very smart people who rely purely on technical data can be equally wrong—or lost, if there isn’t any good technical data available. 
What applies to sports doesn’t always apply to business or life. But in today’s New York Times Sports section, Jonathan Abrams offered yet another interesting angle on this subject, at least as it applies to basketball superstars. 
Abrams interviewed numerous pro basketball players about their decision-making processes on the court, in the midst of a game. Did they think about which way to go, or which strategy to employ? Did they think through each free-throw? Strategize whether to take the two-point or three-point shot? Or did they just rely on “instinct” to guide them? 

Most players agreed that too much thinking could be detrimental. Chris Duhon, a point guard for the NY Knicks, told Abrams, “Most players are at their best when they’re not thinking too much. They’re just playing and immersed in the game and letting the game dictate what they need to do.” 
That doesn’t mean players—especially point guards like Duhon—don’t plan or call specific plays. But given that there are five other players on the court whose job is to defeat those plays … things often don’t go according to plan. And in the fast-changing, uncharted moments that follow, the players have to improvise. Which is where Duhon’s comments come into play (so to speak). 
Perhaps (although Abrams didn’t make this particular point) players do better by “not thinking too much,” because engaging in conscious, left-brain analysis removes the brain’s focus from the intuitive signs and cues that a player would otherwise be picking up as plays unfold. Abrams also notes that basketball has a more fluid pace of action than start-and-stop games like football or baseball. So it’s easier for a basketball player to immerse themselves in the flow of the game and let go of “conscious” thought or distraction. But is that “unconscious” response the same thing as pure “gut instinct”? 
Depends on the player, Abrams discovered … and also on what you call “gut instinct.” Some players “think” on the court more than others. But all the players in question—successful athletes in the NBA—have an innate talent for the game and have accumulated years of expertise, knowledge, and experience against thousands of opponents. They also rehearse moves and responses to other players so often, and think about strategies so much, in practice, that conscious moves can become ingrained responses. So for an experienced hand, a “gut feeling” is actually drawing on a vast store of embedded training, knowledge and analysis, as well as the players’ supercomputer minds integrating of all the unfolding movements and positions on the court. As well as remembered outcomes from other players’ moves, earlier in the game. Which is different than shooting from the hip, as it were, without any analytical thought behind the decision. 
The trained and super-fast responses of a master who can devote more mental resources to synthesizing fast-moving external inputs because many of the other tasks have become second-nature responses, in other words, are not the same thing as the “first impression” instinct Malcolm Gladwell talked about in his best-seller Blink. (Although Gladwell also talked about our supercomputer brains making use of “the kind of wisdom someone acquires after a lifetime of learning and watching and doing.” But he equated the two—I’m not so sure they’re the same thing.)
In any event, it’s rather amazing to consider that the human brain might work so fast that, for someone who’s accumulated enough data (knowledge, practice, and experience) in the neuro-supercomputer storage bins, that said neuro-supercomputer can then process through all the relevant files and synthesize an integrated “unconscious” response in something less than .002 seconds. So fast that we’d swear we didn’t even check with our brains before we responded. 
But key to this scenario is first accumulating the data. For a newbie to simply “go from the gut” would be an entirely different matter. Consider, for example, a wizened old sea captain, with dozens of cyclones and storm crossings behind him, sniffing the shifting ocean air and saying, “I think we ought to go this way.” Then imagine a friend, who’s just taken up sailing and has owned a sailboat exactly one week, making the same pronouncement.
In some lines of work or life activity, there is almost always enough time to think through information, options, and decisions carefully. Convene a committee, read a report, cull alternative opinions. But other career fields and/or activities don’t always allow that luxury. And in situations that are highly dynamic, coming up with Plans B, C, D, and E in rapid succession may require both a broader internal knowledge base and a faster processing method than our top-level, conscious brain can handle.
Which is to say, there’s something to be said for accumulating as much wisdom and experience, and walking through as many challenges and strategies as we can imagine, ahead of any adventure or new endeavor. But then—and perhaps only then—there’s something to be said for allowing the unconscious supercomputer within our brains a greater role in guiding our hands when we’re actually in the midst of the fray. Tempered, of course, with constant vigilance about how that approach is working. Even NBA stars get off-track, sometimes. But in the midst of  the game, with sensations, inputs and situational dynamics coming at us fast and furious, these basketball players might be right. The best approach might be to just play the game, one move at a time, trusting that we often know more than we think we know. Even when, ironically enough, we don’t even think we’re thinking.