Volleyball Coaching Life-Synthesis and Analysis

We think about decision making while solving problems as a natural and integral part of what we do when we face a challenge. We don’t, as a rule, decide to separate the decision making into two parts, but I started to categorizing thinking into two parts after I was talked to an expert in my engineering specialty many years ago. He categorized design thinking as synthesis; and what he did as an academic, solving of “Why?” problems, as analysis. As a practicing engineer in industry, I practiced both synthesis and analysis as the problem demanded. I switched between the two modes of work without consciously separating them in my mind, I knew I had to synthesize when I designed and analyze when I had to solve open-ended problems. I worked in one mode or the other without distinguishing one from the other. It wasn’t until it was pointed out that I was performing two different types of decision making that a lightbulb came on.

Synthesis and analysis are the two parts of the integrated whole of thinking in general: the yin and yang of thinking. It is natural to subconsciously switch between the two, depending on the problem and the unknowns.

So why separate the problem-solving process into synthesis and analysis? I believe that it is important we understand how each works separately because the purposes and processes of the two modes are so different and yet are so intertwined it is important to understand them separately, at least in my own conversation with myself. Once we understand each one, we can stitch them back together so that we can understand how they work together in our problem solving.

The advantage with switching quickly and subconsciously between synthesis and analysis is that the two modes are tightly integrated, which makes the process efficient; but our not being consciously aware of our switching between the two modes may lead us into using synthesis when analysis is called for, and vice versa. It forces us to spend more time than is necessary and more importantly, may lead us into the bad habit of thinking in the wrong mode, which may lead us to bad solutions.

When I started thinking about synthesis and analysis, I was thinking primarily about my engineering self; how am I solving problems? Am I being efficient and effective with my cogitations? Inevitably, I digressed and started to extrapolate these ideas and proceeded to apply the synthesis/analysis paradigm to my volleyball thinking process: how do I make decisions as a coach and also imagining how my players would make decisions with synthesis and analysis.

Some definitions:

Synthesis is defined in many ways (Merriam Webster Dictionary n.d.):

·       the composition or combination of parts or elements so as to form a whole

·       the combining of often diverse conceptions into a coherent whole

Similarly, analysis is defined as (Merriam Webster Dictionary n.d.):

·       detailed examination of anything complex in order to understand its nature or to determine its essential features. 

·       a thorough study: separation of a whole into its component parts

Those that take the known concepts and apply them in an integrated way, making connections between the different defined knowledge bases optimally to create original solutions can be categorized as synthesis. It is the integration of known knowledge to create an original thought that makes the process synthesis, just knowing the necessary knowledge is not synthesis.  

Another way to simply characterize synthesis is to say that it is the feedforward path; where decisions are made to integrate ideas into action, but we need to also understand that we do so without being able to predict the results. Decisions are made based on known knowledge, but it is the situation that is unique. Execution of the synthesized decision leads to an unknown and unpredictable result, making the synthesis an open loop activity.

Synthesis answers the “How?” and “What if?” questions.

Analysis is what happens when the results from the synthesis decisions are compared to what we wanted to result. The comparison of the actual versus the desired outcomes becomes questions: the comparison questions, how close are the actual results to the desired results, assuming that all the variables are measurable, which is a large assumption; the “Why?” questions, why did the results come out the way they did; and the  “How?” question,  how can the next synthesis decision get closer to the desired outcome, that is, “How?” can the initial models be improved so that the synthesis decision that is based on the new improved models get closer to the desired results.

Even as we know that analysis answers the “Why?” questions, we also know that analysis — through answering the “How?” questions —  can also answer some “What if?” questions. The combination of the answers to those questions will allow us to explore ways of predicting outcomes that are based on the improved models that are answers to the “How?” questions.

The simple figure below illustrates the  synthesis/analysis pair as a simple feedback model used in system theory. Synthesis being the feedforward path and analysis being the feedback path. Finding the difference between desired outcome and the analysis of the actual result gives the decision-maker the structure for driving the synthesis decisions.

There are two obvious constraints that need to be considered when extrapolating the synthesis/analysis idea to sports. The first is the time factor: actions happen quickly, in milliseconds, which adds significant stress to the players and coaches during the decision-making process while playing. The second constraint is that of context, there are two distinct but coupled environments that exist in sports: the playing and the practice environments.

Since the first constraint is always present within the second constraint: the speed of the game exerts significant but somewhat different influences in both environments, both constraints are considered together.

The playing environment is where the obvious emphasis should be on executing, i.e.  executing the skills, tactic, strategies, and game knowledge. The added intangible factors are: the player’s ability to deal with pressure, both intrinsic and extrinsic; the player’s ability to apply their training under those conditions; and the team’s ability to adjust to the uncertainties from having multiple independent minds contributing to the ebb and flow of the game action, all executed instantaneously.

The practice environment is where the obvious emphasis should be on learning, i.e., teaching the player’s synapses and neurons to instantaneously execute skills, strategies, tactics, and game knowledge.

My initial thought was to assign synthesis just to the players, just as I had assigned synthesis just to the designers; the players are the ones who must synthesize all their experiences through training and playing.

Accordingly, I had assigned the role of  the analyst to coaches because that was the stereotypical role of the coach, the analyst, the person who evaluates the games as it is played. They create the game plans before the games by applying their knowledge of the game and experience with previous games; after the games, they sort through the statistical data and their intuitive impressions of the games to decide on whether the game was conducted according to their plans.

While comparing the contexts of playing versus training for players and coaches, I realized that the decision-making process for both roles have complex and varying requirements. I also realized that my initial paradigm was too simple: both players and coaches must not only perform both synthesis and analysis, albeit with different ratios of synthesis and analysis tasks depending on the context of the situation, just as the engineer must be able to perform both modes of thinking; the biggest difference is first constraint: decisions are made instantaneously in the playing environment.

In David Epstein’s book Range (Epstein 2019), the following definitions are given to describe the domains under which decision makers need to make their decisions.

Wicked domain: Unclear or incomplete rules.  May not be repeated or obvious patterns. Delayed or inaccurate feedback. Experience may reinforce the wrong response.

Kind domain: Patterns repeat itself. Accurate feedback. Feedback is immediate and accurate.

In conjunction with the environment, Epstein also defined two different modes of thinking that decision makers use to make decisions. Conceptual thinking is the System 2 thinking as defined by Kahneman (Kahneman 2013). It involves dissecting, investigating the problem with fresh observation, and asking the “How?” and “What-if?” questions while creating new ways to look at a problem based on immediate experiences as well as previous experiences and knowledge. Conceptual thinking is a time-consuming but detailed process. Fortunately, it needs to be used to direct us through the wicked environment, unfortunately, the conceptual thinking-based solution usually takes too long for a wicked situation that demands quick response.

Procedural thinking is System 1 thinking as defined by Kahneman. It is where the decision maker bypasses the active consciousness and relies upon our immediate knee jerk reaction. It is our automatic cognitive reaction to any situation. It works by recalling pertinent knowledge on the neuronal level and reacting rather than actively thinking on a brain level. The greatest advantage to procedural thinking is that the solution comes fast. Unfortunately, procedural thinking also presupposes a kind environment, i.e., linear thinking where the solutions are based on scaling known solution, because the linear scaling of a known solution because there is not time to think conceptually.  

Looking at a playing situation, both players and coaches are immersed in a wicked environment, meaning that the first constraint, the speed of the game, drives their decision-making. Instantaneous and procedural solutions that are in a wicked environment, which need to be nonlinear and conceptual in scope. It is these instantaneous requirements that are imposed on the players and coaches that makes the playing context so challenging.

For players, synthesis in the sports context is not strictly thinking as it would be in the engineering context because the player is reacting to the game in front of them, the procedural decision making does not engage the conscious mind, it is the nervous system acting subconsciously and reactively. The first constraint dominates, it is therefore more accurate to define synthesis for the players in the playing environment as simply reacting, because synthesis in the playing environment requires instantaneous recall of previously programed neuronal pathways deriving from playing and training experiences, combined with accumulated knowledge of the sport to make the necessary decisions to not only survive but to overcome the wicked environment. Successful players has internalized and integrated an abundance of  game experiences to make their procedural thinking accurate and recalling appropriate and compatible experiences from the working memory.

There is, however, some time for the player to analyze their situation during a dead ball period, but there isn’t enough time to analyze while the ball is alive; any decision made through analysis is too late.

The coach is also in synthesis while residing in the playing environment, although their decision making the time frame is longer, which allow them to reside in the  analysis mode for longer periods of time, so they do not need to be as reactive as the players. Even so, the ratio of the time that the coach spends in synthesis versus analysis is significantly different for the playing and practice environments.  

Coaches must respond quickly to game situations but must also walk a tightrope between synthesizing and analyzing. Overanalyze and the decisions are made too late; employing faulty and linear extrapolations of their experiences, that is, employing heuristics that do not meet the situational needs results in undesirable outcomes. (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2023/06/volleyball-coaching-life-heuristics.html)

Another factor that coaches must consider is the way that they deliver their instructions to the players while being cognizant of the extrinsic loading effect on the player’s working memory. Coaches need to temper the amount and complexity of their instructions to not distract the players with too much extrinsic loads while also providing the players with essential  instructions during play. This needs to be a conscious decision for coaches to make while they are also extemporaneously delivering the instruction that are the results of their analysis.

Another recently added factor for coaches is the use of statistics in the aftermath of the Moneyball movement. While data collection provides coaches with valuable information that describes the game to consider, the amount of information can also distract and overwhelm. The volume of data that is collected and consumed can easily create a situation of paralysis by analysis. It is impossible to dive into the granularities of the statistical data to arrive at the best answer to a specific situation while in a playing environment. The perspicacious coaches will often use compounded metrics to give them a snapshot of the ongoing match, a heuristic made up of specific data; a good use of heuristics. It is important for coaches to realize that the metrics they use in games are never permanent and have a half-life that lasts only until the next set. Coaches must treat those statistics as instantaneous snapshots of the game which prevents the coach from succumbing to paralysis by analysis, it is by no means an accurate predictor of the future.  It is human nature to extrapolate and project the statistics into the future; that is, inferring and predicting the future based on the description of the present. which will most likely lead to fallacious decisions because the playing situation is dynamic and ever changing.

Another issue with using statistics is as Joe Maddon wrote in his book (Joe Maddon 2022).  As the importance of a given situation rises, the pressure on the decision maker associated with the situation also arises, the uncertainties associated with those metrics also rises; perversely, the size of the data sample available which is associated with the specific situation decreases exponentially. All of this makes an already wicked environment even more wicked. Maddon refuses to rely on dodgy statistics as the situation becomes more wicked.

Transitioning to the practice environment, the best way to deal with the wicked playing environment is to perform analysis offline, making the analysis available for consideration as the situation arises But having the analysis available is not enough, the analysis results must become procedural, integrated in the heuristics of the coaches before the competition because analysis in real time is impossible and failure prone. The ideal is to make the players and coaches make decisions in an antifragile way; that is, to make the procedural, the System 1 responses, be inherently adaptable to the situations as they appear. This is why the practice environment is the yin to the yang of the playing environment.

Antifragility is a property of systems in which they increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures. (Wikipedia 2023)

Effective practices are critical to effective performances in play, despite Allen Iverson.

Antifragility also means that the system, the team in this case, can make effective decisions under wicked environments while are also adaptive to dynamic conditions of the playing environment. Indeed, an antifragile system means that the team is not only robust and resilient — able to withstand the challenges — but also make immediate decisions that allows the team to gain from the challenges.

The players and coaches prepare to be antifragile in the wicked environment by practicing in a kind environment. This might seem to be an anachronism, but the kind environment slows down the urgency from the playing environment, easing the time pressures for decision making by allowing both players and coaches to have the time to analyze and experiment with the most effective responses. The kind environment is more forgiving and allows both players and coaches to discover the most effective decision by testing — being allowed to make errors — and correcting them offline.

Practicing being antifragile requires both the players and the coaches to flip back and forth between synthesis and analysis modes, much like the engineers. The players are analyzing their execution of physical skills, their reactions to situations, their ability improvise solutions, the validity of their decisions, and their implementation of the tactics prescribed by the coaching staff. Doing this in the kinder environment allows the brain to engage in analysis without incurring costs, that is, losing in competition. As practices evolve in time, the kind environment needs to progress towards being more wicked, the importance of the time element and the competitive pressures all should increase. This becomes the assessment of the players success in integrating the analysis results from practice into their procedural reactions. They must be able continually convert the conceptual into the procedural to make effective decisions in the wicked playing environment. As the players switch between synthesis to analysis, their time spent in synthesis should increase, assuming that there is progress in integrating the analysis results into synthesis.

The players are also connecting the learning from the practice environment to their playing experience and associating the “How?” and “What if?” questions with the newly integrated procedural responses. This is where the uncertainties come in. There is no way to adequately create a practice environment which replicates the wicked playing environment. Add the randomness and pressures which are intimate parts of playing, the results of the synthesis done in practices will also be an open loop, that is, unpredictable. Which is what makes playing the game so challenging .— there is no way of predicting, a priori, the efficacy of the practice until after the assessment through competition.

The practice environment is where the coach must be at their most effective in coaching, because if coaches are at their most effective in practice, the players should be at their most effective in the playing environment, even if randomness disrupts the playing environment the players should be prepared for the randomness by having been trained to be antifragile.

The amount of analysis done by the coaches is not just analysis done in preparation for play: analysis of  the strength and weaknesses of their opponent, analysis of  the strength and weaknesses of their teams, and analysis of possible situational events that may happen when matching up the teams. Preparation for play also means preparation of the learning environment for the players individually, as small groups, and cohesively as a team. Often coaches need to analyze their pedagogical methods for effectiveness. They need to analyze their effectiveness in communicating with each player and staff member; they need to analyze the communications between coaching staff member and player; and they need to analyze the effectiveness of each player’s communications with their teammates. It is diving into the granularities of human interaction and communication and is the key to training the players to be antifragile as they convert the conceptual thinking from analysis in practice into the procedural reaction which  feeds into player synthesis.

On the other hand, the coaches also need to be prepared to synthesize while in the practice environment. They need to create and implement training regimens extemporaneously as the situation demands which best serve the learning needs of the team. They must also integrate the knowledge of the players reactions to adverse situations that are observed in the the practice environment into the coach’s  procedural thinking in order to incorporate those granular details into their decision making in the playing environment.

This exercise started out to clarify the ideas in order to gain an understanding of how synthesis and analysis happens in the engineering and volleyball context. It is a thought experiment undertaken to give the ideas the breadth and depth that I felt necessary. I wanted to explore the ideas in my mind. I wrote it down because I  wanted to be able recall my thought process. I am putting this out because I felt someone might find it interesting.

I hope that you did.

References

Epstein, David. Range, Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. New York : Riverhead Books., 2019.

Joe Maddon, Tom Verducci. The Book of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life. New York: Hatchette Book Group, 2022.

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow. NYC: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Merriam Webster Dictionary. n.d. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ (accessed June 28, 2023).

Wikipedia. Antifragility. June 20, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragility (accessed July 6, 2023).

 

 

Volleyball Coaching Life- 25:0

There has been a bit of discussion on social media about those teams that have been at both ends of a 25-0 score in the year end tournaments. The discussions brought up a jumble of thoughts and emotions so I thought I would put them down on paper, well, electronic paper, and try to suss out and unjumble my thoughts.

In this era of large convention center tournaments, these kinds of scores should not be happening except for the first day of play, as the way the teams are funneled through pool and bracket play allows teams to settle into a steady state of competitive play the deeper they get into the tournament. Teams are funneled into top and bottom halves with each set of pool play, until they compete with teams that are mostly on the same level of play as themselves  on the last day of competition. Sometimes, an additional day or two of sifting might have been needed, but the idea is that the pains of the early blowouts might be assuaged later in the tournament. I believe the power league idea takes the sifting to a better ending.

One then has to wonder: how did these teams end up in this predicament?  

Some had suggested that it was the fault of the coach and players for not having gotten better over the season. I can’t see how a single set snapshot can represent the season. We all know, or should know, that any score — set or match— has more to do with the matchup at that moment in time between the teams rather than the people involved. Remember that sports are critically dependent on the interaction between two opposing teams.

There are other things to consider as well: the composition of the teams, the relative experience of the players and coaches, the level of the team and club, whether they are a competitive team practicing close to every day in the week or a rec team practicing one or two days a week. To say that it is all the fault of the players and coaches for not being good enough is disingenuous at best and bullying at worst. Players and coaches need time to develop and learn, sometimes these kinds of experiences are necessary for both players and coaches to learn whether it is their passion at that moment, or not.

While I agree that this kind of failure is sobering and perhaps a shot across the bow for the team at the receiving end of the bad news, I wonder how much positive impact is there to this kind of beat down. Some who eschew the participation trophy mentality have jumped on this situation and have said that this is a perfect lesson for all involved. There are many lessons to be learned from failure. While I agree with that, I wonder about the value of the lesson from a 0-25 beat down.

I do have a soft spot for the underdog, I had written many years ago about the worst team. (https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-very-worst-team.html). I feel ambiguous pangs of sorrow, of missed opportunities, of a personal need to go tell the players and coaches that things will work out, even though I never actually know if they will or not. I fear that the players and coaches will walk away from my sport after having had a monumentally bad season. Even if this was just a bad set, that this was an anomaly within a relatively successful season, it is traumatic. I think of myself as being the coach of that team, and I ask myself: what would I do? How can I take something this monumental and get in all the lessons that needs to be taught and still not come off pollyannaish and untruthful? It is because I know that the players can be cold-eyed realists that I work at communicating positively without being false and condescending; because I know that as soon as I say something that rings false, I will lose my team. No matter the age of the players, I am not a good liar; and no, I won’t play poker with you.

Many had postulated that it was the coaches and parents who eagerly signed up for divisions of play that are much above the level of the players. That is easy to do, I had written about it before when I spoke of the debate over sandbagging ( https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/2023/03/volleyball-coaching-life-sandbagging.html). The same principles apply: coaches not knowing how their teams will pan out early in the season, the competitive need to enter the post-season tournaments early to reserve a slot before the tournaments fill, coaches and parents projecting the progress of the teams without any data to support their projections, and unforeseeable injuries or absences to key members of the team.

Sometimes the lower levels of tournaments fill quicker than the upper levels, so the tournament directors give teams and clubs incentive to pay a level up, never realizing, or caring, about the competitive mismatches; just to fill the tournament. On the other hand, despite the clamoring for a means of determining the “true” levels of each team, we in volleyball have never and probably will never develop such a system because we are dealing with the vagaries of human behavior and the unbounded randomness that pervades sports, particularly junior sports.

Are the mismatches becoming more prevalent as the tournaments get bigger? I don’t know and I don’t see any way to decide on a correlation between the growth and number of mismatches, and I don’t care to dig into the minutiae. Additionally, I am not sure this is something we can actually control: too many variables, too much nonlinearity, too many complicating couplings.

This is the part where adults need to be cold-eyed realists. This is also the part that makes the scheduling decisions so fraught with uncertainties. How well will the team compete at the end of the season as compared to the beginning of the season? Coaches will always start the season optimistically: I can improve the players 100-fold, I am that great of a coach. We will play as I command because they will be my little robots and do as I command them. Parents of course will project whatever dreams they have for their off springs, or their own unrequited dreams of sporting prowess. Sunny and bright June and July are so far away when sitting around a table with other parents and coaches in the cold and dreary October and November planning for the season.

The other part of the equation is that coaches and parents have all the best intentions in the world when planning the end of the season. Having an end of the season tournament where players can enjoy the experience in a large tournament seems like a win-win proposition. It is to end in a crescendo. No one should say that a team is not deserving of ending a season with a celebration. Some had said that some of these teams should not travel because they are not good enough to be a “travel” team. I ask them: What is a “travel” team and what is not a “travel” team? Are there strict quantitative limitations that they should follow? Is there a check list? The answer is a resounding NO.

Yet, as adults we should take responsibility for structuring a season as best as we are able given the uncertainties and unknowns. Avoiding a season where we end up demoralizing our players, no matter what age, is imperative. As coaches we need to help our players develop and keep their love of the game that we are passionate about. As parents we need to walk the tightrope of allowing our children to learn from failures while also showing them that there is always a positive side to bad situations.

Losing every match or set in the season does not make for a lot of positive reinforcement. On the other hand, we can prepare all we want but something like that can happen, and we need to be prepared for the conversation.

Getting back to the topic of losing 0-25. It won’t kill them, but at the same time, it may just kill the player’s passion in volleyball, or any sports. We can’t know for sure. But as coaches we need to scaffold our seasons to that we have more bright spots than low spots; those bright spots are not necessarily dependent only on the win/loss record. I would imagine that most players would bury that 0-25 score deep in the recesses of their memory, so much so that they disappear. But we need to be prepared to address it honestly.

I know, very unsatisfying. But at least I had unjumbled it in my mind. Until someone else raises another pertinent point.