Seven decisions sports coaches make

Understanding the seven decision types – with their strengths and pitfalls – helps to make better decisions.

When decision-making in sports is discussed, the types of thinking that lead to a decision are often reduced to intuitive (how athletes make decisions in a game) and analytical decisions (evaluating pros and cons). Is that really all there is?

Based on our work with elite sports coaches in the Netherlands and Australia and an extensive review of the decision-making literature, Tim van Gelder and I describe seven types of decisions sports coaches (and people in general) naturally make. The framework has been published in this academic article in Strategies and summarised in this article in Pursuit.

Having an understanding of how decisions get made is essential to improve decision-making. Seeing a match as a war, for example, can make a coach choose players who win physical ‘battles’ over players who are more technically gifted (we call this metaphor-based decision-making). Reflecting on this type of thinking is important because changing the metaphor changes the decision.

This interactive online module can be used to learn about and reflect on the decision types.

Decision making criteria for sports managers

How to improve decision making

Crucial to evaluating decision making is having a clear idea what good decision making is. In a previous article I argued that decision outcomes on its own are not useful criteria for a good decision. A good decision is not necessarily a decision that turned out ok, and similarly a bad outcome doesn’t mean that the decision was wrong.

Decision making sport coaches

How to evaluate a decision?

In a thoughtful podcast sport scientist Sam Robertson and performance strategist David Joyce define eight characteristics of good decision making in sport. According to Robertson and Joyce, the decision:

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What is a good decision?

Alex Ferguson’s best decision, ever

Decision making sets a good manager apart from a mediocre one. But what is a good decision? How can one distinguish a good decision from a bad one?

Let’s take as a starting point the best decision by arguably the greatest manager ever in Football: Manchester United-manager Alex Ferguson signing the French player Eric Cantona in November 1992.

United were looking for goals. A shortage of goals had costed them the Premier League in the previous season and early in the 1992-1993 season United’s goal scoring was further impaired when their striker got injured. This showed in their 10th position on the ladder, way below the teams competing for the title.

After Ferguson signed Cantona for just £1.2 million, United started to score goals, found their winning ways and even won the league that season for the first time in 26 years. Ferguson was voted manager of the year, while the eccentric Frenchman, despite him speaking little English and a string of incidents overshadowing his talent, became a legend of his own. King Eric ‘gave’ United four Premier League titles by making other players better – and score goals.

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