Neuroscience research on decision-making is pretty conclusive: we are bad at it. Creativity and ingenuity? We humans are good at this. patterns? We’re exceptional at recognizing these. Implementing rules? Check. Assembling vague cues and assessing relative options (i.e. decision-making)? Not so good. Funny that whitewater paddling should be a decision-making game.
Whitewater decisions are highly complex, whether formally scouting or boogie boating and making calls on the fly. Paddling decisions are about predicting dynamism—how moving water, stationary hazards and a paddler’s ability will interact. As we become better paddlers we not only increase our skill but also improve our ability to predict. This decision-making capacity is really what sets the expert apart from the novice. What’s more, this is a highly trainable skill and one that improves in proportion to experience level. Realistically, this is the focus of any instructional program once the basic mechanics of the sport are taken care of. But it’s not that easy of course. there is one major random variable and confounding factor: the decision maker.
Human Factors is the name of a field of study that tries to understand how trained and capable people fail to make reliable decisions. Airline pilots, military units and surgical teams have all come under study, as have professional sports teams and backcountry skiers. It turns out to be pretty simple: peer pressure and ego get in the way when we likely already know better. These human factors become subjective hazards in complex environments, as it turns out, and follow predictable patterns regardless of workplace…
This article appeared in Rapid, Spring 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read the rest here.
