Unforced Errors & Competiive Rivalry

Source: PGA

31 year old Rory McIlroy is a four-time winner of a golf major, and one of only three men to win four majors by the age of 25.   He was #1 in the world in the fall of 2015.  However, he hasn't won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship. Brook Koepka overtook him at the top of the golf world, coming on strong to win four majors from 2017-2019.  The rivalry has been intriguing. In the 2019, Koepka said, "I'm not looking at anyone behind me. I’m No. 1 in the world. I’ve got an open road in front of me – I’m not looking in the rearview mirror.”  However, in February 2020, McIlroy reclaimed the #1 spot in the golf rankings.  However, Koepka notes that McIroy still hasn't won a major since 2014.   What can we learn from these types of intense rivalries in sports, and how can they help us understand competitive dynamics in the world of business?

Niro Sivanathan, associate professor of organisational behaviour at the London Business School, recently wrote an article in the South China Morning Post about his research on "unforced errors."  He argues that this research may explain, in part, the type of actions taken at Boeing leading up to the Boeing 737 MAX crisis.   Sivanathan has studied tennis and chess players, and he's found something quite interesting about how competition affects their behavior.  Here's an excerpt from his article:

In a recent study of more than 117,000 professional tennis matches, we found professional tennis players, such as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, perform worse and commit more unforced errors when they compete against players who have recently risen in their rankings, compared to those with similar rankings but who lack the same momentum.  When we abandoned tennis courts and analysed more than 5 million games from online amateur chess platforms, we found that when competitors are evenly matched, chess players perform worse against opponents they know have been climbing in the rankings.

Drawing on this research, Sivanathan asks the question about the Boeing-Airbus rivalry: "Is this a classic case of a younger rival intimidating an older, better established competitor, resulting in the established player making mistakes and, in this particular instance, losing a long-held leadership position?"  Of course, there's much more to the Boeing story than this type of unforced error effect, but it is an interesting causal factor.   I'll have more to say about the Boeing case soon, as I have a new case study about the 737 MAX crisis under review at the moment.  Stay tuned. 

Clutch Performer or Choker?

Kellogg Insight, a website dedicated to featuring new research by Kellogg school faculty, recently described the work of Julio González-Díaz, Olivier Gossner and Brian W. Rogers.  They conducted a study to examine the question:

"In sports, some athletes are known as “clutch players” who consistently perform well under pressure; in the business world, an individual may gain a reputation for maintaining composure and good judgment in the most trying circumstances, ultimately contributing to their organization’s success.  Does this ability to “rise to the occasion” differ measurably across individuals?"  

Fans of baseball may be aware that sabermetrics experts (such as Bill James) have studied this question for years.  Most of them have argued that there is no such thing as "clutch" players in baseball.  These statistical experts have argued that most players perceived by fans as "clutch performers" don't necessarily perform better in crucial situations.  More recently, some studies have shown that "clutch performers" may exist. 

In this research, the authors focused on tennis.  They looked at point-level data over a twelve year period.  They wanted to know if some players had "high critical ability" - i.e. did they consistently perform well on the most important points?   Here is what they found:

"First, players differed “significantly and substantially” in their critical abilities, and these capabilities were important in explaining point outcomes—that is, players with greater critical ability were more likely to win important points than their opponents. Moreover, critical ability was correlated moderately with serving and returning capabilities. Critical ability was also linked with players’ ratings on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) points system over the 12-year period studied. Critical ability’s correlation with ATP rating was about as strong as the link between returning ability—a crucial skill—and ATP rating. The relationship between critical ability and career success remained even when the researchers accounted for players’ experience levels. For the average professional tennis player, the study found that the impact of improving critical ability on ATP rating is 41 percent that of improving their serve, arguably the most important factor in the sport."

What is the implication for leaders in the business world?   Naturally, if we could identify "high critical ability," that would be of immense value.  Unfortunately, management does not lend itself to the kind of quantitative analysis performed by these scholars with regard to tennis players.   Moreover, we know from many baseball studies that our eyes can deceive us.  Many players regarded as clutch by fans do not actually perform better statistically in important situations over a lengthy period of time (i.e. a player might perform better in the clutch one year, but not the next in many instances).  These celebrated players often simply have had some highly memorable moments where they came through in the clutch... and thereby have been labeled as extraordinary in high stakes situations.  For leaders, the lesson is beware of drawing sweeping conclusions based on one or two isolated moments of greatness in the clutch.  However, don't dismiss the notion of high critical ability entirely. Apparently, at least in tennis, clutch performers do exist.