#66 What I learnt at the synchronised ice skating world championships

Good evening all, 

As I write on an Airbus A319 from Geneva to London, I reflect on a weekend in Neuchâtel, staying in a hotel formed of self-contained units on stilts on the lake (think of the Maldives but in Europe). This morning I spent an hour on the balcony looking out at the lake (which I later got in to, brr…) and the mountains in the distance, the most relaxing moment of the entire week. I experienced unbelievable tranquillity; the only sounds were those of nature: ducks and swans, birds and rowers crossing my horizon. 

I’ve been in Neuchâtel watching the synchronised ice skating world championships, where my cousin participated. It was beautiful to watch.

Twenty-four teams competed over two days. Scores from a performance each day were added to give the final results. The running order for day two was determined by the ranking at the end of day one (the best teams performed last).

I’ve been thinking about perceptions of skill, particularly when the people judging are not experts in the skill being tested. 

As spectators in the crowd, we generally agreed with how the judges awarded points; for example, we all agreed that the final few performances in the evening of each day were better than the first few. However, we sometimes disagreed in our subjective views of the rankings at a more granular level, for example, disagreeing on the order of the second—and third-best teams.

Subjectivity in judging

Whilst the judges will have been following objective judging criteria, with the final score averaged across a large number of judges, the conversations that qualified differences in opinion in rankings and the quality of performances by those in the crowd were far more subjective. Some of the things I heard mentioned included:

• How much people liked the songs used by a team

• The attractiveness of the costumes worn by a team

• The degree of similarity between the athletes in a team

One factor I mentioned was how ‘ready’ a team looked during the warm-up. Some teams came out skating extremely fast in their warm-ups, looked like they were following a more serious warm-up routine, and generally looked more focused and gave off a more competitive mindset. 

How a team warms up doesn’t necessarily correlate with how well they will perform. However, it might be a fair heuristic (a mental rule of thumb) to believe that (perceptions of) the quality of the warm-up might be correlated with the quality of the performance. 

However, given that I was about to watch the performance about a minute later, there was no need to judge the team before they began their performance. I did, however, and I was biased as a result. When I perceived a team to mean business based on their warm-up, I subsequently watched their performance through a frame of being a better and more professional team, therefore scoring them higher.

But that’s the reality of life

Whilst I wouldn’t be the fairest judge, that was the reality as an uninformed spectator watching the world championships for the first time. 

This is the reality that we all face in life; our competence and skill will be frequently judged by people who are not experts. Their perceptions may be influenced by a range of subjective, seemingly unrelated, or unimportant factors (this may also apply to experts). 

It's reminiscent of the lessons we learned as children about the importance of appearances in shaping impressions.

Implementation idea

When participating in activities where your competence or skill is being assessed, even if that is just your daily preference at work, think more holistically about the range of seemingly irrelevant or unimportant factors that can influence perceptions. 

Framing is powerful. 

Best, Alex Joshi.

On my bedside table:

• Podcast: Huberman Lab: Dr Cal Newport on how to enhance focus and improve productivity (link)

• Podcast: How I write: How writing helped Howard Marks raise billions (link)

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