Shortly after starting medical school, I accepted a commission in the United States Navy on a U.S. Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship. During the summer between my first and second years of medical school, I attended what was then called Officer Indoctrination School (OIS, which is affectionately known as "knife and fork" school), now known as Officer Development School (ODS). The school is one of five officer training programs at the Navy's Officer Training Command located in Newport, Rhode Island.
I've posted about my experiences at OIS several times in the past (see "You know what to do", "Tap Code", "12 O'Clock High", and most recently "Diamonds in the Rough"), so needless to say the experience was both memorable and formative. I remember in particular our training at the Damage Control Wet Trainer, better known as the USS Buttercup, a mocked up ship in one of the buildings at Officer Training Command that is 48 feet long, 24 feet wide, with a deck height of 8 feet and weighs approximately 38 tons. The pool that the USS Buttercup rests in is 5 feet deep on the starboard side and 8 feet on the port side, which causes the trainer to take a sharp list during training. The pool holds approximately 37,000 gallons of fresh water. Two of the compartments in the trainer are subject to controlled flooding, and I would have to say that the whole experience seemed to be fairly realistic (see a video of Damage Control training aboard the here).
The Navy feels that its important to provide everyone with at least some knowledge and experience in shipboard damage control, because well, you just never know when it will be required. Even specialists (i.e. physicians in the Medical Corps) require some level of general training (i.e. damage control training). Incidentally, our group failed miserably (I am pretty sure that the Buttercup filled up with more water than she could handle and would have sunk if not for the fact that we were in an indoor pool).
I was thinking exactly of this experience last week, when the high winds and rains in Chicago caused about a ten foot section of our fence to fall into our yard. We called someone to come out and repair the fence (it's going to require more extensive repairs than we are comfortable doing ourselves), and of course they can't come out for another 2 weeks. So, with my wife's assistance, I put my USS Buttercup training to good use, and using some materials that we had on hand, we created a brace to keep the fence in a stable position. Voila!
I've been very interested in the concept of expertise (see my favorite definition here) and the differences between generalists and specialists. I've talked about one of my favorite books on this subject in a number of posts in the past (see "Be like the Renaissance", "Jack of all trades, Master of none", and "Cool Runnings"). It's called Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by the author David Epstein. It's really a great book that focuses on the particularly germane argument - is it better to be a generalist or a specialist? Epstein provides support that suggests that it's better to be good at many things than being great at just one thing.
Which brings me to a recent study I found by Brittany Bond and Ethan Poskanzer, published in the journal Organization Science ("Striking out swinging: Specialist success following forced task inferiority"). Bond was apparently watching the 2018 MLB World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox (which the Red Sox won) and watched Red Sox starting pitcher David Price struggle at bat. At that time, the American League used what is called a Designated Hitter, so that pitchers never had to bat during the regular season. Pitchers in the National League were required to bat during the regular season, as they did not use the Designated Hitter (incidentally, the National League, much to my dismay, instituted the Designated Hitter Rule in 2022). So, the only time that Price had to bat was during the World Series, when the National League team (Dodgers) was playing at home. Bond said, "He was getting so visibly upset when he had to bat and then still looked very angry when he returned to the mound to pitch. And there was one instance where he had just been up to bat and had failed pretty miserably, and then he went to the mound and got three straight outs with just seven pitches."
Watching Price struggle led to an interesting idea for a research study - are specialists in a field helped or hindered by engaging in non-specialist tasks? More to the point, are specialists in a field helped or hindered by failing in tasks that they are not normally required to perform (which Bond and Poskaner call "task inferiority"). Bond and Poskanzer analyzed data from 22 years of MLB games and conducted interviews with former players and coaches. First (and not surprising to most baseball fans), pitchers over this period of time performed significantly worse at batting compared to other players:
The graph above shows the career batting performance (as measured by the proportion of total bats in which that player reached base, or On Base Percentage) for pitchers versus position players and designated hitters. The career average for pitchers is 0.148, which is significantly below the career average of players at all the other positions. The clear distinction in performance here reflects the specialization of the pitchers relative to the other players.
Second, Bond and Poskanzer found that specialized players (pitchers) perform better in their specialty after obligatory tasks (batting) outside of their specialization. The graph below shows that pitchers are more likely to get an out in the first bat of the inning after they had to bat in the previous inning and that the positive effect of pitching after batting fades with time. Eventually, the pitchers returned to their baseline performance level.
In subsequent analyses, they found that pitchers perform even better after an unsuccessful at-bat in the previous inning (i.e. after failing in a task in which they do not specialize). After an unsuccessful bat, pitchers were significantly more likely to record an out against the first batter they face, less likely to give up a walk against the first batter they face, and more likely to throw pitches in the strike zone.
During interviews with retired pitchers, they consistently heard that when pitchers failed to get on base in an inning, their level of motivation to be successful in getting opposing batters out in the next inning was much higher. In other words, when they failed at a task in which they did not specialize, they were more motivated to be successful in the one that they did specialize. One pitcher said, "I took my at bats personal, they fueled my pitching..." Another pitcher said, "When you screw up, you're pushing yourself more next time. It's not going to happen again." Finally, one more pitcher claimed that after a failed at bat, "I'm going to lock it in a little bit more with pitching, I want to have value for the team. I want to help my team someway somehow or another. It's like in basketball - if my shooting sucks, I'm going to get the rebound or help with great defense."
Bond and Poskanzer suggest that their findings aren't limited to baseball. They wrote, "...we illuminate how nonspecialized tasks can generate heightened drive and lead to better performance in specialized tasks...Even top performers can improve in their own domain by coming up short outside their specialty." When asked to explain further, Bond concluded, "Our study suggests that employers should not keep their specialists isolated. There can be this added upside. Even if the specialist maybe didn’t do the best work on this ‘everyday’ task, it was necessary for them to complete it as part of a team. That’s fine. It was necessary, and now you’re going to get an extra benefit for when that specialist goes back to their specialization. They’re going to go back with vigor that hadn’t been there."
I'm not sure that the Navy had the concept of task inferiority in mind when they decided to require future members of the Medical Corps to go through damage control training. However, perhaps by failing (miserably in our case) at this one task outside our specialty helped us to become better Medical Corps officers. By failing (striking out swinging), we ended up better in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment