Trial By Error or Trial And Error?

A representative of the NBA Players' Association recently addressed the Toronto Raptors on matters of financial prudence. A statistic was cited during the meeting that startled some of the hoopsters. It was said that 60% of retired NBA players go broke five years after their NBA paychecks end. "Sixty per cent is a ballpark. But we've seen a lot of guys who've really come into hard times five years after they leave the league," said Roy Hinson, the former NBA forward who's a representative for the players' association." According to a recent Fox Sports News report, nearly 80% of NFL players are bankrupt, unemployed and/or divorced within 2 years of retirement.

If you are like me then you are probably asking yourself how in the world can the majority of professional athletes win on the court/diamond/field but lose in the game of life. Could it all be as a result of the approach guys take, i.e. trial and error versus insight and theory?

Trial and error, or trial by error, is a general method of problem solving for obtaining knowledge, both propositional knowledge and know-how. In trial and error, one selects a possible answer, applies it to the problem and, if it is not successful, selects (or generates) another possibility that is subsequently tried. The process ends when a possibility yields a solution. In some versions of trial and error, the option that is a priori (meaning "from what comes before,” or, less literally, "before experience") or viewed as the most likely one should be tried first, followed by the next most likely, and so on until a solution is found, or all the options are exhausted. In other versions, options are simply tried at random.

Trial and error has a number of features:
• solution-oriented: trial and error makes no attempt to discover why a solution works; merely that it is a solution.
• problem-specific: trial and error makes no attempt to generalize a solution to other problems.
• non-optimal: trial and error is an attempt to find a solution, not all solutions, and not the best solution.
• needs little knowledge: trials and error can proceed where there is little or no knowledge of the subject.

“A posteriori" knowledge, on the other hand, literally means "from what comes later” or, less literally, knowledge "after experience."

The trial and error approach is more successful with simple problems and in games, and is often resorted to when no apparent rule applies. This does not mean that the approach need be careless, for an individual can be methodical in manipulating the variables in an attempt to sort through possibilities that may result in success. Nevertheless, this method is often used by people who have little knowledge in the problem area and appears to prevail when it comes to professional athletes.

Based on the lack of long term financial success for professional athletes…it apparently makes no difference whether a guy makes $100,000 or $100 million…if a posteriori (after experience) knowledge is not at work when guys build their team of advisors and professionals then they will continue to win on the court but lose in the game of life. The answer is clearly not to pay $20,000 per player for a 3-day business seminar at either Harvard, Northwestern or Stanford…which is what has been instituted without much success by the NFL and the NFLPA…or the creation of a player development position on many if not all of the professional sports teams.

Why not move to an approach to problem solving using insight and theory, i.e. observing and deducting that a different approach is required for long term success (insight) or developing a logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of circumstances of the same kind capable of being tested through experiment or falsified through empirical observation to stop the madness (theory). Why not take a different approach to solving the failure problem in order to achieve a different result, i.e. success? What about a holistic approach that includes personal development and leadership training….and the development of a blueprint for success and an exit strategy from the game…from day 1?

If you have questions or require additional information, please contact Everett L. Glenn, Esq. at eglenn@espsportslawpro.com or call 562.619.8460.