WHY ARE WE SO BAD AT TALENT IDENTIFICATION? with Dr. Joe Baker

Jul 21, 2022

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1:17 - Introducing Joe and explaining how he started becoming heavily invested in the fields of skill acquisition, talent identification, and athlete development.
3:22 - Why do coaches and scouts as a whole struggle with talent identification?
4:47 - Why is it important for coaches to recognize and acknowledge that because humans lack the ability to map out long term decisions, identifying successful athletes will also be difficult?
6:42 - Do most coaches think that either they or others are skilled at talent identification?
8:13 - Consequences of making mistakes or poor decisions when picking and choosing which athletes are projected to be successful.
11:16 - Are successful athletes successful solely because of inherent qualities like height and body type, or also because they might have been “chosen” to receive development and training at an early point?
13:28 - Examples of “soft skills” like aggressiveness or other mentalities that coaches should look out for.
16:00 - Given that the ability to identify soft skills is linked to improving talent identification, what can coaches do to improve that ability?
19:56 - Should a quality like technique also be highly valued, or do coaches often overvalue what they believe is the “ideal” technique when scouting athletes?
21:55 - What Joe has found to be the most common “blind spots” of coaches.
24:20 - Where in the world has Joe identified an effective talent identification system, and what are some of its core aspects that makes it so successful?
26:16 - Given the limitations of being able to fully watch or analyze potential players when scouting, how should coaches go about effectively picking the most talented athletes?
29:02 - When interviewing or talking to a player, how can coaches identify if the player has the soft skills they desire?

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