Situational Awareness

“The office feels empty”, Rachel thought to herself. “Oh well, maybe a lot of folks are just out.”

In fact the whole week felt empty with fewer interruptions than normal. That’s not too bad, she got a lot done and was feeling good going into the weekend.

As the day progressed, she felt a lot more hustle and bustle. OK, it’s Friday, people are probably giving that last big push to get ready for the weekend.

The next thing she knew, her VP was at her desk asking for an impromptu meeting in his office. The company was downsizing and her and her entire department where being let go.

What?!?!

How could this happen? Where did this come from?

The signs were there, Rachel wasn’t paying attention.

___

Situational awareness allows individuals to be more alert, informed, and to make better decisions. It’s about knowing where you are and what’s going on around you. And, it’s one of the most important skills you can use to improve your chances of making good decisions and taking the right course of action when it matters most.

For a lot of people, situational awareness is linked to physical safety, being out in public, or protecting yourself late at night. But these ideas can be transferred over to the office, work, and your career. There are threats everywhere, such as layoffs, industry surprises, or disappearing customers.

Never get caught off guard and control your destiny. Situational awareness leads to the comfort of being prepared, the peace of mind of having devised a plan, and the confidence that you are making the best decisions.

Situational awareness is about staying, proactively ahead of situations. It allows individuals and organizations to make informed decisions, to respond effectively to changing circumstances, and to mitigate risks or threats. Developing and maintaining situational awareness often involves continuous observation, information gathering, data analysis, and decision-making.

But, people still walk into telephone poles

All the above is great, you’re in total agreement, but people are still people and they:

•  Want to be comfortable and lazy
•  Get overwhelmed thinking they have to solve for every outcome
•  Want to be optimistic nothing will go wrong
•  Embody the cliche: ignorance is bliss

If you want to improve and break free from the average crowd, and you want to gain better control over your life and career, then you should work on your situational awareness.

Here's how to start and practice:

Step 1: Establish what is normal

Once you understand normal, you will understand abnormal.

Every situation has a baseline: what does normal look, sound, and feel like for your business, industry, and most importantly team. When you understand the baseline, you can be on the lookout for anomalies. Situational awareness is about recognizing abnormalities, inconsistencies, and things that don’t belong. Ignore the little details at your own peril.

Practice when you’re out among people. Notice things about the crowd: what are they saying and doing. How are they behaving? Observe mannerisms. Purposefully people-watch. Intentionally develop situational awareness.

In more technical terms, observe:

• Temporal Awareness: Recognize the timing and sequencing of events or changes in the environment
• Operational Context: Be aware of the status of equipment, tools, or resources that are relevant
• Human Factors: Recognize the actions, behaviors, and intentions of individuals, especially involving interactions and conflicts
• Cultural and Social Factors: Consider the cultural norms, social dynamics, and relationships

Step 2: Be on the lookout - constantly

Take an active role in determining what is relevant so nothing passes you by.

Situational awareness is a continuous process. If what you expect to happen does not align with what’s actually happening, you should check your data, gather new information, and revisit decisions. This will help you to recalibrate baseline. Situational awareness is maintained by continually checking facts against understanding. Expectations are used to influence where attention is directed, how information is perceived, and how data is interpreted.

Understand by combining real world data with existing knowledge and experience. Give meaning to the information gathered. This includes developing an accurate and complete picture of the world.

Use all of your senses.

Distraction is vulnerability. Is something distracting you from what you should be noticing? Pickpockets and magicians are both experts in situational awareness and use distractions to get away with what they want.

Distracting yourself? Phones and devices take attention away. It’s easy to get so caught up in your email and work that you develop tunnel vision. Broaden your field of vision. Don’t become so absorbed in what you’re doing that you fail to notice all that’s around you.

Step 3: Predict and project

What are a few of the paths each situation can take?

Ask ‘what if’ and think ahead; anticipate future state. Predict what to, as well as what not to, expect.

You’ll want this to be fast. As you go about your day, you’ll want to access each situation and make predictions on the spot. If this feels like it takes you too long, practice. Find time to run scenarios as you prepare for the next meeting or review the previous one.

And what about your team?

Does every team member have the situational awareness relevant to do their job?

Do similar team members, in similar roles, have similar situational awareness? Do these folks have a common understanding for what is going on or about to happen and, do they have a similar understanding for other’s perception on the situation?

If not, practice sharing perceptions among the team. Add this wrinkle to review meetings or weekly updates. This is incredibly useful if you have an inexperienced team.

___

For Rachel, these layoffs happened a few years ago, but today, she’s ready. In fact, she started seeing similar signs with a co-worker. Rachel was alert to some of the comments and actions upper management was making with her co-worker.

She mentioned her observations to him and suggested he start making preparations and taking some precautions.

Rachel’s prediction was right. Her co-worker was let go about a month after she started noticing things. He was actually prepared, she said. He was thinking about buying a new car, but put that on hold from her advice. He’ll have that money to get to his next job.

Sources: [43] [44]