About the ability to know what’s going on around you and anticipate what might happen next.
You can’t control when the moment of crisis arises, but you can control how prepared you are when it’s the case. For this, situational awareness is key.
In football we often hear the expression ‘Head up and ball at your feet!”. In other words, to be in control of what you do and to be aware of what is happening around you: threats and opportunities.
In Japanese martial arts we find the concept of Zanshin (残心) which describes a state of relaxed alertness and continuous awareness. Zanshin is the state of being permanently “ready”, an attitude of curiosity and openness, which helps to anticipate dangers and react quickly.
There are many areas of activity where situational awareness is essential not only for performance but also for survival.
History
The concept of “situational awareness ” was first defined by Oswald Boelcke – a German flight ace during World War I (Gilson – 1995). Oswald Boelke, “realized the importance of gaining an awareness of the enemy before the enemy acquired a similar awareness, and devised methods to achieve this.”
Since then, it has been adopted not only in aviation but also in many other areas with a high risk of accidents, where dangers can escalate in a matter of seconds: mining, oil and gas, transport, heavy industry, etc.
As hazards are dynamic and often uncontrollable, situational awareness and preparing people to respond appropriately are essential for accident prevention.
What is situational awareness?
“Situational awareness” is the ability to know what is happening around you and to anticipate what might happen next. It’s the mental discipline that keeps you alert, prepared, and ready to act without hesitation.
In the specialized literature, three definitions stand out. The first of these focuses on an information processing framework (Endsley), the second emphasizes reflective quality (Bedny and Meister), and the third presents an embedded worldview (Smith and Hancock).
Situational awareness is the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning and a projection of their status in the near future (Endsley, 1988).
Situational awareness is the conscious dynamic reflection on the situation by an individual. It provides dynamic orientation to the situation, the opportunity to reflect not only the past, present and future, but the potential features of the situation. The dynamic reflection contains logical-conceptual, imaginative, conscious and unconscious components which enable individuals to develop mental models of external events (Bedny & Meister, 1999).
Situational awareness is the invariant in the agent-environment system that generates the momentary knowledge and behaviour required to attain the goals specified by an arbiter of performance in the environment (Smith & Hancock, 1995).
The most accepted and cited model of situational awareness is the one developed by Dr. Mica Endsley in 1995. The model describes three levels of situational awareness formation: Perception, Comprehension, and Prediction.
In detail, each level involves the following:
- Perception of the elements in the environment – detecting and correctly classifying what is seen – distinguishing threats from harmless activities. What’s in my environment now? What’s changing?
Situational awareness means knowing what “normal” looks like so you can identify deviations. In a control room, this means scanning dashboards, monitoring alerts in the system, and recognizing what’s relevant and needs immediate attention. The ability to filter information effectively underpins strong situational awareness.
- Comprehension of the current situation – understanding what I see. Understanding goes beyond observation – it’s about understanding what each element means and how these elements relate to my task. What are the risks?
Once the information has been collected, operators need to put together what the data means in context, understand why it is happening and what the implications could be. This analytical step prevents instinctive reactions and ensures that decisions are based on understanding the big picture.
- Prediction of future status – the ability to mentally simulate what might happen next based on what is currently seen and understood. Based on what you know, what is likely to go wrong? Projection involves anticipating potential risks and developing scenarios for my next move. In the control room of industrial processes, power grids or in the flight control tower, the best operators are the ones who anticipate problems and develop contingency plans before they escalate.
When any of these steps don’t work, it’s very likely that an accident will follow.
Usefulness
Our daily safety depends on our ability to read microsignals, clues that signal dangers and risk.
The model developed by Dr. Mica Endsley provides us with a useful framework for improving our personal radar for detecting threats around us.
Situational awareness is a tactical skill that is not just about knowing what is going on. It’s about staying engaged and thinking critically to respond effectively to both routine and unexpected events.
Unlike the traditional occupational safety concern for control, the purpose of situational awareness is training.
For most people, situational awareness is not something natural. Even among seasoned professionals, true and consistent awareness is rare. Pressure from bosses and deadlines, mental fatigue and self-satisfaction are factors that erode it quite quickly.
It takes effort and discipline to develop situational awareness as a permanent way of functioning. With the right approach, however, people can start thinking differently, act early, and respond more intelligently to factors beyond their control.
Situational awareness involves awareness of the unconscious
The difference between the way we perceive a situation is determined by the lens, by the filter through which we look.
While the traditional approach to workplace safety frames the world through the lens of objects and spends most of its time counting nonconformities and reporting numbers, Social Risk Psychology – SPoR frames the world through the human lens and looks at how relationships between people influence how risks are approached.
From an SPoR perspective, situational awareness is not about predictive analytics and predictions. Situational awareness is about a “sixth sense” of knowledge, it is about “reading” and “feeling” the unknown, the emotions.
In order to develop situational awareness skills, it is not enough to limit yourself to the analysis of physical space and measures for the control of dangers, but you must also explore the psychological and social space.
If we talk about job security, to learn how to “read people”, deal with the unexpected or improve your intuition, it is necessary to give up the rational-behavioral-materialistic perspective that dominates this industry.
Situational awareness is based on things that are not “on the surface”: intuition, unconscious, experiential learning, collective unconscious, hope, beliefs, trust, social psychology, cultural knowledge, semiotics, linguistics, fallibility, transdisciplinarity.
One of the things we specialize in in SPoR is how to make the unconscious conscious, how to “bring to the surface” those factors that are not seen but often define the situation.
Relevance of the concept for managers and consultants
In my professional life, I have often entered a meeting or class thinking that I am fully prepared. However, it turned out that the preparation was not at the level it should have been.
And it wasn’t about the content, but about the fact that I forgot how important it is to “read the room“, to understand the emotional climate, political relationships and especially people’s expectations.
In the case of a consultant or executive director, the ability to “read the room” and anticipate ideal moments of influence can make the difference between success and failure.
The ability to be aware of the situation helps you understand who is the most influential and often the silent person, who dominates the conversation and why or when to insist and when to overcome the moment.
Even if you’re the smartest person in the room, if it’s all about you and your ideas and clues that tell you it’s not the right time, you lose acceptance and trust. Once you lose confidence, everything you set out to do becomes much harder to achieve.
“Reading the room” is about respect and being present and attuned to those around you. Respect for people, respect for the moment and group dynamics. That involves leaving your ego at the door. Easy to say, hard to do, … I’m still working on it.
Situational awareness builds trust, understanding, timing, and effectiveness.
Situational awareness at the organizational level
In an organizational context, situational awareness refers to a company’s ability to objectively evaluate and implement dynamic responses to internal and external factors.
Agile and innovative organizations stand out through the collective awareness of employees involved in making business risk management and occupational safety decisions.
When catastrophic events occur, investigations usually find deep organizational causes that have been hidden for a long time, are unknown, or are not recognized as relevant. We can say that in such cases, the organizations were not aware of the situation to an adequate extent.
Why is this happening? Because often, managers at the top of the organization are focused on critical risks and signals sent by reporting systems, without knowing and paying attention to the signals coming from the company’s cultural area, from “the collective unconscious” as C. Jung calls organizational culture.
For an organization to be situationally aware, its leaders need to be in touch with operational realities. Have critical thinking and constantly ask relevant questions. The research of the culture of safety at work brings valuable information for the objective perception of reality and the substantiation of the most effective interventions.
How to develop situational awareness skills
In many areas of activity, not raising your head from time to time can mean losing vital clues for keeping your own safety and making the right decisions.
The good news is that situational awareness skills can be developed. At Corporate Dynamics, one of the modules that make up the Safety Leadership course includes practical tools for developing situational awareness.
Here are some of them, which you can practice at any time:
Monitor your condition
It starts with you, and you are part of the situation. Periodically scan your mood – energy, feelings, posture and outfit. Ask yourself what you don’t know about what’s going on around you, what your biases and boundaries are.
Describe the topic
Choose someone at random in a public place and write down in your mind the details you could use to describe them. Write down at the end of the day what you remember.
The “Hour after Hour” Rule
Every sixty minutes, take a break and scan your surroundings. Once you have identified the state of normality, periodically identify deviations.
Listen to your gut
Trust your instincts. If something doesn’t feel right, it usually is. Don’t be afraid to share this information with a colleague or your boss if something seems strange to you.
“5-4-3-2-1”.
Look up and name 5 things you see. Name 4 that you can tap. Name 3 that you hear. Name 2 that you smell. Name 1 that you like.
The 5-second rule
When a moment has a high stake or you feel like you’re reacting impulsively, it rarely counts: 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1. This micro-pause allows you to switch from autopilot to intention.
Before an important intervention for you, “read the room” and ask yourself: What is happening here? What is important to me in this conversation? What might be important to others? It only takes 30 seconds to get out of “fight or flight” mode and think clearly.While all the above tools help you know what’s going on around you and anticipate what might happen next, you need to choose the one that’s most relevant to the context you’re in.
Good luck with the experience!
Bibliography
Situational awareness and safety; Chambers, P. R. G. & Piggott, J.
Organisational Situational Awareness, by Goran Prvulovic, MOccHlth&Saf
Situational Awareness: The Soft Skill America Lost — and Why We Must Get It Back Now by Ryan Geho
Situational Awareness as Consciousness of the Unconscious, by Prof. Rob Long
Mastering Situational Awareness in Business and Life by Carson V. Heady
Why 360° Situational Awareness is Essential in High-Risk Industries by Kyle Schmoyer
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