Thanks to Reg H., for his email to ASK Riskboss about Situational Awareness. Yet another great question that prompted Riskboss to write this article. As indicated in his email, “…… I don’t get why people in my position need this.”
Most hear the term Situational Awareness and wonder what the fuss is all about. I mean, it simply means paying attention, right? Why do we need a training course for this?
Depending on the source, Situational Awareness has varying definitions. Simplified, Situational Awareness is an understanding of the components of environments and how it changes with respect to time and other impact factors. Situational Awareness assists in effective decision making both individually on the front line as well as organizationally.
The first references to the term Situational Awareness are found in the U.S. Air Force after the Korean War and refers to the understanding that a fighter pilot needs in aerial combat to overcome an enemy. The term is still widely used in aviation. It is the idea of understanding the entire environment of the aircraft, both inside and outside the airplane.
Fast forward, Situational Awareness is used in business as well as emergency management. Particularly important in construction work, emergency preparedness and response, policing, and the military, Situational Awareness is becoming a key ingredient in all front-line safety training. It is changing the landscape for front line safety.
Enhancing Situational Awareness prepares employees to be ready for different levels of awareness from calm to severe depending on circumstances. Moving up and down the scale of alertness may occur multiple times every day.
But the question begs for all organizations, “Do employees at all levels see the same thing and in the same way, and if not (which is likely) why is this important?”
The Key Pillars of Situational Awareness
Situational awareness is built upon three critical pillars: Perception, Comprehension, and Projection. Each pillar has a distinct purpose in helping to determine challenges and opportunities.
- Perception involves the observation of incidents or the landscape, where people routinely wade through information to identify issues. This stage is about clearly monitoring and gathering information from as wide a source as possible triaging what is important and what is not. It is about being aware of surroundings and less about things that may distract attention. A failure to perceive incidents clearly and accurately will always lead to bad outcomes.
- Comprehension goes beyond mere information collection. It involves an understanding of the information gathered and putting it into context through a process of fact-checking, recognition, interpretation, and evaluation. In layman’s terms, it’s about connecting the dots to form conclusions based on information gathered helping to provide clear understanding of what is actually happening. It differentiates perception versus reality. It is about comprehending what is normal versus what may be troublesome. Organizations will be better prepared when all employees know what to look for and be able to react properly.
- Projection requires people to look forward, using the information gathered to anticipate subsequent implications. It enables people to make informed decisions and be able to predict future outcomes. Projection relies heavily on accurate information, perception, and comprehension. Using Projection to teach all employees what likely outcomes to various scenarios are assists in reducing organizational and personal risk.
A Growing Trend in Business
The move towards Situational Awareness training into executive management is growing rapidly in all industries. It allows leaders to better assess organization risk, anticipate obstacles, and adapt strategies to improve performance.
Situational Awareness is fast becoming a fundamental skill in businesses that can have a significant impact the long term success of organizations while improving the safety of employees on a daily basis. The benefits of Situational Awareness can enhance employee decision-making, reduce risk, and promote employee collaboration.
The following are positive impacts of Situational Awareness:
- Risk mitigation dramatically improved. When a workforce is trained in Situational Awareness heightened awareness of potential hazards becomes commonplace, or the ‘new normal’ allowing employees to proactively intervene to prevent injuries and accidents. Knowing and recognizing early warning indicators allows for quicker reaction times particularly when front line employees share the same knowledge as middle and senior management.
- Enhanced problem solving skills improves performance. Situational Awareness training provides for better decision making company wide. In risk management, being able to anticipate the unexpected can be a key ingredient in the success or failure of incidents. At Riskboss we commonly refer to this as, “Preventing the Predictable.”
- Coordinating communication creates a unified approach. When a workforce is trained to keep a watchful eye on potential hazards, employees and the organization are better served. When a workforce has a common understanding of risks involved in a business communication is faster and easier between team members without organizational confusion and bureaucratic barriers. Knowing not just when to act, but also when to back off or, not to act at all but to seek assistance, are key components to a winning strategy. Uniformity in responses to issues throughout an organization creates a more seasoned workplace providing employees with greater direction and comfort.
In most businesses finding clarity in roles can be very difficult and frankly frustrating for managers and employees alike. When employees are faced with unexpected and difficult challenges, especially when split second decisions are required, most fill the lack of clarity and experiential gaps with their own personal view of the world. This often relates to bad outcomes not only for the individual but the organization. In short, Situational Awareness training forms a key ingredient to achieving better outcomes and a more unified approach.
A Systems Based Approach to Situational Awareness
Situation Awareness training helps employees by wading through a systems-based approach to identification, understanding, and resolution. It is not just a tool to be used in the workplace but can become a life skill that may be used anywhere and at any time.
To implement Situational Awareness in organizations a basic common understanding companywide is required amongst all employees at all levels. The most prevalent framework used in the industry was created by the late Colonel Jeff Cooper USMC (ret.) who developed a system for managing organizational Situational Awareness, now known worldwide as “Cooper’s Color Code.” Cooper breaks down Situational Awareness into distinct levels, which are identified by the colors: white, yellow, orange, red, and black.
- White: Individuals are completely unaware, not paying attention to their surroundings, or distracted. This is a state where people are self-absorbed in thoughts, distracted, and as such, oblivious to potential threats.
- Yellow: Individuals maintain awareness of their environment. There is no apparent threat, but they remain alert and would notice if a threat appeared.
- Orange: Individuals in this state sense potential threats and consider their response(s). A state of increased alertness allows them to assess situations and prepare to act.
- Red: Individuals actively responding to threats. There may be imminent danger, and immediate action is required to react to the situation.
- Black: This level relates to a state of panic where individuals may be overwhelmed by fear or stress. This can render them unable to respond safely and effectively.
A Better Understanding of Situational Awareness
To harness the full potential of situational awareness, organizations should create strategic approaches and processes that lead employees to improve their capacity to perceive, comprehend, and act. Organizations that move their employees to a common understanding of Situational Awareness not only react better in situations but benefit from a better corporate culture.
- Knowing What Success Looks Like: Clearly defining what is important to the success of a business is a starting point. Being able to answer the questions, “What does success look like to you and how do you know when you get there” is often overlooked in business circles.
- Measure What You Do: Being able to measure success leads to better outcomes in business. Establishing indicators to measure and track the effectiveness of Situational Awareness efforts such as testing for knowledge exercises, allows for routine assessments to be conducted and analyzed allows for the refinement of organizational strategies.
- Knowing Your Roles: The introduction of core responsibilities and actions in different situations can dramatically improve the ability of employees to react positively and with confidence. Employees should know when they can and should act and alternatively, when they should never act but contact supervisors for help and guidance.
- Staying in Your Lane: When roles and responsibilities are clearly defined in organizations, this leads to better outcomes. Holding employees accountable through non-judgemental corrective feedback helps. Non-punitive counselling sessions when incidents occur lead to better understanding. Creating corporate cultures that support employees when they fall down, leads to better corporate cultures.
- Understanding That Stress is Okay: Employees should understand that stress is inevitable in work environments and that their feelings are normal. The creation of support networks like Employee and Family Assistance Programs (EFAP) have positive individual and radiating effects on a workforce. Preparing employees for stressful circumstances in advance of situations occurring has positive outcomes.
- The Organizational Learning Curve: People learn in different ways. Experiential learning is reactive and often comes at a high cost to both the individual and the organization and certainly something to consider when developing training and learning outcomes. Organizations that understand that training is more than just teaching fair better when it comes to Situational Awareness. Supportive and collaborative educational techniques that incorporates testing for knowledge wins the day for Situational Awareness.
- Top Down Versus Inclusive Management Styles: While top-down management styles are important in some organizations, this type of management style rarely encourages effective organizational Situational Awareness. Top-down management often leads to super dependence on direction. The promotion of best practices through inclusive and participatory models of management is much more effective. Leaders must demonstrate the necessity of Situational Awareness through their actions by setting examples. In doing so they create a culture of preparedness and awareness across the organization.
- Distractions Distract: Organizations that require full time attention such as policing, security, and construction requires the workforce to have focused organizational skills. Allowing employees for example to engage in distracting behaviour can lead to very bad outcomes. For example, in security where full time attention requires guards to watch CCTV footage of a site to identify trespassing, allowing the use of personal cellular devices or studying on duty is counterproductive to the role. Prohibitions in organizational governance and quality assurance efforts make for a better prepared workforce.
- Keeping It Simple: Organizational governance is the cornerstone of learning and understanding. This sets the tone for employees. Training on governance that is too complicated never leads to good outcomes. Setting organizational objectives through the creation of clearly understood governance assists greatly in Situational Awareness.
- Their Perception is Their Reality: When employees are left to their own understanding of situations without clear organizational direction and training, this rarely leads to positive outcomes. Organizations cannot ever anticipate every possible situation; however, through a process driven approach to direction, training, and support, organizations can better prepare for eventualities that may occur. Developing key mandatory steps employees must take in situations assists in maintaining standards, safeguards, and best practices.
Building a Corporate Culture of Situational Awareness
When an organization decides to include Situational Awareness as a core principle and business fundamental, it may be first perceived as the latest flavour of the time initiative. This is a normal reaction. Integrating Situational Awareness into the corporate culture of an organization takes time and a lot of effort for it to take hold.
Organizational leaders should understand that changing the corporate mindset takes a measured approach often with setbacks due to organizational resistance to change, mostly due to the existing order of things. In short, corporate change can be painful if pressed too forcefully or quickly.
The introduction of Situational Awareness as a core element of personal safety is a great starting point. Many employees set in their ways can often have blind faith on the old ways that prevents them from seeing themselves as becoming victimized and that impacts of incidents would ever affect them.
The development of simple minimum standards that is supported by the Ontario Ministry of Labour is a great starting point:
- Riskboss conducts comprehensive risk assessments of organizations and communities and very often finds that very few have Occupational Health and Safety Committees mandated by the Employment Standards Act. So simple to create and execute, this should be the cornerstone of organizational efforts to minimize employee risk.
- Conducting Diagonal Slice Surveys of organizations focusing on Situational Awareness can be very telling as to the state of where an organization is and where it should be. Such surveys conducted annually can assist greatly to keep an organization on track by filling gaps found in the results of such analysis.
- During management meetings, running tabletop exercises can have invaluable outcomes organizationally. These exercises enhance decision-making skills by making managers feel more comfortable in their roles while managing the expectations of others in the organization.
- Consistent and controlled marketing and communication strategies that drive home Situational Awareness will assist in effectively changing corporate cultures to more positive outcomes.
Conclusion
When implemented correctly, Situational Awareness can be an important strategy for ensuring success in every business environment. In order to fully benefit from Situational Awareness, it must be integrated into organizational cultures.
The challenge for business owners and leaders getting to peak optimization organizationally is how long it may take. Every organization is different depending on entrenched the workforce is on existing operational readiness and corporate culture norms. Simply put, it can take some time until steady state is achieved.
Being attentive is simply not enough in today’s complex business environment. Comprehension and understanding at all levels of an organization, eliminating distractions, and implementing role based strategies provides for a winning solution.
Riskboss recommends never to take on this effort alone. Use experts in this area such as accredited trainers and policy designers to achieve the best results. And remember, what doesn’t get measured often never gets done so implement benchmarks and measurements at key steps to ensure your organization is on the right path to success.