#56 - Are you building Situational Awareness (SA)!
9 Apr 25
Nobody exists in a vacuum, let alone be able to operate effectively within one.
Building Situational Awareness (SA) is one of the best ways to ensure that a leadser always stays one step ahead of any changes, threats or issues which are about to occur.
It buys valuable thinking and therefore response time to ensure actions that need to be taken are well-considered and not an impulsive response ton the stimilus.
Forewarned is forearmed!
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#56 - Are you building Situational Awareness (SA)?
What?
One of the least talked about skills that a leader should strive to develop is the ability to build situational awareness. But what is it?
It is simply being aware of what is going on around you.
It is impossible for you to be present in every meeting or be party to every discussion that takes place within your company. But it's important to ensure that you have some form of early warning mechanism or system which allows you to be kept in the loop.
Why?
Imagine a Naval warship in the middle of the ocean. The visible horizon can stretch out as far as 15 Nm on a good day, or shrink to zero when the weather is bad. But the ship must still be aware of what is going on around it in 3-dimensions for safety and operational reasons.
So it uses its sensors in conjunction with the 'real world' to complement and maximise effect. The radar detects above water threats (other ships, aircraft, missiles etc), the sonar detects those that emanate from below the surface (those brave submariners! Ok I'm biased I'll admit it!). All this data is then fused together to describe an accurate operational picture to the Captain. This allows him/her to assess the threat and take action as required such as avoidance for safety or tactical reasons, or prosecution of the target if it is a threat.
As a leader, you need something similar because being forewarned...is being forearmed!
How?
Building situational awareness is a skill that needs to be developed over time. But there are some steps which will help you make a significant head start:
- Make sure that you are always gathering intelligence from the environment within which you are working. Make sure you are always in receive (listening mode),
- Leave your office door open when you work. Or if you work in an open office floor, conduct your work but switch on your peripheral hearing. You will be amazed what you can pick up from conversations going on around you; effectively by osmosis.
- When in the company restaurant or queuing to get your coffee, or at the photocopier again be in receive mode. But also strike up conversations with those you may not fully know. Chance encounters and 'off the cuff' conversations are a great source of intel.
- Walk your patch - Set aside a time every week to have a wander around the areas in which your team works. General conversations tend to morph into discussions about 'the latest news' that people have picked up around the communal areas.
- Be co-located with your team. Try not to be remote from them. This helps you to be close to where the actions is.
Picking up snippets of information like this is priceless becuase it allows you to build in thinking time. This means that your response can be more considered and better thought out rather than knee-jerk or reactive.
In Summary
I hope that you enjoyed reading this newsletter and that it has given you food for thought.
Building situational awareness allows a leader to always be ahead of the game. This means that you have time to think and formulate a well-considered response to whatever is about to occur, before it actually happens.
As the Boy Scouts say,'Be Prepared!'
Have a great week!
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