As a leader, your ability to handle stressful decision-making with the utmost composure plays a vital role in the success of your business. Keeping your organization functioning in times like these could be an act of ‘putting out fires,’ but more often than not, it’s a result of time spent working to improve your Situational Awareness (SA). In short, Situational Awareness is knowing exactly who you are, where you are, where you are going, and how you will get there, within your rapidly changing environment. Without it, you could find yourself (and your business) in some sticky situations. If you find SA severely lacking throughout your organization, take a look at these 3 tips on how to improve your Situational Awareness.
3 Ways to Improve Your Situational Awareness
1. Accept mutual support.
During the execution phase of your mission, it’s common for Situational Awareness to sink to critical lows. Too often we see leaders that are focused on only one particular task instead of looking at the mission as a whole. It’s easy to fall into that trap, especially if you’re in an industry that relies heavily on a specific capability. These are the times when you’re going to need to rely heavily on your employees. Employees are a resource that many forget to utilize. They have different skills, strengths, and knowledge that can help give you the outside perspective you need to get you through the mission without any losses.
2. Leverage the power of Red Teams.
One of the most valuable lessons we teach at Afterburner is the concept of a Red Team. A Red Team is a group of individuals asked to review your plan to try to find any loopholes or inefficiencies that may result in a failed mission. By knowing what could go wrong beforehand, you’ll be able to keep your situational awareness high and create an organized, systematic process for managing the flow of unexpected events.
3. Debrief
The debrief is one of the most valuable tools you can bring into your business. Debriefing allows for a nameless, rankless review of everything that went right and wrong during the mission. Debriefs hold an enormous cache of valuable data and lessons learned from those with first-hand experience. By harnessing the power of the debrief, you’ll be able to forecast the cause and effect of controllable and uncontrollable events and increase and improve your team’s Situational Awareness.
From battling external threats to keeping up with technological advances, Situational Awareness plays a vital role in the success of your business. If you’re thinking you need to improve your Situational Awareness (individually, or with your team), reach out to us here. Our team of consultants will help get your SA up to speed in no time.
