I recently read a post on social media where a firefighter said at an incident scene that he doesn’t worry about his situational awareness. That’s what he has an officer for. Further, he didn’t worry about having situational awareness about the larger incident scene, that’s what he has an incident commander for. I could […]
Confronting a Boss With Flawed Situational Awareness Read More »
This episode discusses the confusion that can occur when the information you gather during size-up do not fit your expectations of what you thought you were going to see or hear. Length: 35 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness
Episode 188 | When the puzzle pieces don’t fit Read More »
Think you’re good at multitasking? If so, you are just fooling yourself. Or, perhaps more aptly stated, your brain is fooling you. Multitasking is simply a way for us to be tricked into doing a whole bunch of things, poorly, all at the same time. When it comes to managing attention, the human brain cannot
The Myth of Multitasking and Situational Awareness Read More »
This episode discusses how training employees to written standards may actually harm decision making. Length: 27 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check out the Situational Awareness Matters Online Academy.
Episode 187 | Standards May Harm Decision Making Read More »
The foundation of situational awareness is capturing clues and cues in your environment – what some would call “paying attention” – and then making sense of those clues and cues – what some would call “understanding” – and then making projections of future events – what some would call “prediction.” One of the challenges in the
Confirmation Bias Impacts Situational Awareness Read More »
This episode discusses some of the strange consequences of stress, including how employees may say untruthful things without knowing it. Length: 36 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check out
Episode 186 | You Can’t Handle the Truth Read More »
Confabulation may sound better than lying, but it’s no less dangerous. One of the most amazing demonstrations I do during my situational awareness programs is to show how a person, when placed under stress, will lie. Only in the world of neuroscience, we don’t call it lying, we call it confabulation. You won’t do it
Confabulation: It Sounds Better Than Lying Read More »
This episode is part 3 of a 3-part interview with two members of the St. Charles Fire Department (Missouri) discussing a near-miss where four firefighters were overrun by rapidly changing conditions at a residential dwelling fire. Length: 48 minutes Click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of
Episode 185 | St. Charles Fire Department Near Miss – Part 3 Read More »
We have many traits that make us uniquely human. Among them is our ability to engage in complex communications. We can look at black ink squiggled on a piece of bleached paper and derive meaning from those symbols. We call that skill reading comprehension. And we can listen to and comprehend the meaning of more
Complex Communications Read More »
This episode is part 2 of a 3-part interview with two members of the St. Charles Fire Department (Missouri) discussing a near-miss where four firefighters were overrun by rapidly changing conditions at a residential dwelling fire. Length: 45 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen
Episode 184 | St. Charles Fire Department Near Miss – Part 2 Read More »
