Rich Gasaway, Author at Situational Awareness Matters!™

Episode 187 | Standards May Harm Decision Making

Leave a Comment / Decision Making, Expectations, Judgment, SAMatters Radio, Training / Rich Gasaway

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.

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Confirmation Bias Impacts Situational Awareness

1 Comment / Article, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Factors, Safety, Situational awareness, Size Up / Rich Gasaway

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

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Episode 186 | You Can’t Handle the Truth

Leave a Comment / Cognitive Memory, Confabulation, Confusion, Decision Making, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Information overload, Miscommunications, Overload, Progress Reports, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Stress / Rich Gasaway

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

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Confabulation: It Sounds Better Than Lying

5 Comments / Accountability, Article, Attention Management, Communications, Confabulation, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Neuroscience, Safety, Situational awareness / Rich Gasaway

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

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Episode 185 | St. Charles Fire Department Near Miss – Part 3

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Auditory exclusion, Automatic Action, Close Call, Command Location, Communications, Complacency, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Denial, Disoriented, Emotions, Expectations, Experience, Judgment, Mayday, Miscommunications, Mission Myopia, Near Miss, Over Confident, Perception Of Reality, Personal Protective Equipment, Personnel location, Radios, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Size Up, Teamwork, Vigilance / Rich Gasaway

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

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Complex Communications

4 Comments / Article, Attention Management, Auditory exclusion, Communications, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Factors, Information overload, Mayday and RIT, Safety, Situational awareness, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Stress / Rich Gasaway

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

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Episode 184 | St. Charles Fire Department Near Miss – Part 2

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Auditory exclusion, Automatic Action, Close Call, Command Location, Communications, Complacency, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Denial, Disoriented, Emotions, Expectations, Experience, Judgment, Mayday, Miscommunications, Mission Myopia, Near Miss, Over Confident, Perception Of Reality, Personal Protective Equipment, Personnel location, Progress Reports, Radios, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Size Up, Teamwork, Vigilance / Rich Gasaway

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

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Teaching Situational Awareness and Decision Making

2 Comments / Article, Communications, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Leadership, Meta Awareness, Risk Assessment, Safety, Situational awareness, Size Up, Teamwork, Training / Rich Gasaway

Situational awareness is the foundation for good decision making. Situational awareness is formed by observing… and understanding what is happening in your environment, in the context of how time is passing. That “understanding” is then used to make predictions of future events. For those who have attended my full-day situational awareness classes you know this

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Episode 183 | St. Charles Fire Department Near Miss – Part 1

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Auditory exclusion, Automatic Action, Close Call, Command Location, Communications, Complacency, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Decision Making, Denial, Disoriented, Emotions, Expectations, Experience, Judgment, Mayday, Miscommunications, Mission Myopia, Near Miss, Over Confident, Perception Of Reality, Personal Protective Equipment, Personnel location, Progress Reports, Radios, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Size Up, Teamwork, Vigilance / Rich Gasaway

This episode is part 1 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: 56 minutes Click the YouTube icon to listen _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding

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Complacency: A Killer of First Responders

1 Comment / Accountability, Article, Complacency, Safety, Situational awareness / Rich Gasaway

Curiosity killed the cat. But it’s not curiosity that is killing first responders. It’s complacency contributing to flawed situational awareness. What does it mean to be complacent? I could offer you the Webster’s dictionary definition. Instead, I’d like to offer you a definition based on my observations of those who suffer from the affliction. Complacent:

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