Situational Awareness

Situational Awareness on Art of Manliness site

I thought this was a dynamite post.  The Art of Manliness is known for posting material of this quality.

Here's the link:  Situational Awareness article

Here's a text version of the article:

May 26, 2015

How to Develop the Situational Awareness of Jason Bourne

Brett & Kate McKay

There’s a scene at the beginning of The Bourne Identity where the film’s protagonist is sitting in a diner, trying to figure out who he is and why he has a bunch of passports and a gun stashed in a safety deposit box. Bourne also notices that he, well, notices things that other people don’t. Watch:

That superhuman ability to observe his surroundings and make detailed assessments about his environment? It’s not just a trait of top secret operatives; it’s a skill known as situational awareness, and you can possess it too.

As the names implies, situational awareness is simply knowing what’s going on around you. It sounds easy in principle, but in reality requires much practice. And while it is taught to soldiers, law enforcement officers, and yes, government-trained assassins, it’s an important skill for civilians to learn as well. In a dangerous situation, being aware of a threat even seconds before everyone else can keep you and your loved ones safe.

But it’s also a skill that can and should be developed for reasons outside of personal defense and safety. Situational awareness is really just another word for mindfulness, and developing mine has made me more cognizant of what’s going on around me and more present in my daily activities, which in turn has helped me make better decisions in all aspects of my life.

I’ve spent months researching and talking to experts in the tactical field about the nature of situational awareness, and below you’ll find one of the most complete primers out there on how to gain this important skill. While the focus is primarily on developing your situational awareness to prevent or survive a violent attack, the principles discussed can also help hone your powers of observation in all areas of your life.

How to Develop Situational Awareness

Many of the resources out there on situational awareness say it can be cultivated by generally keeping tabs on your surroundings — “checking your six” and “keeping your back to the wall.”

This definition isn’t wrong. That’s exactly what situational awareness is: knowing what’s going on by scanning your environment. But I always found this explanation lacking. What exactly am I looking for? How do I know if I’m paying attention to the right things? Are there behaviors or warning signs of an imminent threat that I should know about?

Today we’re going to start by discussing the general principles of increasing your observational abilities, and then dive deeper into situational awareness itself to answer these important questions.

Observe + Orient = Situational Awareness

The thing that helped me finally understand situational awareness was framing it within the OODA Loop. For those of you who haven’t read my in-depth article on this important cognitive tool, here’s the CliffsNotes version:

The OODA Loop is a learning system and decision-making process that was first laid out by Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. The four steps of the OODA Loop are Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. In a head-to-head competition, like air-to-air combat, a violent confrontation in a parking lot, or even political contests, the person who can cycle through the OODA Loop the fastest wins.

Obviously, the Observe step in the loop is what most people associate situational awareness with.

But it’s the second step in the OODA Loop – Orient — that answered my questions about what developing situational awareness actually involves. Orientation tells us what we should look for when we’re observing, and then puts those observations into context so we know what to do with the information.

So Observe + Orient = Situational Awareness.

But how can we become better observers so that we can improve our situational awareness? And how should we orient ourselves so that we observe the right things and understand the context for what we’re seeing?

Observe: Stay in Condition Yellow 

In his seminal book, Principles of Personal Defense, gun-fighting expert Jeff Cooper laid out a color code system to help warriors gauge their mindset for combat scenarios. Each color represents a person’s potential state of awareness and focus:

For optimal situational awareness, Cooper recommends that we always stay in Condition Yellow.

Condition Yellow is best described as “relaxed alert.” There’s no specific threat situation, but you have your head up and you’re taking in your surroundings with all your senses. Most people associate situational awareness with just visual stimulation, but you can also learn a lot about a particular scenario from the sounds (or lack thereof) and even smells in the environment.

Even though your senses are slightly heightened in Condition Yellow, it’s also important to stay relaxed. By adopting a calm demeanor, you won’t bring any unnecessary attention to yourself. If you look antsy and your head is swiveling frantically while you scan your surroundings, people are going to notice you. Additionally, staying relaxed ensures that you maintain an open focus, which allows you to take in more information about what’s going on around you. Research shows that when we get nervous or stressed, our attention narrows, causing us to concentrate on just a few things at a time. A narrow focus can therefore cause us to miss important details in our environment.

Look up from your smartphone, don’t zone out, open your eyes, ears, and nose, and calmly scan your environment to take in what’s going on.

Besides staying in Condition Yellow, here are a few more tips to improve your observational abilities:

Put yourself in a position for optimal observation. To achieve effective situational awareness, you need to be able to observe as much of your surroundings as possible. Positioning yourself in obstructed spots will inhibit the flow of information coming in. For example, something might be in your way that prevents you from seeing a bad guy enter a theater or restaurant. You also don’t have eyeballs in the back of your head, so you can’t see what’s going on behind you.

So whenever you enter an environment, put yourself in a position that will allow you to see as much as you can. My buddy Mike Seeklander at Shooting Performance recommends finding a place where you can view all or most of the exit points, and that allows you to put your back to the wall. This position readies you to make a quick getaway, and eliminates the possibility of failing to see a threat materialize behind you.

Granted, this isn’t possible in all situations. You don’t have much control as to which table a restaurant hostess seats you at on a busy night, and you’d likely get a lot of strange looks if you stood with your back in a corner while you’re waiting in line at Five Guys. So do your best within the given circumstances. In that busy restaurant, you might not have control of your table location, but you can choose which seat you take. Pick the chair that gives you the best view from your table. When you’re standing in line at a fast food restaurant, just nonchalantly look around and take in the scene.

Hone your observation skills by playing the A-Game. Mike plays a game with his kids called the “A-Game,” or Awareness Game, to help them (and himself) strengthen their observational skills. To play, when you go into a business, make note of a few things about your environment: the number of workers behind the counter, the clothing and gender of the person sitting next to you, how many entry/exits there are, etc. When you leave and get into the car to head home, ask your kids questions like “How many workers were behind the counter?” “Was the person sitting next to us a man or a woman?” “What color was his/her shirt?” “How many exits were there?”

It’s fun to play, but more importantly it’s training your kids (and you) to be more mindful of their surroundings.

Master memorization. Another fun activity that will help improve your situational awareness is to practice memorizing things. Bourne knew all the license plate numbers of the cars outside the diner. You can gain this skill by practicing with a deck of cards, or strings of numbers. Here’s a guide on how to gain the ability to memorize anything you want.

Orient: Baselines, Goals, and Action Plans

Being more observant isn’t enough to master situational awareness. You have to know what you’re looking for, and then put that information into context so it has meaning and becomes actionable. That’s where the Orient phase comes into play.

The Orient step provides three things to help us achieve situational awareness: 1) baselines and anomalies for our particular environment, 2) mental models of human behavior we should look for, and 3) plans of action depending on our observations.

Establish a Baseline Wherever You Go

Every environment and person has a baseline. A baseline is what’s “normal” in a given situation, and it will differ from person to person and environment to environment. For example, the baseline at a small coffee shop will usually entail people reading a book or working on their computer or speaking in hushed tones with their friends. The baseline at a rock concert would be loud music and people looking at the stage while either jumping up and down to the music or swaying their bodies to the beat.

We establish baselines so that we can spot anomalies. According to Patrick Van Horne, situational awareness expert, instructor of the Marine Combat Profiling system, and author of Left of Bang, “Anomalies are things that either do not happen and should, or that do happen and shouldn’t.” Anomalies are what direct our attention as we take in our surroundings and what we need to focus on to achieve situational awareness.

So the first step in orienting ourselves is to establish baselines so that we can direct our attention to anomalies. How do we do that on the fly? Van Horne suggests that you mentally ask yourself these questions every time you enter a new environment:

• Baseline Questions: What’s going on here? What’s the general mood of the place? What’s the “normal” activity that I should expect here? How do most people behave here most of the time?
• Anomaly Question: What would cause someone or something to stand out?

Behavioral Clusters to Look For

Our inability to pay attention to everything all at once makes it impossible to obtain complete situational awareness. The human mind can only handle so much information at a given time. Thus in the domain of personal safety, where things unfold quickly and seconds are often the difference between life and death, how we direct our attention is paramount.

So we need to focus on a few things at a time that provide the most bang for our attentional buck. And we do that, Van Horne argues, by relying on heuristics. Heuristics are quick and dirty problem-solving and decision-making mental shortcuts our minds use to figure things out when minimal information is available and time is limited. Decisions made from heuristics aren’t always perfect, but in the context of your personal safety, they’re usually good enough.

In Left of Bang, Van Horne lays out six domains of human behavior that Marine Combat Profilers use on the battlefield in order to quickly determine whether someone is a friend or foe. To get an idea of what civilians should look for in everyday situations, I interviewed Van Horne for this article. He told me the most important category of clues is what he calls kinesics, an area of behavior that involves people’s conscious and subconscious body language.

Within the domain of kinesics, three clusters of body language are of particular interest for situational awareness. They are: dominance/submissive behavior, comfortable/uncomfortable behavior, and interested/uninterested behavior.

Dominance/submissive behavior. Generally, most people try to get along with others, so for the most part people act in accommodating and submissive ways. Van Horne writes that dominant behavior “is an expression of the limbic system’s fight response” and often manifests itself in “gestures and postures that make a person look larger to intimidate ‘smaller’ individuals into submission.” Smaller vs. bigger here doesn’t just apply to physical size, however, but also relates to relative positions of power.

Because most people get along to get along, dominant behavior often constitutes an anomaly, and the person displaying it deserves more attention. If someone acts in a pushy, authoritative, or overbearing way, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a threat; context matters. You’d expect a boss to act dominant in relation to their employees and the employees to act submissive to their boss, but seeing extreme dominant behavior exhibited by a customer towards an employee isn’t as common. That’s something to keep an eye on.

Comfortable/uncomfortable behavior. Most people are going to look relatively comfortable in most situations. Think about a bus or a subway ride — passengers generally appear pretty relaxed while they stare out the window or read a book. If someone looks uncomfortable, that’s an anomaly that warrants extra attention, but it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a threat. They could be distressed because they’re late for work or maybe they just heard some bad news about a relative. Again, it’s just something to keep your eye on.

Van Horne says that a common display of uncomfortable behavior you’ll see from individuals up to no good is that they’re “checking their six.” This is when a person looks over their shoulder to see what’s behind them or generally scans their surroundings. People who are comfortable generally don’t do this because they don’t feel any threat. So if you see a guy looking over his shoulder a lot when he should be standing there aloof, that’s an anomaly that should get your attention.

Now obviously, “checking your six” is something that situationally aware good guys do too. If you’re doing it right, it shouldn’t be noticeable to others, but it takes practice, and some guy with his head on a swivel might still be green. But until you verify that through further observation, be suspicious.

On the flipside, someone acting comfortable when everyone else is uncomfortable would be an anomaly. One of the ways law enforcement was able to identify the Boston Marathon bombers was that they noticed in surveillance footage that the men looked relatively calm while everyone else was running around in a panic. The reason they looked calm was because they knew the explosion was going to happen and thus weren’t surprised by it, while everyone else was caught off guard.

Interested/uninterested behavior. Most people aren’t paying attention to their environment. They’re too caught up in their own thoughts or whatever it is they’re doing. So individuals who are showing interest in a particular person or object that most people wouldn’t be interested in is an anomaly that warrants further observation.

These three body language clusters establish baselines for every situation in which we find ourselves and allow us to direct our limited attention towards things that are potentially more important and/or dangerous. If a person’s behavior across these clusters fits the baseline for that particular circumstance, you can pretty much ignore them. If their behavior doesn’t fit the baseline, they’re an anomaly and you should observe them more closely.

Other Behavioral Threat Indicators

Besides the above three kinesic clusters, Marine Combat Profilers are taught to look out for a couple other behaviors that could apply to civilian situations as well:

Shifty hands. Military and law enforcement officers typically check the hands first on any person with which they’re engaging. This is for two reasons. First, “checking the hands of a person ensures that the person is not holding a weapon and is not preparing to strike,” writes Van Horne. Second, hands often telegraph hidden nefarious intentions. People who are concealing something they don’t want discovered, like a gun, knife, or stolen object, “will often touch or pat that area on the body where that object is concealed, as if to ensure the object has not been lost or is still hidden from view.”

“Acting Natural.” It’s difficult to “act natural” when you’re not completely focused on whatever it is you’re really supposed to be doing. People “acting natural” will appear distracted and over- or under-exaggerate their movements. Insurgents in Afghanistan will often try to act like farmers, when they’re in fact attempting to collect information on U.S. military patrols. Marine Combat Profilers are trained to look for these “farmers” who appear to be trying too hard.

Have a Plan of Action Based on What You Observe

You visit your favorite coffee shop and a bad guy with a gun decides to drop in as well. But because you’ve followed the principles above, you’re the first to see him as a threat. Great. But what are you going to do about it? Seconds matter here. You don’t have time to formulate a well-thought-out plan. What’s more, the stress of the event will muddle your thinking and decision-making.

In addition to asking yourself the baseline and anomaly questions every time you enter an environment, Van Horne suggests you ask yourself a third question: “What would I do if I saw an anomaly?” In other words, come up with an action plan.

So let’s go back to the coffee shop example. Let’s say the anomaly for which you want to create an action plan is “guy comes in with a gun.” The best course of action in this scenario depends on a few things. And knowing what those few things are requires you to be situationally aware. If the robber came in from the front door and you’re near the rear exit, your best action would be to book it out the back door right away. On the other hand, if he entered through the back exit near you, according to the Department of Homeland Security, your best action would be to immediately close the gap between him and you and incapacitate him.

Establish baselines. Look for anomalies. Have a plan.

That’s what situational awareness comes down to.

Situational Awareness as a Preventive Tactic

Animals are creatures of opportunity. They’ll typically only attack another creature if they look vulnerable. Lions will go after younger, sicker, or older gazelles because they’re easier to catch. The same goes with humans. Criminals are typically going to go after a person who looks vulnerable, whether the victim is physically weaker or will simply be easy to catch off guard.

Practicing situational awareness goes a long way in keeping you from appearing like an easy target. When you’re out and about, look alert. Get your nose out of your smartphone. When you’re walking back to your car at night, have your keys at the ready and constantly scan your surroundings. The less vulnerable you look, the less likely someone is going to mess with you.

Here’s another tip on not looking like a victim, from the guys at Sage Dynamics: Always keep a tactical flashlight on you and bust it out at nighttime. Having a light allows you to better observe in the darkness, but it can also act as a deterrent to would-be bad guys. Because law enforcement officers are usually the only ones shining flashlights down alleys and under cars, if you’re shining your light as you walk to your destination or back to your car, the bad guys are probably going to think you’re a cop and will likely just leave you alone. If worst comes to worst and you do end up getting jumped, you can use the tactical flashlight as a defensive tool by blinding your would-be attacker with the bright beam or even hitting him with the beveled edge that’s often built into the handle. 

Practice, Practice, Practice

Situational awareness is a mindset that you have to purposefully cultivate. You want to get to the point that it’s just something you do without having to think about it. To get to that point, you have to practice it regularly. Starting today, consciously remind yourself to look for entry/exit points whenever you enter a new building. Start observing people and establishing baselines and generating possible anomalies while you’re at work, at the gym, or on a date. And then start coming up with action plans on what you would do in that specific situation if you see a possible threat. Don’t be paranoid, just mindful. Do that day in and day out, and situational awareness won’t be something you have to intentionally think about, just something you do naturally. And not fake farmer natural, but Jason Bourne natural.

Until next time, keep your head on a swivel, check your six, and keep your back to the wall.

Oh, and stay manly!

__________________________

Further Reading and Resources on Situational Awareness

Left of Bang by Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley. Patrick has spent his career researching and teaching situational awareness to Marines through the Marine Combat Profiling system that he helped create. This book, coupled with the articles at his site cp-journal.com and a personal interview with him went a long way in helping answer my questions.

www.cp-journal.com. This is Patrick’s company website. He has tons of free content that provides insanely useful information on developing your situational awareness. If you’re looking for something more structured, he also offers online courses.

“Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness” by Dr. Mica Endsley. Dr. Mica Endsley is the Chief Scientist at the U.S. Air Force. While Dr. Endsley’s paper is pretty technical, she does a fantastic job explaining the minutia and nuances of situational awareness that helped clarify a few things for me. I highly recommend you check it out.

Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making by Gary Klein

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

 

 

Trident's Flame receives its 15th Amazon review!

AMAZON REVIEW OF TRIDENT'S FLAME

Five out of Five Stars

ByJames O. Nelson

on July 2, 2015

Format: Kindle Edition

 

I can say Trident’s Flame is one of the most captivating books that I have read in a long time. The author has a gift of painting a detailed story line that makes you feel you are almost with Jake and Charlie in Alaska. I am anxiously waiting for the next book to be published.

A Post for my good friend Dr. Jim Nelson, who recently published his Noah's Catastrophic Global Flood book.

If you get a chance, and you're at all interested in Noah's Flood as recorded in Scripture, check out Jim's new book.

Here's the link on Amazon; you can get it in hard copy and/or digital form:  http://www.amazon.com/Noahs-Catastrophic-Global-Flood/dp/1493679821

This is an interesting notion (a meme I found among writing posts somewhere). 

I can certainly relate to that idea... in my childhood there were plenty of hours... on days when I was left alone by a single mother... when I simply went to work creating something, usually sculpting from whatever objects were around me. 

I didn't discover the magic of words and sculpting stories until much later.  Stories came first.  Primarily through the reading of Bible stories by my father when I visited him (a rare event).  Then I began reading on my own... Danny Orlis (by Bernard Palmer), and Ken Platt's The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear, and then Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter of Mars series.  Through high school and college I discovered creative writing, taking a course here and there.  And all the while journaling, constantly journaling, which I discovered later, is a writing style all by itself.  The first person narrative.  Classics like Dracula were written that way.  Finally, I launched into the unknown.... sculpting of stories for their own sake.  Trident's Flame was my first.  Sanctum Threat my second.

There is something about surviving one's childhood through the use of creativity that lends itself to better coping skills in adulthood.       

Bookfessions #990 and Commentary

I recently discovered Louis L'Amour's Flint (1960).

I was amazed by the story, and wonderfully pleased by the writing.  I've started another western since then (by a different author) out of curiosity for the genre; L'Amour was my first read in the western genre. 

 

I re-read Flint a second time, and loved it, which made me think of Bookfessions #990 entry.  I'm also doing a study of L'Amour's plot structure and how he went about drawing readers back into it, especially at the end of each chapter.

 

Several bloggers rank Flint among the very best of L'Amour's works (well over a hundred in the genre).  

 

The next I'd like to try is Reilly's Luck.

 

Here is a list of his novels, short stories and other works:

The Louis L'Amour Collection
(updated May, 2009)

The Sackett Novels:

Daybreakers, The 102111
Comstock Lode 102871
Beyond the Great Snow Mountains 102061
Galloway 102376
Conagher 102335
Bowdrie 102426
Jubal Sackett 102996
Crossfire Trail 102897
Bowdrie's Law 102962
Lando 102236
Dark Canyon 102384
Buckskin Run 102392
Lonely Men, The 102301
Down The Long Hills 102228
Dutchman's Flat 103010
Lonely on the Mountain 102541
Empty Land, The 102798
End of the Drive 103234
Mojave Crossing 102160
Fallon 102350
From the Listening Hills 103465
Mustang Man 102343
First Fast Draw, The 102194

Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour:

The Frontier Stories (Collected Short Stories): Vol 1, The 103549
Ride the Dark Trail 102442
Flint 102103
The Frontier Stories(Collected Short Stories): Vol 2, The 103622
Ride the River 102434
Guns of the Timberlands 102483
The Frontier Stories(Collected Short Stories):  Vol 3, The 103648
Sackett 102129
Hanging Woman Creek 102509
The Adventure Stories(Collected Short Stories):  Vol 4, The 103812
Sackett Brand, The 102186
Haunted Mesa, The 103077
The Adventure Stories(Collected Short Stories):  Vol 5, The 103820
Sackett's Land 102210
Heller With A Gun 102780
The Adventure Stories(Collected Short Stories):  Vol 6, The Sky-Liners, The 102467
High Graders, The 102707
Hills of Homicide, The 102079
To the Far Blue Mountains 102277
High Lonesome 102145
Law of the Desert Born 102475
Treasure Mountain 102327
Hondo 102459
Long Ride Home 103119
Warrior's Path, The 102491
How the West Was Won 102244
Lonigan 103093
Iron Marshal, The 102665
May There Be a Road 103309

Other Talon and Chantry Novels:

Lock Man, The 102848
Monument Rock 103150
Borden Chantry 102616
Kid Rodelo 102863
Night Over the Solomons 103002
Fair Blows The Wind 102657
 Killoe 102822
Off the Mangrove Coast 102038
Ferguson Rifle, The 102293
Kilrone 102285
Outlaws of Mesquite, The 103135
Man From the Broken Hills, The 102517
Kiowa Trail 102723
Rider of the Ruby Hills, The 103044
Milo Talon 102939
Last of the Breed 103036
Riding for the Brand 103028
North to the Rails 102772
Last Stand at Papago Wells 102830
Strong Shall Live, The 102574
Over on the Dry Side 102640
Lonesome Gods, The 102533
Trail to Crazy Man, The 103051
Rivers West 102608
Man Called Noon, The 102814
Valley of the Sun 103218
Man From Skibbereen, The 102590
War Party 102681
The Kilkenny Trilogy Matagorda 102913
West From Singapore 103069
Kilkenny 102905
Passin' Through 102988
West of Dodge 103192
Mountain Valley War, The 102806
Proving Trail, The 102558
With These Hands 103382
Rider of Lost Creek, The 102764
Quick and the Dead, The 102251
Yondering 102889
Radigan 102202

Hopalong Cassidy Novels:

Reilly's Luck 102178

Non-Fiction:

Riders of High Rock, The 103184
Shadow Riders, The 102418
Education of a Wandering Man (L'Amour biography) 103127
Rustlers of the West Fork, The 103168
Shalako 102137
Sackett Companion, The (L'Amour's personal guide to The Sackett Novels) 103101
Trail to Seven Pines, The 103226
Showdown at Yellow Butte 102756
Smoke From This Altar (L'Amour poems) 103143
Trouble Shooter 103200
Silver Canyon 102095
Trail of Memories, A (L'Amour quotations) 102087
Sitka 102954
Novels Son of a Wanted Man 102566
Bendigo Shafter 102673
Taggart 102319
Brionne 102731
Tall Stranger, The 102947
Broken Gun, The 102749
To Tame A Land 102921
Burning Hills, The 102152
Tucker 102525
Californios, The 102855
Under the Sweetwater Rim 102582
Callaghen 102368
Utah Blaine 102699
Catlow 102269
Walking Drum, The 102970
Chancy 102624
Westward the Tide 102632
Cherokee Trail, The 102400
Where the Long Grass Blows 102715