Seeing the obvious

A loud crunch followed my brother's repeated shouts of "Stop!" Before the bang I had no idea what he was on about. I'd reversed out of the garage into what was normally a wide open space. Didn’t even look. Ran straight into the front of the truck that I had:

A. Personally parked in that very spot about 8 hours earlier
B. Just walked past to get into my car

Talk about embarrassing!

It was a complete lack of situational awareness. Overlooking something right under my nose that was really important.

This week I’ve been speaking with several leaders about maintaining situational awareness. It’s a delicate balance between filtering out ‘noise’, and not missing something important. Unless it’s meant to be missed — like that truck.

Our ability to filter helps us keep moving when it’s important to do so. Without it, we can get bogged down in too much information. Wanting the complete picture (Dream the impossible dream!) can have us endlessly stuck or way too slow.

A lot of filtering is subconscious — based on assumptions about what's happening around us. I missed (well hit actually) the truck, because I assumed the driveway was clear as usual. Didn’t even check the mirrors. Was confused by my brother’s yelling. Rather than acting on his simple advice I was trying to work out what he was on about. It made no sense to me until the bang.

A brief pause is a great way to lift situational awareness. Giving ourselves and our teams permission to call a pause is a great way to do that. Asking each other “How do you see the situation? What could we be missing?”, invites multiple perspectives into ‘view’. We all notice different things and so a more complete picture emerges.

That’s definitely helpful under pressure, and sometimes it could prevent a collision with the blindingly obvious.

Next week, we’ll look at some practical ways to call a pause.