How improving our situational awareness can help lone travellers stay safe in this new and difficult era

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As a young soldier getting ready to deploy to some challenging and complex environments, I found the concept of ‘situational awareness’ (referred to herein as ‘SA’) challenging to grasp. I remember coming away after long theoretical sessions with a feeling that it was in part, guesswork combined with Spiderman’s spider-sense ability and a touch of clairvoyance thrown in for good measure.

But many years later, it has now become my most effective skill in managing my safety when I’m travelling alone overseas.

 Why is SA important?

One aspect of my role as a safety and security advisor to the media and humanitarian sectors, is to travel to a lot of the places that you’re generally advised to avoid. It’s a skill that I’ve really come to rely on.

In late 2000, the British Medical Journal conducted research into the context surrounding aid worker deaths over the previous two decades and found that nearly one third of deaths occurred within the first 3 months of operating within a new environment.

Furthermore, 17% of these incidents occurred in the first month in a new environment. This was during a time when hostile environment awareness training (aka ‘HEAT’ courses) or security training for staff wasn’t compulsory (or even advised), shows a distinct correlation between unfamiliarity of a new environment and the potential for trouble to occur. My assessment is that a number of these deaths would’ve been attributable to not identifying the warning signs of the environment early enough to take early action.

What is situational awareness?

Dr Mica Endsley, a former Chief Scientist in the United States Air Force, and a recognised author on the subject defines Situation Awareness as:

‘.. the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future.’

To make it easier to comprehend, we can crystalise the constituent elements as: Perception; Comprehension and projection.

This definition also works well when considered with another thinking action model, Boyd’s ‘OODA loop’ (an acronym of observe, orientate, decide, act – then repeats again). This is a simple way to define the cognitive process when it comes to our decision-making. The speed at which we move through the ‘OODA loop’  is affected by many factors over the course of our lives, such as our lived experiences, theoretical knowledge, and breadth of similar situations. When someone has a fast-moving OODA loop, we’d refer to  them as ‘decisive’.

It is my own interpretation on the definition of SA to mean ‘actively paying attention to your surroundings, making deductions and then responding to changes’. I believe this to be particularly important when you arrive in a new environment, where the traveller may miss subtle but important cues.

By noticing changes, it allows action to be taken early, therefore reducing the risks. 

Three steps to improving our situational awareness

Using the components of Endsley’s definition, ‘perception, comprehension and projection’, we can consider the following ideas to increase our ability to take the correct action at the right time.

1. Increase the efficacy of our perception

In the early 1970’s, a former US Marine Corps Colonel and WW2 veteran, John ‘Jeff’ Cooper, pioneered a model describing states of responsiveness in an awareness model.

Cooper’s level of awareness model crystalises our awareness level into 4 distinct colour stages. After sharing this concept, he asserted “your combat mind-set is not dictated by the amount of danger to which you are exposed at the time. Your combat mind-set is properly dictated by the state of mind you think appropriate to the situation.

Condition White: You are unprepared and unready to take lethal action. If you are attacked in White you will probably die unless your adversary is totally inept.

Condition Yellow: You bring yourself to the understanding that your life may be in danger and that you may have to do something about it.

Condition Orange you have determined upon a specific adversary and are prepared to take action, which may result in his death, but you are not in a lethal mode.

Condition Red you are in a lethal mode and will shoot if circumstances warrant. 

Whilst the model refers to specific threat actors, it provides a base for gauging our connection to the external environment and how quickly we can react according to a change in it. The basis of this model refers to our ability to recognise when we should be adopting a higher level of attentiveness to keep us safe.

2. Increase the speed of our comprehension.

When you are highly familiar with your local environment, you notice the standard way of life, daily routines which play out around you; this is seen as normal behaviours.  This means that we can then notice when something is wrong.  The military has a well-used term for this:

‘Absence of the normal; presence of the abnormal’.

This expression helps to define what is different about our microenvironment – that which isn’t there but would usually be and vice-versa.

In ‘The gift of fear’ by Gavin DeBecker, these are referred to as ‘pre-incident indicators’, making them easier to communicate to others when classified as such. Prior to deploying, ensure you research the environment thoroughly – at the regional, country and local level. This is often referred to as context analysis in the humanitarian sector and helps you form your own threat identification. Ideally, you should consult a diverse range of sources so as to get a holistic understanding and ‘ground truth’ any issues you have come across, to help you comprehend the information you see around you faster.

3.  Increase the quality of your projection

There are a number of different ways we can increase the quality of our projections. Firstly, we can test them by checking in with our peers and those in similar positions. This may work best by having an open and informal conversation around what you’re seeing, experiencing and sensing around you. However, be aware that your own unconscious biases will affect the quality of your projection. You can also research recent issues and incidents within the region, to gauge how and why they played out – was it driven by political discontent, criminality, religious reasons or even another state having an effect on the country? The best method for this is to gain insight from as many different sources as possible. 

Conclusion

In summary, the world is slowly opening up to international travel again yet with added complexity of a dynamically changing health situation. Whilst the above examples may sound more extreme than simply having to quarantine somewhere or worse being stranded in a difficult place; the principles remain the same.

Being ignorant or dislocated from what’s going on around us means that risk is able to change quickly and possibly outpace our ability to take action and mitigate it.

Therefore, it’s vitally importantly to quickly re-develop our ability to gain a realistic grasp of the environment and adjust our behaviours to take account of the risks we may be exposed to.

 References

Cooper, J., 2006. Principles of personal defense. Boulder, Colo.: Paladin Press.

Coram, R., 2004. Boyd. New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown.

DeBecker, G., 2000. The gift of fear. London: Bloomsbury.

Endsley, M R., 1995 Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness in Dynamic Systems. Human Factors Journal 37(1), 32-64. [online] Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/210198492_Endsley_MR_Toward_a_Theory_of_Situation_Awareness_in_Dynamic_Systems_Human_Factors_Journal_371_32-64>

Sheik, M., 2000. Deaths among humanitarian workers. BMJ, 321(7254), pp.166-168 accessed at https://www.bmj.com/content/321/7254/166.full