When I was a new firefighter, over 30 years ago, I remember my basic fire instructor telling me to “pay attention” and “avoid tunnel vision.” While it was good advice, he did very little to help me understand what that meant. I did my best, doing what I thought was supposed to. As it turns out, I wasn’t that good at it. I was mostly lucky.
I have spent the last seven years intensely studying situational awareness and decision making in high-stress, high-consequence environments. This includes firefighting, aviation, medicine, military, nuclear energy, and more. I have also immersed myself into cognitive neuroscience and have come to realize there is so much the fire service does not know about how to develop, maintain, and regain situational awareness.
There is SO much research that has been done (and is currently being done) on this topic – research that can benefit the fire service. It has become my passion… my mission, to take those lessons from cognitive neuroscience and share them in understandable and meaningful ways (presenting in a way that firefighters value and appreciate) so the fire service can benefit from the findings of science.
It takes me a FULL DAY just to teach firefighters how to pay attention! (The program is called “The Mental Management of Emergencies”). Yes… understanding how to pay attention IS that complex. Giving it 20 minutes during a strategic, tactics or safety class isn’t working. We need to build a DEEP knowledge of this critical topic area. Situational awareness is THE leading contributing factor to firefighter near miss events and a very significant contributor to casualty events.
On Tuesday I am heading to Orlando, Florida to attend the International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM). The conference “brings together world leaders in research seeking to understand and improve how people actually perform cognitively complex functions in demanding situations. The NDM community represents an interdisciplinary group of researchers united by their study of human performance in situations marked by time pressure, uncertainty, vague goals, high stakes, team and organizational constraints, changing conditions, and varying amounts of experience. As such, this conference continues to be the premier forum for presenting work exploring complex cognition as it occurs in dynamic and real-world contexts.”
Are your eyes glazed over yet? Granted, it’s not nearly as sexy as putting water on fires or cutting up cars, but it is nonetheless important. The wording from the previous paragraph comes directly from the conference website http://www.ce.ucf.edu/ndm2011/. Look at what’s on that list again… time pressure, uncertainty, vague goals, high stakes, team and organizational constraints, changing conditions, and varying amounts of experience impacts how we do our jobs. That is EXACTLY our world.
I can assure you I will be the only firefighter attending this conference… just as I was the last time I attended it. I think it’s important to immerse myself into their world, extract their lessons, and share them with the fire service.
It is my mission… it has become my passion. Stay tuned as I’m certain the findings shared at this conference will be incorporated into my future program offerings and my blog and magazine articles.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
Executive Director
Center for the Advancement of Situational Awareness & Decision Making
www.RichGasaway.com
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Improving your intuition
Intuition is based, in part, on your tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is the collection of all your life’s experiences stored and cataloged in your brain – available for subconscious pattern matching to help you find solutions to problems. (The full explanation about how this happens, as fascinating as it is, is a little too complex to cover here in a blog post.)
I often get asked by young fire officers how they can get the experienced required to make intuitive decisions. Here are a few things you can do to pre-load your experiences.
1. Read: One of the best ways to build knowledge is through reading.
2. Take classes: Formal training builds a strong foundation of knowledge.
3. Practice evolutions: Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Make sure your practice reflects how you would perform in real fire conditions.
4. Simulations: These are a great way to trick your brain into thinking you’ve actually had the experience when, in reality, it was only a simulation.
5. Study: Become a student of near-miss reports and line-of-duty death reports. There are many lessons contained in these documents that will help you.
BONUS. Get emotional: You heard me right. As you do the things on the list above, make each experience personal and get emotionally invested in it. For example, if you’re reading about a line-of-duty death report, read it as though you’re really there and not as some third-party observer. Emotions cause lessons to seat deep into memory.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
Executive Director
Center for the Advancement of Situational Awareness & Decision Making
www.RichGasaway.com
I often get asked by young fire officers how they can get the experienced required to make intuitive decisions. Here are a few things you can do to pre-load your experiences.
1. Read: One of the best ways to build knowledge is through reading.
2. Take classes: Formal training builds a strong foundation of knowledge.
3. Practice evolutions: Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Make sure your practice reflects how you would perform in real fire conditions.
4. Simulations: These are a great way to trick your brain into thinking you’ve actually had the experience when, in reality, it was only a simulation.
5. Study: Become a student of near-miss reports and line-of-duty death reports. There are many lessons contained in these documents that will help you.
BONUS. Get emotional: You heard me right. As you do the things on the list above, make each experience personal and get emotionally invested in it. For example, if you’re reading about a line-of-duty death report, read it as though you’re really there and not as some third-party observer. Emotions cause lessons to seat deep into memory.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
Executive Director
Center for the Advancement of Situational Awareness & Decision Making
www.RichGasaway.com
Thursday, May 19, 2011
An argument for intuition
As I speak with fire officers on the importance of making high risk, high consequence decisions I emphasize the value of intuition – the gut feeling we get that guides our decision making. I stress the importance of a rapid size up where the decision maker gathers as small number of the most important data points and how they use that to compare the situation to past experience.
Without getting too much into the details, intuition is a pattern match based on past experiences. The “gut feel” that someone gets is the brain sending a message to the body.
Skeptics say it is impossible to be able to assess a situation rapidly and better decisions are made when the officer takes more time and assesses more data.
Let’s apply that logic to baseball. A batter is at the plate and the pitcher is about to launch a 90 mph fast ball. If the game is being played on a regulation field, home plate is sixty feet, six inches from the mound. At this distance and at that speed, the batter will have .458 seconds to assess the situation and make the decision whether to swing. Assuming the decision is not make immediately as the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand, it’s actually less time than that.
In summary, a batter has less than one-half second to make a decision and to engage in an action. Additionally, the catcher has the same amount of time to track and catch the ball.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
Executive Director
Center for the Advancement of Situational Awareness & Decision Making
www.RichGasaway.com
Without getting too much into the details, intuition is a pattern match based on past experiences. The “gut feel” that someone gets is the brain sending a message to the body.
Skeptics say it is impossible to be able to assess a situation rapidly and better decisions are made when the officer takes more time and assesses more data.
Let’s apply that logic to baseball. A batter is at the plate and the pitcher is about to launch a 90 mph fast ball. If the game is being played on a regulation field, home plate is sixty feet, six inches from the mound. At this distance and at that speed, the batter will have .458 seconds to assess the situation and make the decision whether to swing. Assuming the decision is not make immediately as the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand, it’s actually less time than that.
In summary, a batter has less than one-half second to make a decision and to engage in an action. Additionally, the catcher has the same amount of time to track and catch the ball.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
Executive Director
Center for the Advancement of Situational Awareness & Decision Making
www.RichGasaway.com
Sunday, May 8, 2011
It's a critical decision moment. What will you do?
At some point, as a structural firefight gets worse, the person in charge is going to be at a critical decision point. The elapsed time into the incident when that happens will vary based on a number of factors (covered extensively in my situational awareness class). When the time comes, what are the decision options.
A crew is working inside a fire and things are not going well. At some point the person in charge will decide on one of three options:
1. Let the existing crew operate a little longer in hopes that the progress will improve.
2. Fortify the firefight with additional resources in hopes the progress will improve.
3. Order a withdrawal of personnel from the building.
When you look at it that way, it seems easy. There are only three options. However, choosing the option that is right is the sticky part.
Assume you let the crew operate a little longer (hypothetically, 2 more minutes) and after that time there still isn't appreciable progress. You are now back to the same three decision options previously outlined.
Assume you decide to fortify the firefight with additional resources and then give them some additional time (say, 4 minutes) and after that time there still isn't appreciable progress. You are, once again, at the same three decision options.
Why is it so are to make the decision to withdrawal? Psychologists might suggest it has to do, in part, with our Type-A, competitive, ego-driven personalities. We don't like to lose and a withdrawal from the fire is akin to the admission of defeat. Even if the commander orders the withdrawal they are likely to hear "Just give us a few more minutes, chief, we're making good progress." Why? We don't like to lose.
All the while, the incident is drifting toward a disaster and the situational awareness of the commander has eroded away. Just two more minutes... then two more... then two more... then MAYDAY!
Set the ego aside and make the right decision in time to ensure the outcome is not a firefighter casualty.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
Executive Director, Center for the Advancement of Situational Awareness & Decision Making
http://www.richgasaway.com/
A crew is working inside a fire and things are not going well. At some point the person in charge will decide on one of three options:
1. Let the existing crew operate a little longer in hopes that the progress will improve.
2. Fortify the firefight with additional resources in hopes the progress will improve.
3. Order a withdrawal of personnel from the building.
When you look at it that way, it seems easy. There are only three options. However, choosing the option that is right is the sticky part.
Assume you let the crew operate a little longer (hypothetically, 2 more minutes) and after that time there still isn't appreciable progress. You are now back to the same three decision options previously outlined.
Assume you decide to fortify the firefight with additional resources and then give them some additional time (say, 4 minutes) and after that time there still isn't appreciable progress. You are, once again, at the same three decision options.
Why is it so are to make the decision to withdrawal? Psychologists might suggest it has to do, in part, with our Type-A, competitive, ego-driven personalities. We don't like to lose and a withdrawal from the fire is akin to the admission of defeat. Even if the commander orders the withdrawal they are likely to hear "Just give us a few more minutes, chief, we're making good progress." Why? We don't like to lose.
All the while, the incident is drifting toward a disaster and the situational awareness of the commander has eroded away. Just two more minutes... then two more... then two more... then MAYDAY!
Set the ego aside and make the right decision in time to ensure the outcome is not a firefighter casualty.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
Executive Director, Center for the Advancement of Situational Awareness & Decision Making
http://www.richgasaway.com/
Monday, January 17, 2011
Breaking out of the tunnel vision trap
One of the natural enemies to situational awareness is tunnel vision. For the purposes of discussion I will define tunnel vision is the concentration on one particular item at the exclusion of all others. Many firefighters reading this post have responded to an accident scene and found a car that struck a pole in the middle of an open field. This scenario is a good example of tunnel vision. As the driver lost control and left the roadway they began to focus on the pole. It didn’t take long for the pole to become their singular focus and in many cases a fatal mistake. The same thing can happen on the fireground. Firefighters and officers concentrate on a large body of fire. They put all their focus on this, sometimes called the ”Moth-to-Candle Syndrome” and block out concerns for the heat, smoke and building conditions that can signal a drastic situation.
Understanding the dangers of tunnel vision is fine, but firefighters and officers need to be prepared with the skills to prevent tunnel vision. I like to use a technique called the “720 Degree World”. This concept emphasizes the total picture prospective of firefighting. In employing this concept one would constantly scan not just a single point but in a 360 degree arc around their position and in another 360 degree arc above and below their position.
I can remember as a young firefighter, a veteran telling me that a lot of hazards to my health and well-being will be above me. With the increasing use of lightweight truss construction in floor assemblies we now see considerable hazards coming from below us too. The whole idea behind scanning the environment is to break the single site focus and identify hazards before they become a problem.
To show how effective this tool can be let me draw on my experiences from the tactical world. During rifle qualifications in my first vetting class I had an ex-Navy SEAL operator show me a trick. Part of the qualifications involved shooting a large number of rounds from 100 yards in the span of 90 seconds. That might not seem like a long time but when you are on your stomach, under the pressure of qualifying or going home, 90 seconds is forever. Just like crawling down a long hallway with a handline, intense pressure and concentration can cause you to exclude the things happening in the outside world. Over time your vision becomes so intensely focused you can actually begin to lose focus. My friend, the Navy SEAL, told me to occasionally just look away from my rifle sites and look at the green grass on the berms surrounding the range. When I looked back at my target, I realized this slight break allowed me to re-acquire an accurate sight picture and deliver accurate shots on target.
Adapting this lesson to emergency services, we can teach our firefighters and officers to occasionally look away from their task (as long as it does not pose a safety hazard like looking away while operating a power saw) to break the tunnel vision trap. While taking this quick break you can evaluate their surroundings to determine if there are any developing hazards. This technique can be very effective in reducing tunnel vision and improving situational awareness.
The bottom line for firefighter safety is that you must be able to operate in the 720- degree world and understand that hazards can come from any segment of that world. The more you allow yourself to focus too narrowly, the more likely you are to lose your situation awareness.
Retired Battalion Chief Dennis Reilly
Cherry Hill (NJ) Fire Department
Firefighter, Linville (NC) Fire Department
Chief Reilly recently completed a three year tour as a security specialist and team medic in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He can be reached at: chfdharley@gmail.com
__________________________________
Dr. Gasaway's observations:
Right on Dennis! Thank you for contributing to my situation awarneness blog. Stress is one of the contributing factors to narrowed attention. The greater your stress, the more likely your attention is to narrow in on the things that are causing that stress. One note about tunnel vision. The term tunnel vision is actually deceiving because its not only your vision that can be tunneled. All your senses can be tunneled, with vision and hearing being two of the most important at an emergency scene. It may be a little easier to look away than to listen away, but the advice Dennis offers is extremely valuable.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
Understanding the dangers of tunnel vision is fine, but firefighters and officers need to be prepared with the skills to prevent tunnel vision. I like to use a technique called the “720 Degree World”. This concept emphasizes the total picture prospective of firefighting. In employing this concept one would constantly scan not just a single point but in a 360 degree arc around their position and in another 360 degree arc above and below their position.
I can remember as a young firefighter, a veteran telling me that a lot of hazards to my health and well-being will be above me. With the increasing use of lightweight truss construction in floor assemblies we now see considerable hazards coming from below us too. The whole idea behind scanning the environment is to break the single site focus and identify hazards before they become a problem.
To show how effective this tool can be let me draw on my experiences from the tactical world. During rifle qualifications in my first vetting class I had an ex-Navy SEAL operator show me a trick. Part of the qualifications involved shooting a large number of rounds from 100 yards in the span of 90 seconds. That might not seem like a long time but when you are on your stomach, under the pressure of qualifying or going home, 90 seconds is forever. Just like crawling down a long hallway with a handline, intense pressure and concentration can cause you to exclude the things happening in the outside world. Over time your vision becomes so intensely focused you can actually begin to lose focus. My friend, the Navy SEAL, told me to occasionally just look away from my rifle sites and look at the green grass on the berms surrounding the range. When I looked back at my target, I realized this slight break allowed me to re-acquire an accurate sight picture and deliver accurate shots on target.
Adapting this lesson to emergency services, we can teach our firefighters and officers to occasionally look away from their task (as long as it does not pose a safety hazard like looking away while operating a power saw) to break the tunnel vision trap. While taking this quick break you can evaluate their surroundings to determine if there are any developing hazards. This technique can be very effective in reducing tunnel vision and improving situational awareness.
The bottom line for firefighter safety is that you must be able to operate in the 720- degree world and understand that hazards can come from any segment of that world. The more you allow yourself to focus too narrowly, the more likely you are to lose your situation awareness.
Retired Battalion Chief Dennis Reilly
Cherry Hill (NJ) Fire Department
Firefighter, Linville (NC) Fire Department
Chief Reilly recently completed a three year tour as a security specialist and team medic in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He can be reached at: chfdharley@gmail.com
__________________________________
Dr. Gasaway's observations:
Right on Dennis! Thank you for contributing to my situation awarneness blog. Stress is one of the contributing factors to narrowed attention. The greater your stress, the more likely your attention is to narrow in on the things that are causing that stress. One note about tunnel vision. The term tunnel vision is actually deceiving because its not only your vision that can be tunneled. All your senses can be tunneled, with vision and hearing being two of the most important at an emergency scene. It may be a little easier to look away than to listen away, but the advice Dennis offers is extremely valuable.
Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com
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