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
No comments:
Post a Comment