Situational Awareness and Adaptability

Developing a key competency for high performance

The ability to maintain high performance in novel or unexpected scenarios is a key competency for individuals and teams. It’s not just about making the best of a less-than-ideal situation, but about exceeding expectations despite them.

Those skilled in situational adaptability show two well-honed types of intelligence: crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence. Crystallized intelligence is the ability to remember and use information acquired by previous experience and education. Fluid intelligence is the ability to solve novel problems with little to no previous knowledge. The ability to amalgamate these two types of intelligence and adapt your approach and demeanor in real time to match the shifting demands of different situations is called situational adaptability. Among many reasons, situational adaptability is important because it enables you to provide firm direction in times of uncertainty, be empathetic in times of stress and change, and be diplomatic in times of conflict. Those skilled in situational adaptability understand that different situations may call for different approaches; pick up on the need to change personal, interpersonal, and leadership behavior quickly; and seamlessly adapts styles to fit the specific needs of others.

Adapting your approach to different situations, however, requires you to be aware of their shifting demands in the first place, so let’s begin by first examining situational awareness.

Situational Awareness

Former Chief Scientist for the US Air Force, Dr. Mica Endsley, Ph.D., defined situational awareness in her foundational 1988 study Design and Evaluation for Situation Awareness Enhancement: “Situational awareness is about knowing what is going on in the environment and its implications for the present and the future.” This simple maxim appears straightforward, but can become a real challenge in a fast-paced and complex environment, which makes it especially relevant for situations characterized by a high level of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). The infographic below goes into a bit more detail into each of these domains.

Numerous models have been created that show how situational awareness can be applied in complex situations to help navigate VUCA. The most popular is Dr. Endsley’s own three-level model, which describes situational awareness as perceiving relevant information, understanding it, and predicting a future state based on perception and understanding.

1. Perceiving
   The key factors at this stage are access to and recognition of information. If, for example, you are managing a project, and you aren’t informed or aware of an issue that could cause a delay (i.e., you don’t have access to necessary information), then you can’t effectively mitigate the risk.

2. Understanding
   At this level, the key factor is comprehending relevant information using mental models, which are, simply, representations of how something works. If you are managing a project and you are informed of an actual delay (not just a risk that could cause one), you must update your mental model of the project status based on this new information. In other words, leverage the new information to determine how you are going to adjust your project to be successful.

3. Predicting
   The key factor at this level is the ability to predict future state, which is especially critical in complex environments, where a change in one interdependent variable could influence the state of the entire environment. Incorrect or outdated mental models are a source of situational awareness breakdown at this level simply because it’s impossible to predict accurate output from inaccurate input.

Developing Situational Awareness

Situational awareness is a trainable skill, and you can use this simple (simple, not easy!) process to help improve yours.

1. Self-Development
   On my website, jeffstrauss.net, you can find numerous videos and writings focused on developing your skills, particularly those related to building trust and emotional intelligence. Use these resources to evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, and natural leadership tendencies when responding to stressful, novel, or unpredicted situations. Leaders with high emotional intelligence who can recognize their own and other’s emotions exhibit stronger situational awareness.

2. Observe
   A leader must observe normal and abnormal conditions in the environment. Be aware of your surroundings and focus your attention on elements relevant to your goal. How might things develop in the short, medium, and long term? What alternative scenarios are possible? Which interdependencies are in play?

3. Review
   Reflecting on past events should not be overlooked. Review processes are intended to help you learn from past incidents, and they should involve an analysis soon after an event has taken place to determine how the results may have deviated from expectation. For a bit more detail on this, see my video on giving effective feedback, and the associated resource guide.

When presented with a novel problem, ask yourself this question:

Are we solving the problem we actually have or are we making it look like a problem we’re used to solving?

Situational Adaptability

The following is a brief overview of situational adaptability from the global organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry.

Situational adaptability is one of the most difficult competencies to develop in people, but is largely correlated with performance, promotability, and career derailment in individual contributors and leaders. In other words, if you’re able to adapt, you’re a better performer and are more likely to be promoted. Improving situational adaptability involves enhancing your ability to recognize, understand, and effectively respond to changing circumstances. Here are some practical ways to foster and develop this skill.

Cultivate self-awareness
Understand your default reactions, strengths, and areas for improvement. By recognizing your patterns, you can choose to respond differently in varying situations. One of the best ways to cultivate self-awareness is by regular reflection: reflect on your own behaviors throughout the day, after meetings, or after particularly pleasant or unpleasant conversations. Reflect on whether a particular outcome was a result of a specific behavior, and whether the outcome could be changed if the behavior was changed.

Adopt a growth mindset
Embrace new experiences, challenges, and training opportunities to expand your knowledge base and skill set. Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck is the classic tome on this subject.

Role-play
Regularly consider various potential scenarios and think about how you would respond to them. Role-playing in this manner is one of the most effective ways to prepare yourself and your team for novel situations. While you can’t necessarily role-play a specific scenario, you can begin to cultivate the behaviors and responses necessary to successfully adapt to new, stressful situations.

Expand your network
Engage with a diverse group of people. Their perspectives and experiences can offer insights that you might not have considered, helping you adapt to various situations. My presentation on mapping your developmental network goes in depth on this topic.

Stay positive
Having a can-do attitude and looking for solutions rather than dwelling on problems can help you adapt more easily. If you’re a leader (we’re all leaders in some capacity), you should model the behavior you want to see from others. Have you ever experienced the power of a toxic attitude? A positive attitude can be just as infectious.

Manage your stress
High stress can hinder your ability to think clearly and adapt. Stress-relieving techniques like meditation, deep breathing, or physical exercise can help you detangle the knots that stress can create of an unpredictable or novel situation. Whenever I read about a new stress relief, meditation, or other self-care technique, I share it with my team so we can all benefit.

We adapt to new situations every day, even if we don’t realize it. Every time we get in our cars to take a routine trip to the store, we’re adapting to a new configuration of cars on the road, a group of cyclists, or a car speeding out of a driveway. Being skilled in situational adaptability means you are aware of the complexities in a given situation, and you can be flexible and act differently when required, because no two situations are exactly alike. If you can meet the needs of the moment, you will be more effective at any undertaking.

References

Bergland, C. (2013). Too much crystallized thinking lowers fluid intelligence. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201312/too-much-crystallized-thinking-lowers-fluid-intelligence

Bennet, N. & Lemoine, James G. (2014). What VUCA really means for you. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you

Drake K. (2018). How to hone situational awareness. Nurs Manage. Jun;49(6):56. doi: 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000533778.45038.38. PMID: 29846296.

Endsley, Mica. (1988). Design and Evaluation for Situation Awareness Enhancement. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. 32. 10.1177/154193128803200221