Leaders know their business, their customers, their competitors, their operating environment, the inherent risks, the priorities of the day. Most are experienced leaders. As the saying goes “never try to beat someone at their own game.”

Someone is wrong

How can two leaders, or two different organizations have divergent views of the same situation? One of these leaders is wrong, and doesn’t know it.

The other one see’s something, knows something, or believes something that the other does not. One might say they “have good radar,” or that they “have a good sense for the situation,” or that “they trust their gut.”

This might be experience, or instinct, or innate capability. Or it might be the results of a long and arduous project sometimes referred to a market and competitive intelligence report.

But it is more than that.

External and Internal Awareness

Situational awareness is about having readily available insights, information, and trusted sources that focus on the priority issues at hand, without getting lost in the daily details. It provides insights about the changing external environment, and the status of the internal operation.

Often, there is a lack of information, or bad information ‘noise’ that clutters and distracts leaders when a decision is needed. Perhaps this is due to a communication breakdown, or due to a rapidly changing and ambiguous external environment. Perhaps this is due to middle managers slightly distorting the reality with an overly optimistic view.

It a communication environment, this is referred to as filtering ‘signal from the noise.’

Seeking Decision Clarity

The need for clarity is acute during times of disruption and uncertainty, when there is less trust in the normal channels, and less clarity about the best path forward. Organizations build their situational awareness capabilities to manage this, and the needs vary by organization.

On a large ship, this is the Captain’s deck. At an airport, it’s the air-traffic control tower. In the US military, it’s the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the War Room. During an natural disaster, it’s the Incident Command Post.

Early Warning of Disruption

Experienced leaders recognize that disruption may comes from anywhere.

Leaders leverage their Situation Assessment capabilities to identify and focus on the things that are mission-critical for the organization. To deliver results today, tomorrow, and next year.

Leaders also know that ‘perfect’ information is elusive, or impossible, or received too late. They can’t wait, they need to decide based on the best information available.

Building Strategic Resilience as a competitive advantage requires an acceleration and improvement in the ability to gather real-time Situational Awareness, and make decisions accordingly.