Leadership

These are the first responder situational awareness and decision making issues and opportunities related to leadership.

Episode 177 | Time to Task Completion

  This episode explores how knowing the time to task completion can aid in the development of situational awareness. Length: 30 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen         _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check out the Situational […]

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Episode 175 | Positive Reinforcement of Undesired Behavior

  This episode explores how the positive reinforcement of undesired behavior can impact first responder safety. Length: 22 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen         _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational awareness and high-risk decision making to a higher level, check out the Situational Awareness Matters Online

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Situational Awareness Matters!

Begin With The End In Mind

One of the essential components of well-developed situational awareness is being able to accurately predict the future. This prediction should be made during the initial scene size up and then it should be updated often as the incident progresses. In this segment, the need to begin with the end in mind will be explored and

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Assumptions can be a situational awareness barrier

  We make assumptions every day. Some of them are accurate. Others are not. Assumptions occur when there is an absence of complete information. Such is the case at just about every emergency scene you respond to. Let’s explore how we make assumptions.

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Are You Assuming Risk or Creating Risk?

I recently read an article where the author was taking exception to the risk management maxim: ‘We will risk a lot to save a lot and risk little to save little.’ There are several variations on this maxim, including: ‘Great risks will be taken to save savable lives; Moderate risks will be taken to save

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Episode 169 | Situational Awareness Insanity – Part 5

Albert Einstein is credited with saying “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.” This is the final segment of a 5-part series that explores situational awareness insanity. Length: 26 minutes click the YouTube icon to listen     _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of situational

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Aggressive versus conservative

There is an ongoing debate in the fire service. Unless you are unplugged from social media and online journals, you’re surely aware of it. On one end of the argument are those who believe the fire service is tactically too aggressive and purport this may be contributing to casualties. On the other side of the

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A Must-See Safety Video

I would like to recommend that you all watch this video created by the Chicago Fire Department, depicting the [clickandtweet handle=”richgasaway” hashtag=”samatters” related=”samatters” layout=”” position=””]powerful life stories of firefighters who have been injured or killed.[/clickandtweet]

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Episode 159 | Dangerous Mindsets – The Synergist

This episode is the final installment of a nine-part serious on dangerous mindsets that first responders can develop and I offer some advice for dealing with each. This week we talk about the synergist mindset. Length: 24 minutes Click the YouTube icon to listen     _____________________________________________________ If you are interested in taking your understanding of

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Meta Awareness

  Developing and maintaining situational awareness at an emergency scene can be a very challenging task. Scenes are often stressful, complex, time-compressed, and complicated with rapidly-changing conditions. Responders have lots of information to process and many tasks to perform. And, sadly, situational awareness isn’t always the forefront on their minds. Under such conditions, meta awareness

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