How to Develop the Situational Awareness of
Jason Bourne
There’s a scene at the beginning of The Bourne Identity where the film’s protagonist
is sitting in a diner, trying to figure out who he is and why he has a bunch of
passports and a gun stashed in a safety deposit box. Bourne also notices that
he, well, notices things that other people don’t. Watch:
That superhuman ability to observe his surroundings and make
detailed assessments about his environment? It’s not just a trait of
top secret operatives; it’s a skill known as situational awareness,
and you can possess it too.
As the names implies, situational awareness is simply knowing
what’s going on around you. It sounds easy in principle, but in reality
requires much practice. And while it is taught to soldiers, law enforcement
officers, and yes, government-trained assassins, it’s an important skill for
civilians to learn as well. In a dangerous situation, being aware of a threat
even seconds before everyone else can keep you and your loved ones safe.
But
it’s also a skill that can and should be developed for reasons outside of
personal defense and safety. Situational awareness is really just another word
for mindfulness, and developing mine has made me more cognizant of what’s going
on around me and more present in my daily
activities, which in turn has helped me make better decisions in all aspects of
my life.
I’ve spent months researching and talking to experts in the
tactical field about the nature of situational awareness, and below you’ll
find one of the most complete primers out there on how to gain this
important skill. While the focus is primarily on developing your situational
awareness to prevent or survive a violent attack, the principles
discussed can also help hone your powers of observation in all areas
of your life.
How to Develop Situational Awareness
Many of the resources out there on situational awareness say it
can be cultivated by generally keeping tabs on your surroundings — “checking
your six” and “keeping your back to the wall.”
This definition isn’t wrong. That’s exactly what situational
awareness is: knowing what’s going on by scanning your environment. But I
always found this explanation lacking. What exactly am I looking for? How do I
know if I’m paying attention to the right things? Are there behaviors or
warning signs of an imminent threat that I should know about?
Today we’re going to start by discussing the general principles
of increasing your observational abilities, and then dive deeper into
situational awareness itself to answer these important questions.
Observe +
Orient = Situational Awareness
The
thing that helped me finally understand situational awareness was framing it
within the OODA Loop. For those of you who haven’t read my in-depth article on this
important cognitive tool, here’s the CliffsNotes version:
The
OODA Loop is a learning system and decision-making process that was first laid
out by Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. The four steps of
the OODA Loop are Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. In a head-to-head competition,
like air-to-air combat, a violent confrontation in a parking lot, or even
political contests, the person who can cycle through the OODA Loop the fastest
wins.
Obviously, the Observe step in the loop is what most people
associate situational awareness with.
But
it’s the second step in the OODA Loop – Orient — that answered my questions
about what developing situational awareness actually involves. Orientation
tells us what we should look for when we’re
observing, and then puts those observations into context so we know what to do with the information.
So
Observe + Orient = Situational Awareness.
But how can we become better observers so that we can improve
our situational awareness? And how should we orient ourselves so that we
observe the right things and understand the context for what we’re seeing?
Observe: Stay in Condition Yellow
In
his seminal book, Principles of Personal Defense, gun-fighting expert Jeff Cooper laid out a color code system to help
warriors gauge their mindset for combat
scenarios. Each color represents a person’s potential state of awareness and
focus:
Condition Yellow is best described as “relaxed alert.” There’s
no specific threat situation, but you have your head up and you’re taking in
your surroundings with all your senses. Most people associate situational
awareness with just visual stimulation, but you can also learn a lot about a
particular scenario from the sounds (or lack thereof) and even smells in the
environment.
Even though your senses are slightly heightened in Condition
Yellow, it’s also important to stay relaxed. By adopting a calm demeanor, you
won’t bring any unnecessary attention to yourself. If you look antsy and your
head is swiveling frantically while you scan your surroundings, people are
going to notice you. Additionally, staying relaxed ensures that you maintain an
open focus, which allows you to take in more information about what’s going on
around you. Research shows that when we get nervous or stressed, our attention
narrows, causing us to concentrate on just a few things at a time. A
narrow focus can therefore cause us to miss important details in our
environment.
Look up from your smartphone, don’t zone out, open your eyes,
ears, and nose, and calmly scan your environment to take in what’s going on.
Besides staying in Condition Yellow, here are a few more tips to
improve your observational abilities:
Put
yourself in a position for optimal observation. To achieve effective situational awareness, you need to be able
to observe as much of your surroundings as possible. Positioning yourself in
obstructed spots will inhibit the flow of information coming in. For example,
something might be in your way that prevents you from seeing a bad guy enter a
theater or restaurant. You also don’t have eyeballs in the back of your head,
so you can’t see what’s going on behind you.
So
whenever you enter an environment, put yourself in a position that will allow
you to see as much as you can. My buddy Mike Seeklander atShooting Performance recommends finding a
place where you can view all or most of the exit points, and that allows you to
put your back to the wall. This position readies you to make a quick getaway,
and eliminates the possibility of failing to see a threat materialize behind
you.
Granted, this isn’t possible in all situations. You don’t have
much control as to which table a restaurant hostess seats you at on a busy
night, and you’d likely get a lot of strange looks if you stood with your back
in a corner while you’re waiting in line at Five Guys. So do your best within
the given circumstances. In that busy restaurant, you might not have control of
your table location, but you can choose which seat you take. Pick the chair
that gives you the best view from your table. When you’re standing in line at a
fast food restaurant, just nonchalantly look around and take in the scene.
Hone
your observation skills by playing the A-Game. Mike plays a game with his kids called the “A-Game,” or
Awareness Game, to help them (and himself) strengthen their observational
skills. To play, when you go into a business, make note of a few things about
your environment: the number of workers behind the counter, the clothing and
gender of the person sitting next to you, how many entry/exits there are, etc.
When you leave and get into the car to head home, ask your kids questions like
“How many workers were behind the counter?” “Was the person sitting next to us
a man or a woman?” “What color was his/her shirt?” “How many exits were there?”
It’s fun to play, but more importantly it’s training your kids
(and you) to be more mindful of their surroundings.
Master
memorization. Another fun activity
that will help improve your situational awareness is to practice memorizing
things. Bourne knew all the license plate numbers of the cars outside the
diner. You can gain this skill by practicing with a deck of cards, or strings of
numbers. Here’s a guide on how to gain
the ability to memorize anything you want.
Orient: Baselines, Goals, and Action Plans
Being more observant isn’t enough to master situational
awareness. You have to know what you’re looking for, and then put that
information into context so it has meaning and becomes actionable. That’s where
the Orient phase comes into play.
The Orient step provides three things to help us achieve
situational awareness: 1) baselines and anomalies for our particular
environment, 2) mental models of human behavior we should look for, and 3)
plans of action depending on our observations.
Establish a
Baseline Wherever You Go
Every environment and person has a baseline. A baseline is
what’s “normal” in a given situation, and it will differ from person to person
and environment to environment. For example, the baseline at a small coffee
shop will usually entail people reading a book or working on their computer or
speaking in hushed tones with their friends. The baseline at a rock concert
would be loud music and people looking at the stage while either jumping up and
down to the music or swaying their bodies to the beat.
We
establish baselines so that we can spot anomalies. According to Patrick Van
Horne, situational awareness expert, instructor of the Marine Combat Profiling
system, and author of Left of Bang, “Anomalies are things that either do not happen and should, or
that do happen and shouldn’t.” Anomalies are what direct our attention as we
take in our surroundings and what we need to focus on to achieve situational
awareness.
So the first step in orienting ourselves is to establish
baselines so that we can direct our attention to anomalies. How do we do that
on the fly? Van Horne suggests that you mentally ask yourself these questions
every time you enter a new environment:
§ Baseline Questions: What’s going on here? What’s the general mood of the place?
What’s the “normal” activity that I should expect here? How do most people
behave here most of the time?
§ Anomaly Question: What would cause someone or something to stand out?
Behavioral
Clusters to Look For
Our inability to pay attention to everything all at once makes
it impossible to obtain complete situational awareness. The human mind can
only handle so much information at a given time. Thus in the domain of personal
safety, where things unfold quickly and seconds are often the difference
between life and death, how we direct our attention is paramount.
So we need to focus on a few things at a time that provide the
most bang for our attentional buck. And we do that, Van Horne argues, by
relying on heuristics. Heuristics are quick and dirty problem-solving and
decision-making mental shortcuts our minds use to figure things out when
minimal information is available and time is limited. Decisions made from
heuristics aren’t always perfect, but in the context of your personal safety,
they’re usually good enough.
In Left
of Bang, Van Horne lays out six domains of human behavior that
Marine Combat Profilers use on the battlefield in order to quickly determine
whether someone is a friend or foe. To get an idea of what civilians should
look for in everyday situations, I interviewed Van Horne for this article. He
told me the most important category of clues is what he calls kinesics, an area
of behavior that involves people’s conscious and subconscious body language.
Within the domain of kinesics, three clusters of body language
are of particular interest for situational awareness. They are:
dominance/submissive behavior, comfortable/uncomfortable behavior, and
interested/uninterested behavior.
Dominance/submissive
behavior. Generally, most
people try to get along with others, so for the most part people act in
accommodating and submissive ways. Van Horne writes that dominant behavior “is
an expression of the limbic system’s fight response” and often manifests itself
in “gestures and postures that make a person look larger to intimidate
‘smaller’ individuals into submission.” Smaller vs. bigger here doesn’t just
apply to physical size, however, but also relates to relative positions of
power.
Because most people get along to get along, dominant behavior
often constitutes an anomaly, and the person displaying it deserves more
attention. If someone acts in a pushy, authoritative, or overbearing way, it
doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a threat; context matters. You’d expect a boss
to act dominant in relation to their employees and the employees to act
submissive to their boss, but seeing extreme dominant behavior exhibited by a
customer towards an employee isn’t as common. That’s something to keep an eye
on.
Comfortable/uncomfortable
behavior. Most people are
going to look relatively comfortable in most situations. Think about a bus or a
subway ride — passengers generally appear pretty relaxed while they stare out
the window or read a book. If someone looks uncomfortable, that’s an anomaly
that warrants extra attention, but it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a
threat. They could be distressed because they’re late for work or maybe they
just heard some bad news about a relative. Again, it’s just something to keep
your eye on.
Van Horne says that a common display of uncomfortable behavior
you’ll see from individuals up to no good is that they’re “checking their six.”
This is when a person looks over their shoulder to see what’s behind them or
generally scans their surroundings. People who are comfortable generally don’t
do this because they don’t feel any threat. So if you see a guy looking over
his shoulder a lot when he should be standing there aloof, that’s an anomaly
that should get your attention.
Now obviously, “checking your six” is something that
situationally aware good guys do too. If you’re doing it right, it shouldn’t be
noticeable to others, but it takes practice, and some guy with his head on a
swivel might still be green. But until you verify that through further
observation, be suspicious.
On the flipside, someone acting comfortable when everyone else
is uncomfortable would be an anomaly. One of the ways law enforcement was able
to identify the Boston Marathon bombers was that they noticed in surveillance
footage that the men looked relatively calm while everyone else was running
around in a panic. The reason they looked calm was because they knew the
explosion was going to happen and thus weren’t surprised by it, while everyone
else was caught off guard.
Interested/uninterested
behavior. Most people aren’t
paying attention to their environment. They’re too caught up in their own
thoughts or whatever it is they’re doing. So individuals who are showing
interest in a particular person or object that most people wouldn’t be
interested in is an anomaly that warrants further observation.
These three body language clusters establish baselines for every
situation in which we find ourselves and allow us to direct our limited
attention towards things that are potentially more important and/or dangerous.
If a person’s behavior across these clusters fits the baseline for that
particular circumstance, you can pretty much ignore them. If their behavior
doesn’t fit the baseline, they’re an anomaly and you should observe them more
closely.
Other
Behavioral Threat Indicators
Besides the above three kinesic clusters, Marine Combat
Profilers are taught to look out for a couple other behaviors that could apply
to civilian situations as well:
Shifty
hands. Military and law
enforcement officers typically check the hands first on any person with which
they’re engaging. This is for two reasons. First, “checking the hands of a
person ensures that the person is not holding a weapon and is not preparing to
strike,” writes Van Horne. Second, hands often telegraph hidden nefarious
intentions. People who are concealing something they don’t want discovered,
like a gun, knife, or stolen object, “will often touch or pat that area on the
body where that object is concealed, as if to ensure the object has not been
lost or is still hidden from view.”
“Acting
Natural.” It’s difficult to
“act natural” when you’re not completely focused on whatever it is you’re
really supposed to be doing. People “acting natural” will appear distracted and
over- or under-exaggerate their movements. Insurgents in Afghanistan will often
try to act like farmers, when they’re in fact attempting to collect
information on U.S. military patrols. Marine Combat Profilers are trained to
look for these “farmers” who appear to be trying too hard.
Have a Plan of Action Based on What You Observe
You visit your favorite coffee shop and a bad guy with a gun
decides to drop in as well. But because you’ve followed the principles above,
you’re the first to see him as a threat. Great. But what are you going to do
about it? Seconds matter here. You don’t have time to formulate a
well-thought-out plan. What’s more, the stress of the event will muddle your
thinking and decision-making.
In addition to asking yourself the baseline and anomaly
questions every time you enter an environment, Van Horne suggests you ask
yourself a third question: “What would I do if I saw an anomaly?” In other
words, come up with an action plan.
So let’s go back to the coffee shop example. Let’s say the
anomaly for which you want to create an action plan is “guy comes in with a
gun.” The best course of action in this scenario depends on a few things. And
knowing what those few things are requires you to be situationally aware. If
the robber came in from the front door and you’re near the rear exit, your best
action would be to book it out the back door right away. On the other hand, if
he entered through the back exit near you, according to the Department of
Homeland Security, your best action would be to immediately close the gap
between him and you and incapacitate him.
Establish baselines. Look for anomalies. Have a plan.
That’s what situational awareness comes down to.
Situational Awareness as a Preventive Tactic
Animals are creatures of opportunity. They’ll typically only
attack another creature if they look vulnerable. Lions will go after younger,
sicker, or older gazelles because they’re easier to catch. The same goes with
humans. Criminals are typically going to go after a person who looks
vulnerable, whether the victim is physically weaker or will simply be easy to
catch off guard.
Practicing situational awareness goes a long way in keeping you
from appearing like an easy target. When you’re out and about, look alert. Get
your nose out of your smartphone. When you’re walking back to your car at
night, have your keys at the ready and constantly scan your surroundings. The
less vulnerable you look, the less likely someone is going to mess with you.
Here’s
another tip on not looking like a victim, from the guys at Sage Dynamics: Always keep a tactical flashlight on you and bust it out at nighttime. Having a light allows you to
better observe in the darkness, but it can also act as a deterrent to would-be
bad guys. Because law enforcement officers are usually the only ones shining
flashlights down alleys and under cars, if you’re shining your light as you
walk to your destination or back to your car, the bad guys are probably going
to think you’re a cop and will likely just leave you alone. If worst comes to
worst and you do end up getting jumped, you can use the tactical flashlight as
a defensive tool by blinding your would-be attacker with the bright beam or
even hitting him with the beveled edge that’s often built into the handle.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Situational awareness is a mindset that you have to purposefully
cultivate. You want to get to the point that it’s just something you do without
having to think about it. To get to that point, you have to practice it
regularly. Starting today, consciously remind yourself to look for entry/exit
points whenever you enter a new building. Start observing people and
establishing baselines and generating possible anomalies while you’re at work,
at the gym, or on a date. And then start coming up with action plans on what
you would do in that specific situation if you see a possible threat. Don’t be
paranoid, just mindful. Do that day in and day out, and situational awareness
won’t be something you have to intentionally think about, just something you do
naturally. And not fake farmer natural, but Jason Bourne natural.
Until next time, keep your head on a swivel, check your six, and
keep your back to the wall.
I believe this article was written by; Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley
I believe this article was written by; Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley
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