Are you situationally aware?
Situational awareness: being aware of what’s happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact your goals and objectives.
This is how Wikipedia defines this concept that’s been bandied about a lot lately, since those Northwest (DAL) pilots got distracted on their laptops and flew wayyyy beyond Minneapolis, their destination. Whatever the rogue navigators were viewing or doing on their mini computer screens, they were oblivious to the world and to their job.
So situational unawareness can be dangerous these days.
I’ve thought about the concept a lot, actually, even before it came into vogue. Walking down Broadway to work each morning, I stare at my BlackBerry, thumb poised on my rollerball. I’m oblivious to traffic, at my peril.
Others around me are oblivious, but immobile. The New York Times recently published a rant on cellphone users who stand in the middle of sidewalks and subway stairways. “This new brand of boor,” the writer called these people. The blog post drew an avalanche of comments from readers.
Situational awareness is a challenge for every leader, from President Obama on down. “The hardest thing about my job is staying focused,” the President told 60 Minutes. And as I pointed out in a Postcard called “How the best bosses find focus,” former CEOs Meg Whitman of EBAY (EBAY), Anne Mulcahy of Xerox (XRX) and A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble (PG) are just a few of the corporate leaders who say that knowing what not to do is as key to success as knowing what to do.
Avon (AVP) chairman and CEO Andrea Jung, who is on the boards of Apple (AAPL) and General Electric (GE), made this same point to me last week. We were talking about Steve Jobs, actually, and Jung noted that “tightness of vision” has been one of the many reasons Apple consistently stays on course and rarely falters.
And then there’s the master of situational awareness in sports: Derek Jeter, who we’ll see tonight when the Yankees meet the Phillies in Game 1 of the World Series. In a fascinating story about the Yankee captain in the New York Times today, Jeter contends that his success is based on “simplifying things.” He’s better than almost anyone–in baseball, at least–at reducing the clutter that can overwhelm players, especially All-Stars in the spotlight. The story offers lessons for any leader–or anybody aspiring to stay in a job.
Matt, you’re right. The Denver area was where the wayward San Diego-Minneapolis flight last made radio contact. Thanks, and I removed the incorrect Denver reference in the post.
Pattie,
The term situational awareness has been in use a long time. In my profession as a US Air Force fighter pilot in the 1980’s, we used the term SA (situational awareness)in just about every other sentence while briefing or debriefing a mission. Maintaining or losing your SA during the mission was the difference between life or death for you and others on the same mission. Air Force pilots have been using situational awareness (SA) for many years and will so for many more due to its strong meaning and importance.
When you write an article, at least try to get the facts right. The pilots were flying from San Diego to Minneapolis. So, if they overflew their destination, it would put them east of Minneapolis, not over Denver(which last time I checked, is a little further than 150 miles from Minneapolis and to west as well).
Tory Burch: Helping women and families in the U.S.Co-founder and creative director of Tory Burch LLC
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Patricia Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Can Meg Whitman Save California?", Melinda Gates ("The $100 Billion Woman"), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). And she has broken ground with insightful pieces on career management issues such as ego ("Get Over Yourself!"), and "Charisma: Do You Need It? Can You Get It?" Pattie chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. And she has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" cover package since its launch in 1998. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big consumer brand companies.
Jessica Shambora started with Fortune as a reporter in June of 2008, following a stint as assistant editor at Travel+Leisure Golf. Shambora has written for Sports Illustrated, SI Latino, Women's Health, and Triathlete. She is a frequent contributor to Postcards. 
As David Campbell of the Center for Creative Leadership says, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.” It is a combination of staying in touch with your own goals while monitoring how the outside world is influencing your path. I’d like to add to the situational awareness equation an interest in others’ goals as well. In my experience, effective leaders are also able to keep their goals in relation to the others they are leading, thus acheiving shared goals and aims.
Robert M. Burnside