The challenge of persuading people to do anything fascinates me. That’s why I was so happy to meet retired fire chief Richard Gasaway.
Gasaway is a scholar-practitioner, having served 33 years as a first responder, including 22 years as a fire chief and emergency incident commander. His in-the-trenches experience is supplemented by his doctoral research on situational awareness and high-risk decision making.
We met when we both spoke at the Safety Institute’s annual conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June. His company, Situational Awareness Matters, helps companies identify opportunities to improve high-risk decision making outcomes and reduce near-miss and casualty incidents.
What is the persuasion takeaway from Gasaway? If you need to persuade people, a helpful tool is to develop your own persuasive process that you can teach.
Here is Gasaway’s six-step process to help persuade workers to complete rapid situational assessments, identify decision choices and improve the probability of a successful outcome:
Step 1: Size-up. “This requires a commitment to be all-in, paying attention, using all five senses to gather the clues and cues (think puzzle pieces) about what is happening in the environment. Caution: Distractions and interruptions can quickly pull attention off-task and derail awareness.”
Step 2: Comprehend. “This is sometimes referred to as sense-making – the ability to assemble the mental jigsaw puzzle pieces gathered during the size-up. The assembled puzzle helps you understand the scope of the problem. This includes having an awareness of how fast the conditions are changing as well. As conditions change, so should one’s understanding of the situation.”
Step 3: Decision options. “As solutions are contemplated, there should always be at least two options – Plan A and Plan B – to consider. Believing there is only one option can be dangerous. It is advisable to always have a standing Plan C: Do nothing, or run! Sometimes the best option is to do nothing (no intervention). And under certain conditions, the best option is to run from the problem (literally).”
Step 4: Predict outcomes. “It is a common belief that after a decision is made the next step is to implement the action plan. I would caution against this for it can cause an action to be implemented so quickly that no thought is given to whether the action will turn out well. Predication entails a momentary pause and a mental visualization of the decision option(s) put into action. This may be all that’s needed to see that the great decision engineered a few seconds ago may not be such a good idea. Predictions allow outcomes (good or bad) to be anticipated prior to implementation.”
Step 5: Implement. “Based on outcome predictions, the best decision option is implemented. In rapidly changing conditions, the implementation of an action plan must happen quickly. If there is a delay, conditions will change and the worker may get caught in a vortex of indecisiveness which can quickly lead to mental fatigue and analysis paralysis.”
Step 6: Monitor. “Once the decision is implemented, monitor the progression of the action plan. This starts the six-step cycle over again (back to size-up). The clues and cues being captured now are for the purpose of determining how well the action plan is working. Be alert for subtle indicators the plan may not be yielding the desired results. Adopt an inquisitive mindset by asking questions like: Is the plan working as well as predicted? What’s happening that was not expected? What’s going to happen next?”
Most workers and managers may know, intuitively, that being aware of your situation an important aspect of workplace safety. But persuading them to do the right thing is another matter.
