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We navigate our world in two distinct ways...

Firstly, we make sense of our surroundings by piecing together what we know and filling in the gaps to complete a jigsaw of understanding, ensuring that everything is in its rightful place. We have control of the certainty we need. We use jigsaws of understanding for passing exams, mastering technical skills, and achieving perfect organization.

Secondly, we use situational awareness (the fluid, ever-evolving, and organic flowing relationships between everyone and everything around us) to make subtle adjustments that lead to quick and significant improvements. The dynamic fluid nature of situational awareness means it can’t be a piece of a jigsaw of understanding. Situational Awareness can only exist outside of our jigsaw of understanding. We can only experience situational awareness. Not understand it.

The purpose of Situational Awareness Coaching is to activate situational awareness that has been turned off due to an excessive focus on what needs to be controlled to achieve certainty of outcome, so that people stop missing out on a genuinely human experience. Situational Awareness Coaches must be aware of when someone is in a jigsaw of understanding and must NOT join them. If they have to, they should walk away and end the coaching. Situational Awareness Coaches must not draw anyone into their jigsaw of understanding.

We lose situational awareness when we pay attention to what we need to control to get certainty of outcome.

If we don’t switch our situational awareness back on, we lose the ability to value lived experiences in the wider context around us. Over time, we learn to only value facts. Our relationships become mechanical and procedural and revolve around control. Loved ones who risk telling us to switch our situational awareness on are trying to control us. We end up living a more machine-like existence, unaware that we are sacrificing a truly human experience.

It's easy to believe that if we can't control the delivery of outcomes we have nothing else to add. We know a genuinely human experience of life is much more than this.

A way to back to situational awareness is to experience quick and meaningful improvements from those around us, making minor adjustments to the timing and spacing of their lived relationships.

Situational Awareness Coaches take players through a 3-step process. Players experience achieving quick and significant performance gains by making small adjustments in timing and spacing, even if the concept is not fully understood. Through these experiences, players learn to see the organic, ever-changing flow of relationships with those around them. Players have a genuine human experience.

Step 1: Release the belief that if we cannot control outcomes, we have nothing valuable to offer.

Step 2: Empty our minds of all thoughts of control.

Step 3: Allow the natural flow of relationships between everyone around us to reveal a moment of action that creates something new.

We analyze what happened, not to repeat it but to help build confidence that we can create something new from the relationships between people around us.

Students

Situational Awareness Coaches help players switch on their situational awareness—often turned off—to focus on pass exams. Players become more resilient as they feel more connected to a genuinely human experience.

Athletes

Situational Awareness Coaches provide quick and significant improvement in team play by showing players how to make minor adjustments in timing and spacing.

Employees

Situational Awareness Coaches help employees switch on their situational awareness—often turned off—to focus on what they need to control to get certainty of outcome. Employees become more creative as they feel more connected to a genuinely human experience.

1. The first video is Dr Iain McGilchrist explaining how the brain pays attention to the world (We recommend reading Iain's book "The matter with things". Iain has also given many talks that are shared on youtube

2. The second video is Jon Thorne explaining how Dr Iain McGilchrist work applies to the process of playing sports

3. The third video explains how putting to much attention onto the details of control - lowers situational awareness

4. The fourth video provides an example of how what we pay attention to - impacts what we see.

5. The fifth and sixth video's explains how this plays out in a game

More examples on Jon's youtube channel

The next video explains the three steps to lift situational awareness lowered by paying too much attention to what we can control

About Jon Thorne

In the realm of coaching situational awareness, the greatest challenge lies not in elite sports but in working with individuals on the autism spectrum. This is due to the fact that an autistic brain often has no awareness of the existence of the organic flowing relationships between everyone and everything around us. A skilled situational awareness coach can still give autistic individuals an experience of situational awareness.

The governance team

We make sure members follow their peer review process

LOUISE HOSKING

30+ years experience working with business leaders in organisations of all sizes and a range of sectors to achieve positive culture change using my professional skills as a positive driver to add value enabling organisations to achieve their operational aspirations and beyond.

An unconventional entrepreneur, influencer and transformational leader adept at working across all levels. I’m motivated by the potential our profession has to unlock the abilities of people to support one another to, in turn, create a healthy world to live, work, do business and create communities which thrive. By releasing people to be the best they can be we will create psychological safety with teams and supplychains who trust one another. From here, we achieve true sustainability via local, national and global networks. Together we will step up to meet the very many, and very real, challenges we are currently facing around the world today.

I thrive in a business environment. I know what it means to juggle distractions, complexities, conflicting priorities; and manage/plan resources. I’m adept at creating high performing teams to achieve transformative objectives which evolve into smarter working solutions that empower people to be the best they can be. In turn, culture is transformed to create a vibrant organisation with the energy to achieve its goals and go further.

Currently Executive Director of Environmental Health at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health creating visibility via our members for a profession which spans health protection in and out of work. I’m also Director of the OneWISH coalition a social enterprise supporting Women & Inclusion

In Nov 2021 I was elected as the 55th #IOSH President & Chair of IOSH council. I used my skills to transform the elected council, working closely with the board and executive teams to create new foundations in a post pandemic world and culture change. My theme was #People #Sustainability and putting ❤️ into #Health & #Safety.I’m proud of the professional approach now established across council. This means the member voice is being heard more clearly than ever before with much closer board working relationships. What we do is more than process it’s about people and compassion. As only the 7th woman to hold the role I also hope I have inspired others.

I am persistently consistent and consistently persistent practiced in starting from the start and achieving positive transformation in an exciting and engaging manner, at the right cadence, to achieve lasting change starting with just one conversation at a time.

STUART MARSHALL

Stuart is an experienced outdoor instructor with over 30 years of commercial outdoor teaching experience. He is a national instructor for scuba diving and also a cave leader, bushcraft instructor, and river guide with a particular interest in exploring the remote rivers of Scandinavia. He spent many years working at the Leadership Trust when it was the UK's foremost management training centre.
He is also a company director of his own First Aid Training business with clients as diverse as the Forestry Commission, Imperial College, Birmingham University, and the Natural History Museum. He has used neurodivergent thinking to develop a unique one-day blended First Aid at Work course (plus two days of eLearning) that massively frees up staff time (compared to a traditional 3-day classroom-based course).

Stuart also chairs the Advisory panel for the First Aid Industry Body, the UK’s foremost governing body for independent First Aid training companies. He has also held national positions with the Sub-Aqua Association one of two British Scuba Diving Governing Bodies.

Stuart’s qualifications are diverse from an academic PhD in Microbiology to H&S and leadership qualifications plus video production, animation, etc

Stuart has been working with Jon Thorne for many years and being neurodivergent himself understands the aims of the awarding body and the benefits to those who take part.

IAIN BOWLER

Iain qualified as a lawyer in 1988 specialising in M&A, stock exchange and complex commercial and joint venture work. Between 1998 and 2002, Iain was Director of Corporate Finance at a corporate industrial developer headquartered in the UK and USA. He joined one of the world’s largest law firms in 2002 and was global Co-Chair of the Commercial Contracts and Franchise and Distribution Groups for 10 years before joining Freeths as National Head of Commercial in 2019.

Freeths is a UK top 50 law firm with offices in 12 cities in the UK. The firm employs over 1,000 lawyers and support personnel and in the last financial year had fee income in excess of £110 million.

Professional expertise

Iain’s work involves commercial transactions of all descriptions, including outsourcing, offshoring, manufacturing, consultancy, services and service level agreements, procurement of goods and services, supply chain management, logistics, international trade and capital asset procurement, and maintenance. Iain also advises clients in relation to the many different ways of delivering goods and services to market, both within the UK and internationally, including direct sale, agency, distribution, e-commerce, and business format franchising.

Iain also advises in relation to domestic and multi-jurisdictional structured joint ventures, partnerships and strategic alliances, providing advice on appropriate deal structures and delivery mechanisms relating to national and multi-jurisdictional transactions.

Iain is ranked as a “leading individual” for commercial and franchise work in The Legal 500 and Chambers, is listed in the global Who’s Who Legal for franchise work and is an Acritas™ Star Lawyer. Iain is an Affiliate Member of the British Franchise Association and contributing editor of Global Legal Group’s “International Comparative Legal Guide: Franchise”.

Other information

Iain lives in Hertfordshire, is married to Victoria (also a Partner in an international law firm) and has 4 children. He is a keen sportsman with interests in rugby, snowboarding and all forms of motorsport. He is an RFU accredited junior rugby coach and referee.