The problem with fingerspitzengefühl, in addition to difficult pronunciation - is knowing how much data a person needs in order to maintain situational awareness without it being too much. Today we have data coming at us from every direction. In fact, as I am writing this article I was notified that my security camera detected humans at my front door. I now have situational awareness, but at the cost of distraction. What is really needed is not just any information, but information that will materially impact one's ability to succeed.Fingerspitzengefühl: The literal translation of this German word is finger tip feelings. It is used to describe one's ability to maintain situational awareness by receiving real-time data.
Layers of GIS Maps
In days of old, having fingerspitzengefühl in a military operation was achieved by scouting around, interrogating the local farmers and drawing 2 dimensional maps in the sand. Today we can add many additional dimensions of information that can be added to a map including:
- Altitude
- Time when someone or something arrives at a location on a map
- Start and stop times for various tasks completed at a location
- Travel times between locations on the map
- Traffic conditions
- Available workforces and associated costs at various locations
- Available equipment at various locations
- Activities happening at various locations
- Events scheduled at various locations
- Business processes involving different locations
- Expenses incurred at different locations
- Security steps taking place at different locations
- Transactions happening at a location
- Compliance tasks happening at a location
- Performances against KPIs (key performance indicators) at a location
- What Actors (customers, partners, suppliers, contractors, employees, etc.) are associated with a location?
- Relationships between actors at a work location
- Contract/Agreements related to a location
- Supplies, materials and equipment tracking at a location
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| Blitzkrieg |
With enhanced fingerspitzengefühl, new strategies can and must be developed. In support of that statement let me share a lesson from history. During the period between WWI and WWII, all Western countries added new innovations which included tanks and military aircraft to their inventory of weapons supporting their infantry. The Germans, however, did something other countries didn't do. They added new strategies to go along with the new technologies:
- Added radios and radio frequencies so tanks, infantry and aircraft could all communicate and work together.
- Developed unified and coordinated action plans so the three different groups could achieve greater success through coordination.
- Changed to mission oriented command structures – so field officers could act quickly based upon what they were seeing and experiencing on the frontlines without waiting for HQ to approve. HQ defined the mission “intent”, but the details of how to accomplish the intent were left to frontline officers involved in the action.
A maxim I often share in my workshop is, "New technologies without new strategies are wasted." So go ahead and enhance your fingerspitzengefühl with new technologies, but don't waste them.
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Kevin Benedict
Futurist/Founder
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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
