The Four Noble Truths is an SBAR

Miscommunication results in unnecessary and disastrous errors while engaged in “battle”. While in the chaos of battle, communication between team members is severely hampered. If communication were consistently structured, succinct, and deeply ingrained in the team’s culture, information could be passed with higher fidelity. That structure should identify the problem, provide some background on the context, describe a conceptual solution, and lay out the steps.

SBAR is an acronym of such a structuring for clear communication. It was developed by the military towards the purpose of communicating in an unambiguous, readily digestible manner where misunderstanding and/or delay is extremely costly.  The components of SBAR are as follows:

• Situation – This is our problem. Before solving a problem, we need to clearly identify and define the problem.
• Background – Information about the current situation. This is like a learning phase.
• Assessment – Exploring options. This is the thinking phase.
• Recommendation – This is what we’ve decided as the course of action. This is the tactical, doing phase.

The first paragraph of this blog is in fact my attempt at using SBAR to describe SBAR.

It’s not surprising to imagine that enterprises dealing with life and death matters such as the military would develop such a structure of communication. But it’s found its way into civilian enterprises. For example, many healthcare enterprises have adopted this recommended structure for communication. In fact, I was introduced to SBAR as the recommended form for structuring email while working at a hospital. My job itself wasn’t on the “front lines” as it is for the doctors and nurses, but it was being woven into the culture of the hospital.

I noticed that The Buddha indeed is a great communicator, way ahead of his time, as the Four Noble Truths are an SBAR:

• Situation – Suffering. We suffer from physical pain, from loss, from impending loss.
• Background – The Cause of Suffering. We suffer because we cling to things, all of which are impermanent in our relentlessly changing world.
• Assessment – The Cessation of Suffering. If we remove clinging, we stop resistance to what is right before us, and can flow with harmoniously through the Universe.
• Recommendation – The Path to the Cessation of Suffering. The Eight-Fold Path.

I think I chose to write a blog on this because I keep the Four Noble Truths example in my mind as my SBAR template as I compose emails at work every day. It’s a very nice way to fold Buddhism into my daily life at my day job – which is nothing like a temple … hahaha.

I’d like to point out before I end this post that this is just a method of expression. Actually performing background (discovery, learning), assessment (analysis, engineering), and recommendation (execution, doing) is an iterative process. For example, during assessment we often need to go back and gather more information, and during execution we will run into unplanned obstacles requiring adjustment to the plan.

These are the best links I’ve found on SBAR, The Four Noble Truths, and the Eight-Fold Path:

• SBAR Tool – Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• SBAR – Wikipedia
• BBC – Four Noble Truths
• Lion’s Roar – Four Noble Truths