Question

For this assignment you will write a reflective essay, where you will analyze how SCARF impacts you personally within your career. If you are not working, it can be a former career.

You will analyze the elements of; Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Fairness, and Relatedness in general and then provide examples to develop a framework of how you personally respond to each element within your current workplace. You may use your assessment results from the unit one work to support your discussion.

Finally, discuss how the SCARF model and your assessment results either confirmed aspects that you already believed about yourself or whether they are at odds with your self-perception of yourself within an organizational group.

Answer 1

SCARF : A BRAIN BASED MODEL MODEL FOR COLLABORATING WITH OR INFLUENCING OTHERS

The SCARF model of behavior is a relatively new theory, having first been published in 2008 by David Rock. The word SCARF is an acronym, which stands for:

• Status – the relative importance to others.
• Certainty – the ability to predict future.
• Autonomy – the sense of control over events.
• Relatedness – the sense of safety with others.
• Fairness – the perception of fair exchanges.

The basic premise of the SCARF model is the assumption the brain makes us behave in certain ways, which are to minimize threats and maximize rewards. While the brain takes a threat and reward approach to primary needs, such as food and water, the theory argues this same also happens with social needs.

UNDERSTANDING THE FIVE DOMAIN

Status is about relative importance to others. Certainty concerns being able to predict the future. Autonomy provides a sense of control over events. Relatedness is a sense of safety with others, of friend rather than foe. And fairness is a perception of fair exchanges between people.

These five domains activate either the ‘primary reward’ or ‘primary threat’ circuitry (and associated networks) of the brain. For example, a perceived threat to one’s status activates similar brain networks to a threat to one’s life. in the same way, a perceived increase in fairness activates the same reward circuitry as receiving a monetary reward.

The model enables people to more easily remember, recognize, and potentially modify the core social domains that drive human behavior. Labelling and understanding these drivers draws conscious awareness to otherwise non conscious processes, which can help in two ways. Firstly, knowing the drivers that can cause a threat response enables people to design interactions to minimize threats. For example, knowing that a lack of autonomy activates a genuine threat response, a leader or educator may consciously avoid micromanaging their employees or students. Secondly, knowing about the drivers that can activate a reward response enables people to motivate others more effectively by tapping into internal rewards, thereby reducing the reliance on external rewards such as money. For example, a line manager might grant more autonomy as a reward for good performance.

     A). Status

Status relates to the individual’s sense of worth. We all have internal status structures created, which help us model the workplace in social and organizational context. In fact, status is among the key drivers when it comes to workplace behavior.

The perception of a threat or the actual reduction in status tends to generate a strong threat reaction. It’s therefore an important domain to understand when it comes to influencing people’s behavior.

   B) Certainty –

clarity and certainty are important. A person’s brain uses fewer resources in familiar situations than unfamiliar ones. And working with a lack of clarity can increase a person’s stress levels and impair their ability to make effective balanced decisions.

C) Autonomy

While the domain of certainty was about predicting the future, autonomy is about having a sense of control. It could be control over events, over the work environment, or even over the choices we might have.In simple terms, the more choices you can give people, then the higher their level or feeling of autonomy is likely to be. More autonomy is pleasurable, less autonomy is painful.

Performance reviews are a typical workplace example where a worker might feel a lack of autonomy. Believe it or not, feedback is perceived as a threat and triggers pain centres in the brain.A way of increasing autonomy in this situation would be to let the person give you feedback on their own performance, ’If I were to give you feedback what do you think that would be in relation to this particular area?’Keep in mind that it takes trust to pull this off correctly. You don’t want your team member to feel like it’s a trap so to speak or a test. Present it as a genuine opportunity for her or him to make a valuable contribution to the process.​Autonomy can also be given by empowering team members to solve their own problems. Often they might come to you with a question that has a hidden agenda. They may want you to make a decision about something because it takes them off the hook if it turns out to be wrong.

   D) Relatedness

Since the human brain is a social machine, the relatedness we feel to other people influences our decision making to a greater extent. We are designed to build groups that rely on mutual trust and work together against uncertainty.

Group activity and a higher sense of relatedness influences the production of oxytocin in our brain. This chemical is behind positive emotions and the feeling of trust, and therefore essential for group collaboration.

   E) Fairness

While it might well be true that ‘life isn’t fair’ that doesn’t mean that fairness isn’t a value worth pursuing. In the workplace, this boils down to the concept of having fair exchange between people, having the same set of rules and expectations of each other.Having an agreed set of standards among the team is a great place to start. If you don’t have one already, make that an agenda item for your next team meeting.

Of course, you may also need to apply a bit of flex to the rules and standards from time to time, you may need to cut someone some slack due to a personal or professional context. Where appropriate, explain this to other team members, but don’t let it become normal conduct. All this does is lower the standards and compromise the fairness principle, which will inevitably cause pain in the team.

Equally, fairness applies to reward and recognition. Do team members get acknowledgement commensurate with their actions or do you favour some team members over others?

The wider implications of the scarF model

• Managing oneself

The SCARF model helps individuals both minimize threats and maximize rewards inherent in everyday experience. For minimizing threats, knowing about the domains of SCARF helps one to label and reappraise experiences that might otherwise reduce performance. Labelling (Lieberman et al, 2007) and reappraisal (ochsner & Gross, 2005) are cognitive tools that have been verified in brain studies to be effective techniques for reducing the threat response. These techniques have been shown to be more effective at reducing the threat response than the act of trying to suppress an emotion (Goldin et al, 2007). Knowing about the elements of SCARF helps one understand issues such as why you can’t think clearly when someone has attacked your status, instead of just trying to push the feeling aside.

Knowing the domains of SCARF also allows an individual to design ways to motivate themselves more effectively. An example might be focusing attention on increasing one’s sense of autonomy during a time of uncertainty, such as focusing on the thrill of doing whatever you like when suddenly out of work.

• education and training

Successful educators, trainers and facilitators intuitively use the SCARF model. They know that people learn best when they are interested in something. interest is an approach state. Teaching children who feel threatened, disconnected, socially rejected or treated unfairly is an uphill battle. For example, educators can create a nurturing learning environment by pointing out specifically how people are improving, which increases a sense of status. This is particularly important when learning anything new, which can create a threat response. educators can also create certainty by presenting clear outlines of what is being learned, and provide a perception of some autonomy by introducing choice into the classroom. The key here is for educators, trainers and coaches to value the approach state as the necessary state for learning, and to put effort and attention into maintaining this toward state.

• coaching

Personal and executive coaching can increase all five SCARF domains. Status can be increased through regular positive feedback, attention to incremental improvements, and the achievement of large goals. Certainty can be increased

by identifying central goals, and subsequently reducing the uncertainty inherent in maintaining multiple focuses. Breaking down large goals into smaller steps increases certainty about how a goal can be reached. Finding ways to take action when challenges appear insurmountable can increase autonomy. Relatedness can be increased through the relationship with the coach. Fairness can be reduced through seeing situations from other perspectives. The SCARF model helps explain why coaching can be so effective at facilitating change, and points to ways of improving its delivery.

The SCARF model points to more creative ways of motivating that may not just be cheaper, but also stronger and more sustainable.

• leadership development

The SCARF model provides a robust scientific framework for building self-awareness and awareness of others amongst leaders. Many new leaders may negatively impact the domains of SCARF by accident. They may know how things should be done, and subsequently provide too much direction and not enough positive feedback, thereby affecting people’s status. They often don’t provide clear expectations, impacting certainty. They micro manage, impacting autonomy. They want to maintain a professional distance, impacting relatedness. And, they may impact fairness by not being transparent enough. When the opposite happens and you meet someone who makes you feel better about yourself, provides clear expectations, lets you make decisions, trusts you and is fair, you will probably work harder for them as you feel intrinsically rewarded by the relationship itself. Spending time around a leader like this activates an approach response and opens up people’s thinking, allowing others to see information they wouldn’t see in an avoid state.

SUMMARY

The SCRARF model can help in understanding the human behavior better and it’s a good tool influencing other people. By understanding how we can reduce the perceived threats and instead focus on rewards, it’s possible to improve collaboration in the workplace. it's almost like different ways of buffering, caching and de-centralizing ultimately lets each individual unit function to it's optimized ability.