“Jan is managing a new team, and she notices that one of her team members, Carl, is using a new piece of software incorrectly. She offers him some advice and returns to her work. But later, she notices that he’s still misusing it. So, she decides to sit with him until he gets it right.
Over the next few days, Jan notices that Carl has become standoffish with her. He’s defensive when she offers him feedback, and he avoids talking to her. Jan is bewildered – all she wants to do is to help Carl, and she can’t figure out why he’s reacting so badly to her support.
If she’d used the SCARF Model, Jan would have realized that Carl wasn’t being difficult – he just felt threatened. The way she handled the situation made Carl feel silly and stupid, instead of empowered”
SCARF Model – using neuroscience to work effectively with others
I am a huge fan of mental models. Used right, they are immensely helpful in decision making, opportunity sizing, problem framing to working as a team.
If you lead or work with a team, something you might have noticed is how people are motivated by different things.
SCARF stands for the five key “domains” that influence our behavior in social situations. These are:
#1 Status – our relative importance to others.
#2 Certainty – our ability to predict the future.
#3 Autonomy – our sense of control over events.
#4 Relatedness – how safe we feel with others.
#5 Fairness – how fair we perceive the exchanges between people to be.
Understanding and using the SCARF model at the workplace not just helps you to understand your teams better (for example, give the status person a chance to evaluate themselves better before mishandling feedback) but yourself as a leader better too (do you tend to down play ideas of highly skilled folks because that makes you feel threatened?)
What has helped you work better as a team?
*************************************************
#reviewswithranjani
#management
Sources :
https://www.edbatista.com/2010/03/scarf.html
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/SCARF.htm