How to Collaborate Better According to Neuroscience

Dec 2019

Recently I read about a great example of how to collaborate which was told by an American billionaire and casino magnate.

The man, on his way to Singapore, had dropped off his wife and adult daughter in Paris, France.

As the story goes, his daughter ordered a croissant at the Four Seasons at which they were staying but only ate half of it. She and her Mom went out to explore Paris and upon their return noticed that the half-eaten croissant was gone. However, they also noticed that there was a message on the telephone from the front desk.

Interestingly, housekeeping removed the half-eaten croissant as they assumed their guests would rather have a fresh croissant upon their return. At that point, the front desk contacted the kitchen and room service delivered a fresh pastry to the room. to their guest’s delight!

However, none of this could have happened had the hotel employees not had the autonomy to do what they thought was right and to collaborate with each other and deliver exceptional customer service. And as you will see in today’s post on the SCARF model for how to collaborate, one of the key ingredients for how to collaborate better is the autonomy to make things happen!

If you are wondering about this SCARF model, it is a brain-based model that includes 5 domains that influence how we behave in social situations and how to collaborate better with others.

How to Collaborate Using the SCARF Model

The SCARF model was created by David Rock and discussed in both an academic paper called “A Brain-Based Model for Collaborating with and Influencing Others”, and in his book Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long. His model contains five domains of human social experience that our brains treat as either primary rewards or threats.

So, whenever we collaborate with others, be it at work, school, family events or social events, each of the following 5 factors activates either our brains ‘primary threat’ circuitry or ‘primary reward’ circuitry:

Status: our relative importance to others.
Certainty: our ability to predict the future.
Autonomy: our ability to maintain a sense of control over events.
Relatedness: being able to feel safe when with others (being friend rather than foe).
Fairness: our perception of fair exchanges with others.

For example, if someone calls us out on something or says something that we think may make us look less intelligent, it may trigger our ‘primary threat’ circuitry to our status and make us react in a defensive manner. We will get to each of the domains in a hot minute, first let’s go a little deeper into the concept of…

The Avoid-Approach Response

According to Rock, the concept of minimizing danger or maximizing reward “is analogous to a concept that has appeared in the literature for a long time: the approach-avoid response.” ¹

What happens is when you are in a situation, the brain tags the social trigger encountered as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

If it is ‘good’ or associated with a reward or positive emotion, we approach or engage.

And if it is ‘bad’ or associated with punishment or negative emotion, we avoid or disengage. It is our brain’s survival mechanism designed to help keep us alive! It is the amygdala (our reptilian brain) hard at work.

Now, Watch What Happens to Our Brain in Each Scenario…

Scenario #1: Avoid

Let’s say you are being interrogated by your boss. This encounter will be tagged as ‘bad’ and seen as a threat that triggers an “avoid” response.

When this happens a bunch of stuff happens in our brain resulting in:

Diminished cognitive resources.
It is more difficult to notice the signals required for insight and having ‘aha’ moments.
Avoiding opportunities and a tendency to ‘play it safe’.
Reacting in a more defensive manner.
Perceiving stressors to be larger than they are.

Scenario #2: Approach

Now, on the other hand, let’s say you have a positive encounter with your boss. This encounter will be tagged as ‘good’ and associated with a positive emotion.

When this happens, we react as follows, we:

Are willing to do difficult things and take risks.
Think more deeply about things and try to come up with solutions.
Experience positive approach emotions such as happiness, joy, and desire.
Our dopamine levels increase which facilitates learning and interest.

The key thing with the SCARF model for how to collaborate is that it is an easy way for us to identify and handle the different social triggers that produce “approach” and “avoid” responses. The idea is to minimize the avoid or threat responses and maximize the approach or positive responses when collaborating with or influencing others.

SCARF These 5 Elements Down!

Let’s take a closer look at each of the 5 elements for how to collaborate and see how you can both minimize threat responses and maximize positive responses related to them when dealing with others.

(1) Status

Status is all about our relative importance, our ‘pecking order’ and maybe our seniority. We go to great lengths to protect our status and a reduction in status can produce a big threat response.

Ideas to minimize status threats:
Be careful when giving other people instructions or advice as it can lead to people defending a position that doesn’t make sense just to protect their status. One way to reduce the threat is to let someone evaluate themselves first, another is for you to restate your instructions or advice more positively.

Ideas to maximize status rewards:
A good way to increase status is to give people a chance to improve themselves. By improving whatever they are doing they are ‘better than’ their previous self. Positive feedback, especially public acknowledgment can also increase perceived status.

(2) Certainty

The brain loves certainty because it allows it to predict what is going to happen. When we experience uncertainty, our brains use more resources to process what is happening from moment to moment. A sense of certainty is rewarding and meeting expectations releases dopamine.

Ideas to minimize uncertainty threats:
Creating plans, and strategies create clarity and reduce uncertainty.
Breaking down projects or tasks into smaller steps.
Looking ahead to possible outcomes in various situations.

Ideas to maximize certainty rewards:
Letting people know what is going to happen in advance. For example, how long a meeting will last, the objectives at the start of a conversation, a specific date of an organizational restructure, etc.

(3) Autonomy

Autonomy is simply the perception that you are able to exert control over your environment. We discussed it in a recent post on intrinsic motivation. Think about being micromanaged – you have a lack of control and feel helpless to influence outcomes.

Ideas to minimize a lack of autonomy threats:
Give people options or the freedom to figure out how to do things instead of saying ‘do this’.

Ideas to maximize autonomy rewards:
Time: flexible hours or working from home.
Task: giving employees the option of working on projects that interest them.
Team: giving employees freedom of who they work with.

(4) Relatedness

Most people naturally like to form ‘tribes’ as it gives them a sense of belonging. Relatedness is all about deciding if others are ‘in’ or ‘out’ of a social group, are they ‘friend’ or ‘foe’?

Ideas to minimize threats:
Not experiencing relatedness can make people feel isolated and lonely. So, the idea is to encourage social connections like “water cooler talk”. Making others feel comfortable by sharing personal aspects of themselves during conversations.

Ideas to maximize relatedness rewards:
Creating safe connections between people. Creating coaching programs, mentoring arrangements, or buddy systems.

(5) Fairness

When someone perceives a situation to be unfair it causes a strong threat response. People see fairness as intrinsically rewarding and part of the reason people do volunteer work is to reduce the unfairness in the world.

Ideas to minimize unfairness threats:
Increased transparency, communication, and involvement on various issues.

Ideas to maximize fairness rewards:
Creating clear expectations upfront. Some examples are setting ground rules, objectives, expectations. Another option is to let teams create ground rules that they must follow – by being involved in their creation, they are more likely to follow them.

Another Story Regarding Autonomy…

There’s another famous customer service story regarding Nordstrom and tires that you may have heard of.

Back in the 1970s, a customer wanted to return a set of tires to Nordstrom, an upscale store that sells clothes, shoes, and accessories, but not tires!

The man bought his tires at a store that occupied the same space prior to Nordstrom occupying it. The employee, who had the autonomy to do what he thought was best, called a tire store to see how much they were worth. He opened the till and gave the customer that amount, and one of the most famous American customer service stories was born!

While it is a great story that shows the power of autonomy, the cynic in me wonders what would happen today if someone rolled a pair of tires into Nordstrom?!?!?!

Hmm, perhaps it is time for a little Prime Your Pump field trip??

Until next time, keep using the SCARF model for how to collaborate, and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

Use It or Lose It

The 5 elements of the SCARF model for how to collaborate that you can use to both minimize threat responses and maximize positive responses related to them when dealing with others are:

Status
Certainty
Autonomy
Relatedness
Fairness

When to Use It:

Use the SCARF model for how to collaborate with and influence others better.

What Do You Think About the SCARF Model?

Have you used any of the elements of the SCARF model for how to collaborate with or influence others? Can you see yourself using it? Please share in the comments below!

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References

1 SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others by David Rock

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long By David Rock