Brain Savvy Engagement - One Brain at a Time

Significant change and continuous improvement require sustained commitment from highly engaged and motivated people. Imagine what you could achieve if every member of your team was actively engaged in daily problem solving and continuous improvement. When it comes to improving quality, operational efficiency, customer service and costs, leaders need to engage, enable and empower team members.

In an earlier blog we introduced five powerful insights from neuroscience that underpin a new understanding of workplace engagement.

1. It’s all about survival. The organizing principle of the brain is “minimize threat and maximize reward”.

2. The threat response is easier to trigger, is stronger, lasts longer and is more memorable than the reward response.

3. The brain processes social threats the same as physical threats.

4. Our brains at work are either in a threat state (disengage, avoid, escape) or a reward state (engage, approach, connect). In the reward state we experience increased cognitive resources.

5. The neural basis of workplace engagement seems closely linked to the threat /reward function in the brain.

Change Leaders who understand this dynamic of threat - disengage and reward – engage are primed to effectively engage staff during leadership rounds, daily huddles and team problem solving and improvement activity. They understand that when team members are in a reward state they are more creative, willing to collaborate and better able to learn. If team members are in a threat state they will be distracted, anxious and have difficulty thinking clearly and performing at their best.

Brain savvy change leaders create interactions that contribute to learning, high quality thinking and enhanced performance. These brain savvy change leaders apply the neuroscience underpinning engagement and collaboration to create a culture that is innovative, agile and resilient.

Dr. David Rock of the NeuroLeadership Institute has created a brain - based model that highlights the factors that can activate either a threat or a reward response during team interactions. The SCARF model describes the primary rewards or threats important to the brain. The model suggests 5 domains of experience strongly connected to social processing in the brain - Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness. All five of these domains can have an impact on a person’s perception of a social experience or interaction.

Status refers to our need for comparative importance, significance, respect and esteem.

Certaintyrefers to our need to make accurate predictions about the future.

Autonomy is tied to our need for control over the events in our life and the perception that our behaviour will have an effect on the outcome of a situation.

Relatedness concerns our need for connection to and security with another person

Fairness refers to our need for just and non-biased exchanges between people.

The SCARF model offers change leaders a succinct way of thinking about how their behaviour can activate strong feelings of threat or reward responses in the people they lead/ lead through change. Change leaders who understand and apply the SCARF model, can avoid acting in ways that trigger SCARF threats and instead deliberately act in ways that generate SCARF rewards.

For example, in the SCARF model Status refers to our social sense of importance relative to others. In an organization it is partly about where an employee sits in the hierarchy but it is also about the extent to which they feel respected and valued.

Change leaders can generate a Status threat very easily during leadership rounds or daily huddles by:

· Just showing up, as someone with a higher status role

· Skipping rapport building conversation and jumping into questions

· Asking only ‘why’ questions

· Pointing out problems

· Taking notes during the interaction

· Answering a phone call or text during interaction

· Delivering patronizing or unwanted advice

· Making someone feel wrong

· Providing negative performance feedback

Change leaders can generate a Status reward during leadership rounds or daily huddles by:

· Being fully present

· Demonstrating warmth and concern

· Treating each person as an individual

· Staying humble - asking questions with genuine curiosity and listening to the answers

· Not interrupting

· Enabling people to generate their own insights about the need for improvement

· Supporting people in solving their own problems and finding their own improvement solutions

· Giving people real authority to make decisions and to act

· Acknowledging and celebrating contributions

· Paying attention to how people are improving not just outcomes

For more information about the SCARF model, SCARF threats and rewards and other brain-based models and tools please contact us at www.thebrainsavvyadvantage.com

We work with change leaders at the top and their leadership teams to transform the way they Lead, Learn and Lean in the new world of work

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