5 Domains to Address While Leading Teams - SCARF Model
Why leaders should wear a SCARF all year long.
Have you ever seen the following behaviours in the workplace?
Promoting people who do not deserve it.
Diminishing people's achievements.
Not communicating clearly.
Relentlessly micromanaging teams.
These all break SCARF domains. Addressing them is important for keeping the team motivated.
SCARF is an acronym of: status, clarity, autonomy, relatedness and fairness. It was introduced by David Rock, author of the book 'Your Brain at Work', that takes neuroscientists' research and applies it to daily situations in life and work. (This is where I encountered the SCARF model for the first time).
In this article, we explore each of these domains and show how they support important aspects of team leadership.
Science
The baseline for this model is research done by scanning the brain. Imaging showed that regions experiencing social pain are the same as for physical pain. And it is impossible to perform well under high stress and anxiety (source: Managing with the Brain in Mind).
In certain social situations, we all experience strong emotional reactions, both negative in stressful situations and positive in rewarding moments and this knowledge is the basis for the SCARF model.
SCARF Model
The SCARF model can serve as a regular checkup on what is happening within our teams thanks to its easy-to-remember abbreviation.
Each domain of this model:
has a strong negative outcome when broken
has a strong positive outcome when improved
Understanding the gist of these domains can help with leading teams.
Status
Praise by name, criticise by category
— Warren Buffet
Do not criticise someone in front of the group, it creates a strong status threat.
To create a positive response — recognising people's achievements is a good way to raise their status perception.
We unconsciously try to establish the status of people that we are meeting by looking for clues that can help us estimate it. Each time we hired a new fellow manager I always checked their LinkedIn, perhaps to relate their status to my own.
When the first round of layoffs hit tech companies, including the one I worked for, I noticed a significant change in the perception of status. Engineers, who believed their roles were previously in high demand, experienced a decline in their perceived status.
Clarity
If something is not clear it might feel threatening to your team members. Because our brains are prediction-making machines — each gap in understanding will be filled with some unconscious predictions made by your team members.
When communicating with your teams, make sure that expectations are clear:
- Be realistic about the future. Overconfidence will build up expectations. If there are a lot of uncertainties, state what is certain and what is uncertain.
- Point out what you do not know. Give as much context as you can. If you leave too many unaddressed gaps, people will fill these gaps with their own projections of which you have no control over.
More on this in the article:
Autonomy
Teams need autonomy.
Any indication that they are not to be trusted will create a threat response. And each time we give them more control, it has a positive impact on them.
Each time you will micromanage them, their sense of autonomy will decrease. Similarly, after months working remotely, requests to return to the office will be perceived as a threat to their autonomy.
A good indication of your team's autonomy is when you go on holiday. Autonomy is demonstrated when your team does not rely on you on a daily basis.
Relatedness
The more our incentives are aligned the better.
The aspect of feeling good is connected with relatedness. We like people with whom we share similar interests or hobbies. Small talk may be much more important than we think, as if we find similarities, it may help with our work relationships.
To increase the sense of relatedness: Demonstrate to your team members how their goals are aligned both with each other and with the company.
More on this in the article:
Fairness
Transparency in how you operate contributes to the perception of a fair workplace for employees.
To ensure fairness:
be transparent
explain the reasoning behind decision
check recognition practices
More on this in the article:
For me, the perception of fairness results from previous SCARF domains: status, clarity, autonomy, and relatedness.
Summary
Keeping these domains in mind and addressing them can help with leading your teams.
Try to wear SCARF even during hot summers.
Thanks for reading!
Michał
Post Notes
References
Book: 'Your Brain at Work'
Article: Managing with the Brain in Mind
Podcast: Your Brain at Work Live | The SCARF Model: Origins, Applications, and Future
Discover Weekly — Shoutouts
Articles that might help you explore new perspectives which I have read this week:
“How McKinsey is ruining the world” from
— shared what he had learned about one of the biggest consulting firms, emphasizing their incentives.“How to Start Writing a Newsletter and Succeed” from
— shared 13 valuable lessons on starting, writing, and growing a newsletter. There is great advice in there for anyone considering embarking on a writing journey.“Communicate Effectively To Get What You Want” from
s — shared a practical and inspiring story on improving communication skills within a product and engineering context.“Key Strategies for Building High-Performance Teams in Tech” from
— wrote an article that serves as a helpful reminder of Tuckman's model for team evolution: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing.
Loved the approach!