The power of SCARF and how to make feedback work better, and feel better

The question of how to get employees to improve has generated a good deal of opinion and research over the last hundred years. Most of us agree about the importance and benefits of feedback. Yet research suggests that feedback is still not being given often enough and when it is given it is not really doing what it is supposed to do; which is to help us improve. A 2018 Employers Council blog post reported that 65% of employees want more feedback. In 2019, Gallup found that only 26% of employees strongly agree that the feedback they receive helps them do better work. However, another study found that 71% of respondents overall agreed that they find critical feedback helpful and motivating. Once you delve into the topic of feedback, you’ll even find conflicting evidence that feedback in business truly enables learning and change. Talking to participants in our management training programmes supports some of these statistics. We often hear from managers that they want to give more feedback, but they lack the methods to give them confidence when they do it.

Statistics aside, let’s focus on two of the most obvious factors of the feedback conversation: The person giving the feedback, and the person receiving the feedback. When both have the skills, confidence and ability to have a productive feedback conversation then you will have a high chance of success (i.e. change). And the glaringly obvious… if the feedback is positive („you’re doing a great job, keep it up“)… easiest conversation ever! Having a negative, or critical feedback conversation, while making it a productive conversation is of course where the skills, confidence and ability are most needed…

Before you continue reading take a moment and ask yourself 3 questions …

Why is feedback sometimes not effective?

Because sometimes, when we are given feedback, we feel threatened (or attacked), instead of supported and helped. The keyword there is ‚feel‘. When humans ‚feel‘, or perceive threat, it invokes a primal response (fight or flight) and we can no longer hear what the rational brain is saying.

Minimize danger – Maximize reward

David Rock believes that our response has its roots in the way our brains deal with perceived danger and how we always seek to minimise threats and maximise rewards. He developed it into a model of 5 areas that influence our behaviour, the SCARF model (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh5Egsa-bg4, or scroll to the bottom of this post). As Dr. Rock explains in the video, these five factors have a tremendous impact on our motivation on whether we are in that reward state or that danger state.

• Status – our relative importance to others
• Certainty – our ability to predict the future
• Autonomy – our sense of control over events
• Relatedness – how safe we feel with others
• Fairness – how fair we perceive the exchanges between people to be

Managers who want to influence others, their job is to find just the right levers to move people into that ‚maximize reward‘ state. Leaders tend to know all about the carrot and stick. They use money and other external rewards to try to motivate people. Turns out there are often far more powerful rewards and threats going on inside people’s heads that are generating their behavior. So if you want to be the best that you can be at influencing others, you need to better understand what makes people tick.

Dr. David Rock

Status

Your perception of your position in relation to other people is what is meant here. Scientific evidence shows that when you experience a drop in status, your brain responds in the same way as when you experience physical pain. Who hasn’t felt intimidated at least once in their life, when we get feedback from others who are (or we perceive as) senior or more competent than us? The opposite is also true; when we receive praise from people more competent than us, we can find it highly motivating. This is the reward side of the status dimension.

If status is a relevant issue in your feedback conversation, remember that who gives the feedback becomes more important than what the feedback is. Naturally, status also plays a part when giving upwards feedback, or feedback to a client or colleague. When you are giving feedback take a moment to reflect on how your relationship with the person may impact your message.

• Status is not the same as a formal position in a hierarchy, it is the worth we feel for ourselves and the worth we feel others assign to us
• Status derives from credibility but also from knowledge and competence, so if you lack credibility with a specific audience you can gain it from demonstrating what you know/can do
• Language makes a difference; using ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ feels and sounds much more inclusive than ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my’ and can help remove status risks
• Everybody in an organisation needs to know their role is important and valued

Certainty

„The brain is a certainty creating machine, always trying to predict what’s going to happen.“ So, when the feedback giver can provide a really clear explanation about what is going to happen and what is expected, it provides much more certainty for the feedback receiver from the outset. Consider your reaction if your manager unexpectedly drops by your desk and says, “Can I have a word with you in my office?” Do your feelings move towards danger, or reward? When we know what to expect, we tend to feel safer. Introducing predictability, structure and goals in conversations can establish certainty and help people feel more open to feedback.

• Humans perceive uncertainty as a threat. Recognizing this will help prepare a strategy to reduce what is threatening
• Communication is a key tool to creating certainty, even if you have nothing ‘certain’ to tell people, the act of telling them precisely this will help
• If there is genuine uncertainty about the future we can fall back on ‘why’ we are doing something; this can introduce purpose and a feeling that ‘we are in this together’ that can mitigate uncertainly about how things may actually turn out
• You can mitigate the threat of uncertainty even in small conversations by telling the other person what will happen in the conversation – very important in giving feedback
• People can gain a sense of certainty by being clear about what their role is and what is expected of them

Autonomy

Autonomy is a key part of intrinsic motivation. Micro-management undermines our autonomy by reducing the control we have over our work  …  and negatively impacts our motivation. Research shows that people who feel that they have no control or autonomy have higher stress levels. If feedback is supposed to be developmental, managers need to take the risk to let team members find their own paths to development. In other words, to be more coach/mentor than director.

• Autonomy is closely linked to certainty – we if can’t predict the future we won’t feel we have any control over it
• We react negatively when we perceive we don’t have control over events, our environment and our own choices
• Autonomy requires trust and a feeling of safety around others, so that we can express our true feelings/opinion without fear of reprisal or rejection
• Autonomy can be given to team members by e.g. empowering individuals by setting the ‘what’ and allowing them to decide the ‘how’
• The idea of having options, i.e. making choices, is important to a sense of control

Relatedness

In short, relatedness refers to „our common ground“. When we feel comfortable with the people around us we are more likely to open up, express true feelings and reflect on our own behaviours. We relate to different people for all kinds of different reasons. Think about the people you turn to at work when you have a problem or challenge. Then think about the people you would definitely not turn to.

• Relatedness is a feeling of belonging when we sense that people care about us as individuals
• People often sense relatedness (or lack of it) via non-verbal communication, e.g. a nod or a smile to recognise you relate to what others are saying/thinking
• Buddying, mentoring and coaching are all ways to build trusted relationships and make people feel valued
• There is a need to pay attention to functional teams in organisations to prevent some teams feeling they are not as important as others; this can lead to silo working and disunity

Fairness

Fairness is highly subjective, so we need to work on people’s perceptions of fairness rather than trying to make things ‘equal’ – not everyone is equal, but we can hold people to a common set of standards. Sensing something is unfair immediately triggers a defensive reaction in our minds. The most common perception of unfairness in the workplace is when we see we are being treated differently to others. Managers can reduce this threat by explaining why they want to have conversations with individuals, and by setting common objectives, standards and rules.

• Team members need to be able to cut each other some slack when individuals are facing special circumstances and perhaps some standards can be flexible – if this happens we need to communicate it is an exception and only temporary
• Rewards and recognition need to be based on what people have accomplished rather than who they are, in order to avoid accusations of favouritism and bias
• Transparency in decision making can help mitigate feelings of unfairness by showing that a range of perspectives were considered
• Helping individuals see things from different perspectives can promote empathy and reduce a sense of discrimination

To wrap up

We hope you’ll consider using the power of SCARF in your next feedback conversation. For more feedback content, these posts might be of interest to you:

• Giving feedback using the DESC model [https://www.targettraining.eu/feedback-desc-model/]
• Nobody likes giving negative feedback – but many of us want it [https://www.targettraining.eu/nobody-likes-giving-negative-feedback-but-many-of-us-want-to-hear-it/]
• Why managers should care about their emotional bank accounts [https://www.targettraining.eu/why-managers-should-care-about-their-emotional-bank-accounts/]