29 The Psychology of Change: The Neuroscience of change + SCARF

The Psychology of Change

The Neuroscience of change

[IMAGES NOT INCLUDED AS YET]

An overriding operating principle of our brain maximising reward and minimising danger. Fundamentally, this is about protecting ourselves and staying away from danger.  As a result, our brain draws us towards things where we gain positive reinforcement and away from things that cause stress or danger.  In terms of change and the responses we see to change, this can sometimes mean that people avoid the uncertainty or risk associated with new ideas or ways of working as our brain may be telling us this uncertainty or new approach may involve some kind of stress or negative impact to us.

Often when we sense these potential threats, we have certain physiological responses that are, in fact, adaptive and highly useful. They enable extra oxygen and glucose to get to our muscles very quickly for immediate action. The feelings experienced in such a situation are explained in the table below; and are often described as a ‘fight, flight, freeze’ response[1].

In this table you can see some of the typical physiological responses in the ‘Fight, Flight or Freeze’ patterns.

All of this is brought about by a release of adrenaline and related chemicals into the blood stream in the face of any kind of threat that your brain perceives. It is important to note here that fear, excitement, and exercise generate similar physiological reactions but we interpret each differently depending on the sense of reward or danger our brain perceives.

We know that this interpretation of how we feel can play a vital role in how we view new ideas or respond to new events in our work and our personal lives.

Activity:

Think about a time when you have experienced a fight / flight / freeze response.  Try to remember the context and the situation leading up to this response in as much detail as possible.

• What strategies did you use that helped you to make sense of the situation?
• How might you apply these strategies when encountering other changes at work or in your personal life?
• Jot down your thoughts in your journal. Continue to record such moments. When you have 10 or more start looking for patterns. Then start to become more and more aware of the patterns.

Jenny, some kind of linking symbol or transition imagery if you think useful.

Now that you know more about WHAT happens we want you to learn more about WHY these episodes happen and how you can understand more about yourself and about others.

Evolutionary Psychology

Quite clearly the fight or flight response was very useful to cave men and women who needed to fight to beasts and other threats as a part of regular survival in prehistoric times. It is also useful in avoiding danger. Modern humans, though, find most of their threats come from sources other than beasts!

Threats come in the form of the need to achieve, the need for approval, security needs, financial needs, the need for love and belonging, and so on. Some of our needs are based on perception more than anything else and of course are the result of what we have learned. When these needs are not being met, we feel under threat and the physical response is the same as if being confronted by a clouded leopard.

One way of understanding our responses to modern day organisational life has been explored by David Rock who has developed the SCARF model. The model is useful in exploring our reactions to organisational stressors.

David Rock’s SCARF Model

Since early this century, neurobiologist and coach, David Rock, has been considering the way in which insights from neuroscience can inform coaching and leadership approaches. He suggests that insights into how our brain works can give clues about people’s reactions to change and the potential stressors associated with change. In the context of this unit, we are interested in understanding how changes that may come about as a result of your applied problem solving may be viewed by others in your environment.

Rock’s SCARF model suggests five social dimensions around which our brain reacts to potential stressors associated with change or adaptation, remembering that ultimately our brain’s priority is to minimise threat and maximise reward.

Those five Dimensions are

• Status
• Certainty
• Autonomy
• Relatedness
• Fairness

Rock’s view is that responses we see to change or transition in these domains reflect primitive human threat and reward responses of our brain[1]. Understanding this potential reaction can help people prepare for and manage change approaches within teams and workplaces, for example a restructure or a change in policy.

Activity: Watch this YouTube animation for a simple overview of the SCARF model and how to apply this at work.

https://youtu.be/qMejNf0dL2g

Now that you have a basic understanding of David Rock’s SCARF model, let’s have a look at each of the five dimensions in turn.

Status

Status is about someone’s perceived importance, sense of identity and perceived ‘place’ in the pecking order of a team or group. A threat response in this domain may be triggered by professional criticism, a change in role title or negative performance feedback. At the same time, a reward response to the ‘Status’ dimension may be experienced if a change in work structure results in a promotion or enhanced role title. The interesting thing is even small changes can trigger significant reactions in terms of people’s perceived personal status as this dimension is linked to ego and identity.[2]

Certainty

All humans like to feel some level of certainty about the road ahead and the way in which we can predict and plan for our future. Of course, recent times have reinforced that ambiguity and lack of certainty is a key feature of modern life.

When we lack certainty, our brain needs to work harder to process more information and variables and we can feel that personal control is diminished. As Rock reminds us, mild uncertainty can motivate us to learn more about a situation; however too much uncertainty can paralyse activity and negatively influence decision making.

Autonomy

When we perceive that our autonomy has been reduced, we tend to judge that as a threat to our wellbeing. This also adds to our perception of uncertainty. By contrast, when we feel that we have greater autonomy this increases our perceptions of certainty and it also tends to reduce stress.

Relatedness

Humans are social beings. We need and require relationships to survive and thrive. This sense of relatedness is fundamental to our sense of safety. The degree to which we feel safe with others is affected by the nature and quality of these relationships. In the Army and other organisations where not only our sense of safely is a stake but in fact our personal safety is in the hand of those around us, the importance of relatedness is enhanced.

The Army strives to build and emphasise a culture where this relatedness is reinforced as a way of life. This happens through required and encouraged behaviours, symbols and the hierarchies that are navigated every day.

Increasingly we understand the science, psychology and biology of relatedness. Armies of yore understood the power of relatedness. In more recent times, Meg Wheatley has written about the lessons leaders can learn from terrorists in exploiting social networks and understanding relationships across social systems[2].

In the brain, the ability to feel trust and empathy about others is shaped by whether they are perceived to be part of the same team/tribe.  The brain quickly makes friend or foe decisions.

Strong social connections result in the secretion of oxytocin (a hormone associated with affection, maternal behaviour, generosity, authenticity, trust). This disarms the threat response and opens neural connections so we perceive someone as ‘one of us’.

On the other hand, loneliness and isolation are profoundly stressful and can be perceived by the brain in a similar way to physical hurt.

Fairness

Fairness is one of the most powerful of the drivers of human behaviours and our beliefs about life.

Fairness is a subjective experience that depends on those involved and how they perceive fairness issues1. It also has a strong relationship to the sense of control that people feel in any given situation and whether others are respectful and can be trusted in their use of control over those around them.

We tend to make fairness judgements quickly in situations and particularly when we join a team or a workplace. ‘Fairness’ information is all around us and we are perceptive and responsive to those cues.

We also have a fundamental need to feel certain and we motivated to reduce uncertainty because it can be threatening, and therefore, care more about fairness when they feel uncertain.

You can see that fairness is central to our place in our organization and thus to you in the Army.

Unfairness generates a strong response in the limbic system, stirring hostility and undermining trust.

As with status, people perceive fairness in relative terms. They feel more satisfied with a fair exchange that offers a minimal reward than an unfair exchange in which the reward is substantial. By the way, fairness produces reward responses in the brain similar to those that occur from eating chocolate!

Activity:

SCARF is a fundamental approach to use when we are considering change and something ‘new’. Many and perhaps even most changes lead to some kinds of losses and gains felt by individuals. It is important for you to understand the sense that your stakeholders have of the losses and gains they perceive in relation to change and changes before you get too far down the track.

This is important because often we can become so involved in the potential benefits of change and innovation proposals that we can inadvertently leave key people behind. This can cause strong resentment and even active resistance and subversion, even where a new idea or opportunity may have great potential benefits.

At the very least we advise you to use this SCARF losses and gains tool to help with your thinking. This is how it works.

Action 1: Write a short description of a change you have observed or are experiencing at the moment. You can also complete this SCARF audit for a change that you know is coming in the future. Include the suggested benefits of the change and any potential barriers and challenges you believe were in place or you might expect if the change initiative hasn’t happened as yet. Be specific about the change you are examining. This short description of the change is useful so you can be sure of the circumstances and so that you can go back later to revisit the consequences down the track.

Action 2: Create a list of the people, teams and other entities that are involved or in some way impacted by the project or initiative you are examining. Before you start creating a huge list of stakeholders, we ask you to create what we at QUT call a ‘salience’ list. The salience list includes those who are clearly the most important to the project, who have power and influence, and those who have a strong interest in either the project being successful or who might have an interest in its failure.

We do recommend that you keep this list private! No one wants to discover that they are identified on a stakeholder list as an impediment to a project!

Action 3: First write your name or the relevant name of the team to which you below. Alternatively, this might be the name of the individual or the team that is proposing and driving the change initiative. Then choose the top three stakeholders from your list and add them to the SCARF audit template. You can also create more columns if you have more key stakeholders to consider. We suggest that for now you stick with three while you work on this activity for the first time.

Action 4: Now that you have competed the first four actions you are ready to start the SCARF Losses and Gains audit. Start to fill in the responses you observed or those that you anticipate might happen.

For each element of the SCARF model use this method to complete your scoring for each stakeholder. Take your time. Remember too that this is a perceptual activity. This about your perceptions of what happened or what might happen.

Here is the scoring you want to use. Fill in the spaces in the template with the arrows.

↓= Potential or actual loss

↑= Potential or actual gain

↔= Neutral or unsure about an actual or potential gain or loss

Action 5: Now that you have finished the audit it is time to do the analysis. Again, remember that for this exercise it is entirely your perceptions of what happened or what might happen.

As you become more comfortable with using this approach to investigating people’s responses to the changes around them you can include those who are impacted by the changes. Please consult with your mentor and others before you embark on such an approach.

Wrap-up

Once you have completed the audit sit back and look at your template. There are lots of ways your observations ‘tell you a story’ about what is happening.

Firstly, look for patterns across the rows and down the columns. Is there something you see here that grabs your attention?

Then look at the overall insights from your audit. Is that an overall ‘gain’ pattern; an overall ‘loss’ pattern, or some other pattern? What do you think this means for the stakeholders overall and for the change initiative?

What actions do you think the team leader might have been able to take in the short and longer term to support the team through the change process that may have enabled the process even more?

What insights does this give you about how to support yourself and your team through the change?

[1] Rock, D. (2008). SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others. NeuroLeadership Journal, 1(1), 44-52.

[2] Rock, D. (2008). SCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others. NeuroLeadership Journal, 1(1), 44-52.

Lesson 11

Change and the power of small wins. [Celebrating success]

There is an interesting insight from neuroscience about the way in which humans create habits and rituals in their lives.  Researchers at Duke University have found that much of our everyday patterns of behaviour is habitual [3]. While this allows us to build patterns of good behaviour, it is also challenging when we want behaviour to change. Clues from neuroplasticity show us that mindfulness techniques can be really useful here as we seek to pay very deliberate attention to those things that may have become habitual and ‘re-wire’ our brain to take on and adopt small new habits and ways of working.[4]

There is a philosophy in HROs that small wins can help teams build an awareness of the possibility of failure!

First, what is a ‘small win’? These are ‘small, cumulative, changes that build [team capability] to better manage the unexpected.[5]  Small wins are specific, complete and implemented outcomes that have moderate importance to a project outcome. They allow for change without being confrontational or challenging. They let teams test and experiment and they promote learning.

These are different to the idea of breaking a big project into smaller chunks. They are steps that help move the team in a new direction, or away from something that is not useful.

Small wins can be really important in situations where there is high risk and a danger of failure. And they work in situations where success leads to better outcomes.

A ‘small wins’ focus in such situations works like this. Individuals and teams look for ways to avoid failure, and they look for ways to find success. They look for things that need to go right, and they look for things that could go wrong but need to go right. They also look for things that have gone wrong and things that have gone right.

This is a dual process that identifies small failures and small successes. The idea is that by identifying small failures, the team can work on correcting, early. At the same time, by identifying small successes the team can work on enabling and building, early.

 Small wins are about avoiding failure and finding success. The ‘small wins’ approach is a useful way especially in HROS to think about the steps and actions that could go wrong and require specific focus.

Just because you work in an HRO doesn’t mean that you are always looking for ‘what could go wrong and what needs to go right’. You are also in the business of success, achievement and creating new things. It is almost time for you to go back to thinking about innovation and that concept of ambidexterity.

Let’s look at the ‘small wins’ successes and why they matter too! They are strongly related to creativity and motivation. They are a little bit like the ‘cookie’ that you may have had when you were exploring change. They help with resilience and they are great for building team motivation.

In fact, ‘small wins’ are strongly correlated with innovation.[6] This insight is based on a major research project focused on progress, motivation, innovation and successes. The research paper is enticingly titled The Power of Small Wins, by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. They explored teams such as those that discovered the double helix, so no ‘small stuff’!

Here are some of the principles they highlight.

Progress on anything tends to shape reactions. This progress principle, as Amabile and Kramer call it, works most effectively when people and teams are working on something meaningful. This is about progress in meaningful work.

When people experience the sense of progress more often, they are more likely to be creatively productive in the long term.

Everyday progress, or ‘small wins’, can and do make all the difference to how we feel and perform. Minor milestones are enough. As the authors note, big wins are great but they are rare.

The progress principle works when it is visible. Later in the unit we will explore the 30:60:90 Day process, which is a technique that tracks consolidation of a series of ‘small wins’, in teams, over time, on view.[7]

We would like you to try this for five consecutive days, ideally with some of your colleagues.

Make it visible and easy to access.

This is an achievement progress record. This is NOT a ‘to do’ list.

This is progress towards bigger goals and success.

The Daily Progress Checklist [To make it quick here let’s call it the DPC]

1. The day before you plan to start the DPC exercise, decide on where to post the DPC sheet, have pens or markers ready, and tell everyone what you are working on.
2. Have your DPC set up for all five days.
3. Before you leave, decide on a couple of actions or ‘small wins’ that you know you can achieve. Write them up on the DPC. Nothing like getting started on success!
4. On launch day, be sure to get those things done, and check them off.
5. As the day progresses, notice outcomes that are moving you towards the ‘bigger picture’. Add them to the DPC.
6. Highlight the Progress Tools
   1. Set the milestones, small and large
   2. Give each other autonomy
   3. Notice progress
   4. Show respect
   5. Encourage each other
7. Continue to work on the DPC every day. Encourage everyone to add to the DPC
8. At the end of the week, celebrate.

Wrap up

Here are some tips on how to debrief and reflect on this exercise. Look at patterns. Use the Progress Tools as a way to diagnose the outcomes of your week’s DPC.

Did you encourage? Did you celebrate and notice? Did you support each other? Did you help each other?

Some teams set target ‘small wins’ progress goals. Some teams like to compete! Any and all of these processes and tips make a difference. Some teams have small tokens that they leave, secret buddy style, for ‘small wins champions’.

Now that you have finished this DPC exercise, think about how you might use it as an ongoing tool, if you don’t have something like this already.