“If the manager triggers threat signals, the employees simply cannot deliver. They have only one thing in focus — the tiger that is attacking them. They go into a state of stress and get tunnel vision.”
— Marie Ryd, science journalist and former researcher at Karolinska Institutet
The latest brain research is teaching us more about how we humans react. Within NeuroLeadership, knowledge from neuroscience is applied to the field of leadership — offering new explanations for people’s resistance to change.
David Rock, an authority within NeuroLeadership, has published the article “SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others”, which presents new explanations for why change so often provokes resistance.
When we experience social threats, the brain reacts in the same way as when it experiences a lack of basic needs such as food, water or safety. When the brain enters threat mode, we find it hard to concentrate on anything else. The brain’s analytical and creative systems simply shut down — an important insight for anyone leading change.
The SCARF model is built around five domains that neuroscience has shown can activate the same reward and threat systems as real rewards and physical threats:
- Status – relative importance to others
- Certainty – being able to predict the future
- Autonomy – a sense of control over events
- Relatedness – a sense of safety with others, that they are friends rather than foes
- Fairness – a perception of fair exchanges between people
1. Status
Status is about relative importance, “pecking order” and hierarchies. We experience status in relation to others, which affects our mental processes in many ways. Our self-perceived status rises when we feel “better than” another person — which activates the brain’s reward circuits. One study showed that an increase in status had the same effect as an unexpected financial windfall. Winning a swimming race, a card game or an argument feels good, probably because the win is linked to a sense of increased status.
Watching out for the feeling of threatened status
At the same time, a sense of diminished status can generate a powerful threat response. Studies have shown that lowered status — for example by being excluded from an activity — activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain.
It can be surprisingly easy to unintentionally threaten someone’s sense of status. Such a threat can arise from a hint of inefficiency, but also from advice or instructions that are perceived as unwarranted. For many people the question “may I give you some feedback?” can evoke the same feelings as hearing rapid footsteps behind them at night.
In change projects where individuals may experience reduced status — for example by losing their place on the management team, having less opportunity to influence, or diminished professional standing — you can expect more resistance. As a change leader you should take this risk seriously and act in a way that reduces the sense of status threat.
2. Certainty
The brain is a pattern-recognition machine that is constantly trying to predict what will happen next. It always wants to know exactly what is going on, because certainty makes prediction possible. Without predictability, the brain is forced to use far more resources to process each moment.
Watching out for the feeling of reduced certainty
The slightest uncertainty generates an error response in the orbital cortex, which forces attention away from the original focus towards whatever is perceived as wrong. It is like the blinking printer icon when the paper has jammed — until it is resolved, it is hard to focus on anything else.
When we feel that someone is not telling the whole truth or is acting inconsistently, it creates uncertainty that can trigger this error response. Greater uncertainty — such as not knowing what is expected of you, or whether your job is at risk — can trigger a far more powerful reaction.
Change management is to a large extent about increasing precisely this sense of certainty, in contexts where uncertainty is high.
3. Autonomy
Autonomy is about independence and choice — the perception that you have control over your own situation. Experiencing greater autonomy is rewarding. Many studies show a strong link between a sense of control and well-being. Research has shown, among other things, that the degree of autonomy affects how people handle stress — unavoidable or uncontrollable stress can be extremely destructive, while the same stress experienced as a choice becomes considerably less destructive.
Watching out for the feeling of reduced autonomy
Working in a group automatically means less autonomy. In well-functioning groups this potential threat can be counterbalanced by increased status, certainty and relatedness — but because the threat to autonomy is always lurking just beneath the surface, it is a risk factor to stay alert to.
A restriction of your autonomy — for example when you experience a lack of control or feel micromanaged — can trigger a powerful threat response. Changes that are announced from above, or the statement “Do this — now”, can therefore trigger powerful threat responses. People may leave successful careers for considerably lower-paid jobs precisely because they value greater autonomy.
4. Relatedness
Relatedness is about determining whether others belong to the social group or not — whether someone is a friend or a foe. It is natural for humans to form “tribes” in which we experience a sense of belonging. The need to include and exclude from the group is probably a natural consequence of the fact that for millions of years we lived in small communities, where strangers were associated with trouble and best avoided.
Determining whether someone is a friend or a foe happens quickly and affects how the brain functions. Information from people we perceive as “like us” is processed by the same circuits we use for our own thoughts, while we use other circuits for someone perceived as an enemy. When someone is perceived as a competitor, our ability to feel empathy also decreases significantly.
Watching out for the feeling of threatened relatedness
The neuroscientist John Cacioppo speaks of the need for safe human contact as a primary drive, much like the need for food. Positive social connections are a primary need — at the same time, a sense of threat is part of our automatic reaction to new social contacts.
In the absence of safe social interaction, a threat response is awakened in the body — the feeling of loneliness. Even meeting a stranger tends to evoke an automatic threat response, and when someone does something untrustworthy, the most common reaction is to withdraw.
Increasing globalisation highlights the importance of managing the threats that come from a lack of relatedness. Collaboration between people from different cultures, who are unlikely to meet in person, can be particularly challenging — the automatic resistance response persists because you do not spend time together.
5. Fairness
Studies show that fair exchanges carry an inherent sense of reward, independent of other factors. Unfair exchanges, in turn, generate a powerful threat response — and can activate the insular lobe, the part of the brain involved in strong emotional expressions such as disgust. People can be driven as far as to sacrifice their lives in order to right perceived injustices.
Watching out for the feeling of unfairness
People who perceive others as unfair feel no empathy for their pain — in some cases, punishing unfair people can even generate a sense of reward.
A sense of unfairness can easily trigger a threat response. Examples of how employees might react:
- “He has different rules for Mike and Sally than for the rest of us.”
- “Management says we have to make cuts, but our sales department props up the other departments and they don’t have to let anyone go.”
- “There’s a lot of talk about values, but at the top they don’t practise what they preach.”
A lack of clear ground rules, expectations and goals can all lead to situations that are perceived as unfair. Pay differences in large organisations are a particularly challenging issue — many employees are deeply dissatisfied to see others working roughly as much and earning a hundred times more.
