Never forget that the most valuable (and expensive) resource we have in our business is our staff. Staff have emotions, staff will react positively or negatively to stimulus and staff are the key to our success or failure.
A good few years ago my friends at Optymyse introduced me to a proven neuroscience model called SCARF. This model explains how the human brain reacts to threats and how we as business leaders can influence our staff using the SCARF model.
SCARF stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness. It explains how social pain is the same as physical pain and there is a great deal of information on the internet for those that want to study.
But in this, the first of five articles here on LinkedIn, I’m going to summarise the SCARF model and today, unsurprisingly, we’ll start with S!
Understanding SCARF – Status
Understanding SCARF as a manager will help you maintain much better relationships with your staff, it will get them to fight fires on your behalf, they will literally walk through flames for a good leader.
The exact opposite is of course the case for a poor leader.
How can SCARF help?
In the first instance it’s a great model to understand how we, as humans, react to social pain or threats. It has been proven that the same parts of your brain light up on social threat as they do when you experience physical pain.
Just the other day I was speaking with a contact centre leader, we were discussing the cost of recruitment and the real costs involved with staff churn. It is the most challenging and expensive cost that our contact centres face and one that technology on its own just can’t solve.
But understanding SCARF can help a lot for sure, and when coupled with technology SCARF can deliver sensational results.
So, let’s talk STATUS….
You’re reading this now so just pause for a second and think about your own feelings, either socially or at work, it doesn’t matter.
How do you perceive yourself? What influences that perception? What makes you feel comfortable in your own shoes? What makes you feel uncomfortable?
This perception of yourself is what I am referring to when we discuss status.
Now, there is an awful lot of wokery going on in our world and I’m certainly not going down that road, indeed if you stop and consider SCARF then the positive discrimination and pandering to the needs of a few is potentially creating social pain, or threat, for the wider community. The key is balance…
STATUS, the way we perceive ourselves in the workplace, is the first cornerstone of understanding SCARF.
Ok, so let’s think of a widely adopted technology, wallboards, and how a wallboard delivered well can influence STATUS and a wall board designed badly can adversely affect STATUS.
For the sake of demonstration let’s create an imaginary contact centre agent called Amy. Amy has been at her desk for her entire shift, she has answered every voice call presented, she has dealt with all her emails, she has been polite and helpful on web chats.
On the wallboard there is a BIG RED NUMBER (bigger than any other statistic) saying that the contact centre has 30 abandoned or missed calls.
Amy simply can’t influence that number. She has performed her role to the best of her ability, she has done her job. To Amy, her STATUS within the business has been diminished by the stat she can’t influence.
The truth is that Amy’s contact centre, like every contact centre, isn’t manned for 100% call completion. It’s simply not viable. The 1% missed calls (30 of 3000 presented) is anticipated and the company will allow up to 2% missed calls.
Amy and her team are 100% on target. SO, DISPLAY THAT!
Better still….
The brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it processes letters or numbers. Display a big thumbs up, or a smiley face instead!
This is one example of how a simple tweak in the way in which your wallboards present metrics can either adversely or positively influence your staff status.
Now, think about this one…
You have a plodder. They turn up every day, they do their job, they go home. Reliable but unremarkable. Let’s call him John.
John has very little status in the business (in his mind) he doesn’t feel important.
Giving John a seemingly meaningless task but allowing him to own the outcome could massively change John’s perception of his status within the business. It could be something as mundane as making sure you don’t run out of tea bags, but asking John to own something, that you feel is important, will change John’s perception of where he fits within the business.
For well over a decade, a few years back, I coached a local football side. I studied for my coaching badges, as you do, and I was proud to get my UEFA B license. The FA have this fantastic coaching phrase called Guided Discovery and we can use guided discovery to help our staff with their perceived status. Bear with me, I’ll get there….
In football speak, a simple phrase such as “right, show me somewhere you can go now to receive the ball to feet”. Rather than simply pointing to a spot and telling a six-year-old to move there.
So going back to John…
“John, can you do me a favour and show me how to process this difficult web chat”
Or
“John, I have a new starter next week. Could you show them around and make sure they feel comfortable here with us”
Giving our plodders something to own, and something to excel at will have a profound impact on their own perception of their status within the business.
When discussing performance focus in on the positives and ask them to own the solution to anything that needs improvement. Use guided discovery, “John, can you show me where you think we should be adding more resource”, or “John, what would you do to make sure we’re covering the peaks in traffic”.
In summary.
Status is the way in which your staff perceive themselves within the organisation. Small changes to the way you interact or report can have a profound impact on the status of the individual.
In the future articles we’ll take a look at Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness but for now, consider this question.
How much would it cost to replace John or Amy?
It’s a big number, right?
Surely taking the time to elevate the perceived status of your staff in the business is less expensive and way more rewarding?
Status is the first article in five (yes folks there’s four more weekly articles to come) and next week we’ll explore “C” for Certainty.
Here at Viegli we expose our resellers, and ultimately their clients, to all types of new technology. AI chat bots, AI assistance, web chat, voice queues, real time reporting and so forth. What are your thoughts on SCARF? I’d love to hear your feedback.
Thanks for reading, I hope you found it useful, or at least a welcome distraction from the boring sandwich you’re having for lunch.
