My brilliant friend Perpetua Neo and I have always had energised, lengthy and in-depth conversations over the years, about “life, the universe and everything”, and also often about our passion for supporting leaders and their teams. Recently we talked through one particularly powerful concept from her book “This is What Matters“, where she takes the “SCARF” model (more on that below) and applies it in two ways. First, she asks us to understand which two of the five psychological safety needs matter the most to us as individuals, and then (and I feel this is quite brilliant!) asks us to turn our minds to which two of the five needs matter the least to us. When we are leading others, the two SCARF needs that matter the least to us are likely also our blind spots in creating psychological safety for others.
Whoa! That whole idea struck home hard for me. I like to think that I am direct in my approach whilst also being caring. My intention is always to stretch but not induce panic or “freezing”. However, I can learn from Perpetua’s teaching here to pay more attention to the two SCARF areas that matter the least to me, as if I blithely charge in and ride roughshod over the areas that matter the most to those I am working with, I am not creating sufficient psychological safety to have them feel safe, open and comfortable to work with me to stretch and grow and may not only fail to best support and help those I work with, but I could also trigger and upset them, which is never my intention.
So, let me give an excerpt from Dr Neo (she has a doctorate in clinical psychology as well as other varied qualifications!), then I will give my own example of my two “least” areas and how that could take away from creating psychological safety, plus what I can do to mitigate against that.
IDENTIFY YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY NEEDS
In every interaction we have, we either meet or withhold someone else’s “psychological safety” needs. Think back to a time when you didn’t feel you could voice your real opinion or make a suggestion, even if someone else said they wanted to hear it. Maybe you had the words but not the confidence that it was the right place or time to share them; you were afraid your honesty would backfire. Now remember a time when you knew that even though your opinion or suggestion might be initially difficult for the other person or group to hear, you could still say it, and you’d all grow because of it. The difference between these scenarios is that in the second situation, you have psychological safety.The SCARF model breaks down your psychological safety needs into five main parts: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. Everyone prioritizes these needs differently. Read through the descriptions of these needs and then rank them from 1-5, in order of what means the most to you, 1 being the least important and 5 being the most important.
- Status: People with high status needs like to feel respected and acknowledged for their contributions, talents, and possessions. They may sometimes be more sensitive to perceiving that they are not respected or acknowledged for these things. They might also take things personally or mistakenly believe that they are being picked on.
- Certainty: People with high certainty needs shine best when they are told what to do and are given structure in tasks, expectations, etc. They also appreciate regular check-ins, so they know they are heading in the right direction. Being expected to guess the nuances in others’ words or come up with the steps between the start and the end goal of a task can cause them anxiety.
- Autonomy: People with high autonomy needs love being able to control their tasks and their environments, and they also appreciate being given the freedom to do so. This helps them to feel trusted, and they grow from the responsibility they are given. When they are micro-managed, their autonomy needs are threatened.
- Relatedness: People with high relatedness needs appreciate harmony in relationships. When everyone’s objectives and actions are aligned, they feel psychologically safe because this creates a sense of belong- ing. In contrast, they dislike conflict and asserting themselves, even if maintaining the false harmony costs them.
- Fairness: People with high fairness needs like justice and equity. For instance, praise and privilege should be given to those who deserve them. They are sensitive to scenarios when bad behaviors are not addressed, and when freeloaders are rewarded.
Understanding Why This Matters
When you understand your own and others’ psychological safety needs, you are better able to respond to these needs, which in turn helps cultivate authentic and effective relationships. When your psychological safety needs are not met, your brain produces a threat response, and your adrenaline levels increase. This makes you less rational and more negative, and reduces your effectiveness at planning, collaborating, and/or focusing.
Your brain instinctively responds to social threats and rewards in the same way it responds to physical threats and rewards. People gravitate toward safe relationships because these create a sense of reward. In contrast, they avoid psychologically unsafe relationships because these foster a sense of social threat. You’re likeliest to feel threatened and shut down when your top two psychological safety needs are not met. And you’re likeliest to accidentally threaten someone else whose top two psychological safety needs correspond with your least-prioritized ones. It’s easy to understand which of your relationships are psychologically safe and which are not. If you want to improve the psychological safety of a relationship, figuring out exactly what your differing needs are will teach you what you can do differently to effectively communicate your needs and meet other people’s needs.
I find all of this to be a powerful application for leadership (of self and others) from the world of Psychology.
Using myself as an example of a) self-awareness, b) how I could get things wrong, and c) how I can use the model to improve, let me first start out with the two parts that matter the most to me, then the two that matter the least. Please read this and the following section, then take time to consider for yourself a) which are your own two “most” and “least”, and also, for a few key personal and business relationships, how might those people consider SCARF in the same way ?
My “Most”
- Fairness. My core value is fairness. When things do not feel fair, just, equitable, I struggle to focus on anything else that may be happening. For example, I was recently in a group which was profoundly non-diverse, so I ended up feeling “stuck” and judging both myself and the event as to why it was full of such a relatively homogenous group. It was difficult for me, then, to fully participate as this thought stuck with me throughout.
- Relatedness. This one matters highly to me, though not quite in the way Perpetua describes. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “difficult conversation” or “conflict”, I believe you can say anything if delivered from a place of love (yes, I use the word love in business!) and care, so I am the opposite of avoiding “difficult” conversations. Relatedness therefore matters to me when I see that conversations are kept shallow as this means that the sense of relatedness and belonging is limited.
My “Least”
- Certainty. As soon as I read through the list of five SCARF elements, I focussed in on this. I’ve always been entrepreneurial in spirit and action and certainty is the opposite of who I am. I love uncertainty and I love to play with uncertainty as a way to stretch and grow.
- Status. The less status matters to me the better I am at my job, To some level I have always cared little for status (I have never used any of my qualifications, no “letters after my name”, I simply introduce myself as “Hi, I’m Tom”), but I have also focussed my personal development more and more over the years on dissolution of ego (which, as a human, does pop up from time to time!)
Knowing my “most” and “least” then, how could I get things wrong? Quite easily, given my two “least” are Certainty and Status! Imagine (ok, don’t imagine, this is not hypothetical, I’ve done this often!) the following scenario. I work with a client on a full day offsite meeting with their leadership to take time to set their Vision and Strategy for their business:
- First, I ask them to give me no introduction. No bio, no “credibility piece”, just “Tom” and to give the participants no detailed agenda, just start and finish times.
- I then open up by telling the group that they will get no notes or slide decks and that at the end of the day, they will simply get one flipchart page summarising the work of the day.
- I continue to say that the process will be fluid and holistic and may feel unstructured.
- I then start with the day and call everyone by their first name, with no titles, and no recognition of roles.
Ok, so this is a slightly extreme exaggeration of how I may start and run things, but I am sure that you can immediately see that for those who need some focus on “Status” and “Certainty” to feel comfortable and ready to fully participate (to feel psychological safety), I have already failed to address those two elements. Worse, I’ve made them uncomfortable! So, now let’s reframe the set-up and running of the day in ways that do consider those elements:
- First, the client does in fact give them a brief bio of me as the person leading the day, as that both shows my “Status” and credibility, and also that the fact they have engaged with someone with such status and credibility reflects positively on their own “Status” as the business is investing in someone who can help draw out their thoughts and ideas.
- My opening still notes that the day will finish with one flipchart summarising things, but also notes to them several points to address “Certainty”, including
- a) that I have been briefed on the group and that the leadership has full confidence that we have the right people in the room for this work,
- b) what we will have achieved by the end of the day (and, by the way, this will have been outlined in the pre-event email),
- c) that we will complete everything on the agenda in the time we have allocated
- d) all flipcharts and other notes completed during the day will be scanned and sent at the end of the day so they can keep them in addition to their own personal notes.
- After recapping the agenda and getting their thoughts, I will then write out the structure to the day session by session, whilst also noting that we may vary this based upon what comes out and where the group chooses to focus so that we can complete the work we have committed to by the finishing time we have set. More “Certainty”.
- Throughout the day I will take note of and remember names, titles, and, in particular, contributions, turns of phrase, ideas. I will constantly and consistently refer to the people who said certain things, shared ideas, phrases etc. Lots of “Status” and in a genuine and specific way.
Now that I write all of this, I realise that without considering “SCARF”, I actually do make a point of addressing Status and Certainty for participants, but at the same time, the SCARF model does now give me a valuable and concise set of lenses through which I can look to understand myself and the needs of others better. Always room to grow, and thank you to Perpetua for the framing!
Please do take time to consider SCARF for yourself and how you then choose to lead others from that place of awareness of self and others.