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The Neuroscience of Leading Change – a Practical Guide for Leaders

The Neuroscience of Change - A Practical Guide for Leaders

By Ian Hirst, CEO, Greenbank

We live in a world of constant change – and there are countless books giving leaders advice on how to introduce new ways of working.  But how do we avoid people feeling threatened by change – and maybe even help them to positively embrace it?

Well – coming to our rescue here is some latest neuroscience thinking, bringing some real science into the topic.  At the forefront of this is SCARF – a brilliant model developed by a David Rock, a neuroscience professor, who we regularly reference in our leadership programmes.

Let’s look at some of the background behind the model, before we summarise it and suggest some ways you can use it with your teams…

Some of the neuroscience behind SCARF

The SCARF model is grounded in the latest understanding of how our brain’s respond to perceived threats and rewards. In summary, our brains are wired to run away, or fight threats and maximise rewards, a principle known as the flight or fight response.

Amygdala Hijack

The amygdala is responsible for this fight-or-flight response. When it perceives a threat, it can trigger what is known as an amygdala hijack, where the rational part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) is bypassed, leading to immediate and often disproportionate emotional reactions.  Very handy in the distant past when we were running away from sabre-tooth tigers, but perhaps less useful in a pressurised business context as it can result in heightened stress levels and impulsive decisions…

During change initiatives, leaders can inadvertently trigger this flight-or-fight behaviour in others, simply by miscommunication – and as a result, people can feel disempowered, worried, frustrated or even angry.   Leaving leaders wondering what they did wrong, when the change is obviously the best thing for the company…

Also – different people have different ‘triggers’, and these may not be the same as yours, making it even more difficult to anticipate…

What is SCARF?

To help us put some language around this, David Rock identified 5 key triggers, nicely summed up in the memorable acronym SCARF – Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness.    Let’s look briefly at each of these, how they might trigger negative behaviour, and what you might do to avoid this!

Status: 

We all want to feel important, recognised, and competent 

However, during periods of change, your people may feel their status is threatened – especially if there are role changes – and they could believe their contributions are not valued 

As a leader, you can mitigate this by actively involving them in the planning for change, and find shared solutions they can take ownership for.   If this isn’t realistic, then make sure you are at least showing a genuine interest in their views and ideas – and put extra effort into demonstrating mutual respect during the conversation

Autonomy:

Most of us like to do things ‘our way’  – and for many people, its even more crucial that they have a sense of control over their own environment 

We all know that feeling micromanaged, overruled, or controlled gets most people’s backs up – but for some, simply trying to convince them to adopt consistent company policies may trigger a sense that they are losing individual choice and freedom.

So – although the change is going to happen – try giving everybody an acceptable level of freedom in the way they personally implement the change – and listen carefully to their feedback along the way! 

Relatedness:

We are social beings and some people see the workplace as a vital extension of their social life and wellbeing – helping them feel safe and secure

If they see the change as disrupting social bonds, they might feel isolated, stressed and find it difficult to embrace the new structure or ways of working.   

During times of change therefore, you may want to spend more time than normal on team-building and social events. Showing that you recognise that success isn’t only about metrics and giving people a chance to discuss things and feel a sense of belonging.   If the changes bring new people into the team, then make sure people have the opportunity to get to know each other as human beings as well as work colleagues.

Fairness:

This is probably the biggest trigger for most people we have worked with in the last few years.   Difficult decisions can be accepted if we feel like they are ‘fair play’, but nobody likes injustice. 

Importantly not only do we want to be treated fairly ourselves – we also need to see that other people are being treated fairly too!  So if we perceive ‘favourites’ are getting better treatment, it’s easy to feel resentful and disengage from the change. 

Ideally, we should strive to avoid the perception of unfairness altogether – or at least find ways to balance or compensate people or teams that need to take more than their fair share of the pain! 

A good starting point here is to  make it 100% clear both why the change is happening, the rational you have used and also how everybody is affected by the changes.  

In conclusion

Its interesting that the elements that particularly hook us as individuals can change depending on the circumstances.  For example ‘Status’ may not be a high scoring trigger for you, if you are in a role that gives you lots of explicit power and control – however if you change roles you might feel less sure about your importance or power and this could lead you to realise that Status was always more important to you than you thought!

With this in mind, remember that not all of these SCARF elements will trigger everybody – so just because one or two of these don’t apply to you at the moment, they could still be vital for other members of your team!

Finally – SCARF is a great way to review your change communication – put yourselves in the shoes of the audience and ask yourself if you are in danger of triggering one or more of these SCARF elements.  We ourselves have witnessed change presentations that have inadvertently triggered all 5 of these, with disastrous consequences  – and also seen communiques that make people feel reassured and comfortable about the changes ahead.

Give it a go and let us know how you get on!

About Greenbank

Greenbank are an innovative, ‘boutique’ consultancy delivering completely tailored leadership, negotiation and sales development programmes to clients ranging from top 5 global firms to tech start-ups.

We are now delighted to be running truly blended programmes, which make the most of both virtual platforms and interactive face-to-face workshops, to deliver motivational, cost-effective development.

We also have our own industry-leading, multi-lingual, 360° assessment platform, Navigator360 which provides our clients and other training providers with a completely flexible approach to gathering powerful confidential feedback.

If you would like to discuss how we can help your own sales or leadership teams, then we would be delighted to have a relaxed conversation – please contact Ian Hirst or (+44) 7812 074359.