THE Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives (Pcaae) recently conducted a webinar entitled, “Membership performance during lockdown: How to support your team to focus on action that will set you up for future success.”
Ingrid Maynard, founder and managing director of The Sales Dr., a Melbourne-based consulting, training and coaching firm, spoke about the “Scarf” Model developed in 2008 by Dr. David Rock, co-founder and CEO of the Neuro Leadership Institute. “Scarf” stands for the five key “domains” that influence peoples’ behavior in social situations. Based on neuroscience research, the model implies that these domains activate the same threat and reward responses in the brain relied to for physical survival.
S: Status refers to recognizing the efforts as well as the achievements of the team. In a meeting, you may ask a high performer to share what they have done to get exceptional outcomes or someone who has been working hard to talk about the impact of their work. This sense of status celebrates success and provides positive feedback for the team and the organization.
C: Certainty relates to having a clear focus on why, how and what to do, clarifying outcomes and timeframes and communicating frequently to get the desired results. For example, you may direct the team to have a conversation with each other and, by the end of an agreed time, to share learnings and results. This sense of certainty has been disrupted by the pandemic so more engagement now with the team is essential.
A: Autonomy provides support to the team to establish their own objectives and targets, working schedules andsetting reportorial accountability, as well as consequences for not achieving outcomes. You may work with each team member to provide a framework on how to do this and then catch up again and go through this together with the team.
R: Relatedness revolves around the importance of relationships in an organization. Do you find out how each team member really is? How is their family? What are they proud of? What are they challenged by? How can you best support them? You may wish to set up a format for the team to connect with each other and show them how you care about them before outcomes. Scheduling time each week to have a non-work conversation with each team member to get to know them better could be a good idea.
F: Fairness is being consistent with team meetings, one-on-one meetings and the way you give feedback. It is also about whether the decisions made and the practices and policies in place are just and unbiased.
In this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (Vuca) environment because of the pandemic, associations rely more on their people. Association leaders can use the “Scarf” model to help them communicate in a way that helps people feel more secure and make certain that what they say does not activate fear and mistrust detrimental to the organization.
By the way,I forgot to list Nestlé Philippines as a founding member of the Global Compact Network Philippines in last week’s column (January 27, 2022). My apologies for the oversight.
Octavio Peralta is currently the executive director of the Global Compact Network Philippines and founder and volunteer CEO of the Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives, the “association of associations.” E-mail: obperalta@gmail.com.