2019-04-05_grant.lawn2_Managing with the Brain in Mind_Rock_Strategy and business.pdf

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ManagingwiththeBraininMind 
byDavidRock 
from strate gy+busi ness issue 56,Autumn 2009 reprintnumber09206 strate gy+business 
Reprint

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Naomi Eisenberger, a leading social neuroscience
researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles
(UCLA), wanted to understand what goes on in the
brain when people feel rejected by others. She designed
an experiment in which volunteers played a computer
gamecalledCyberballwhilehavingtheirbrainsscannedby a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
machine.Cyberballhearkensbacktothenastinessofthe
schoolplayground.“Peoplethoughttheywereplayinga
ball-tossing game over the Internet with two other peo-
ple,” Eisenberger explains. “They could see an avatar
that represented themselves, and avatars [ostensibly] for
two other people. Then, about halfway through this
game of catch among the three of them, the subjects
stopped receiving the ball and the two other supposedplayers threw the ball only to each other.” Even aftertheylearnedthatnootherhumanplayerswereinvolved,
the game players spoke of feeling angry, snubbed, or
judged, as if the other avatars excluded them because
they didn’t like something about them.
This reaction could be traced directly to the brain’s
responses. “When people felt excluded,” says Eisen-
berger,“wesawactivityinthedorsalportionoftheante-
riorcingulatecortex—theneuralregioninvolvedinthe
distressing component of pain, or what is sometimesreferred to as the ‘suffering’ component of pain. Those
people who felt the most rejected had the highest levelsof activity in this region.” In other words, the feeling of
beingexcludedprovokedthesamesortofreactioninthe
brain that physical pain might cause. (See Exhibit 1.)
Eisenberger’sfellowresearcherMatthewLieberman,
also of UCLA, hypothesizes that human beings evolvedNeuroscience research is
revealing the social nature of the
high-performance workplace.Illustration by Leigh Wellsby David RockManaging
with the Brain in MindSPECIALREPORT:THETALENTOPPORTUNITY

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strategy + business issue 56this link between social connection and physical dis-
comfortwithinthebrain“because,toamammal,being
sociallyconnectedtocaregiversisnecessaryforsurvival.”
This study and many others now emerging have madeone thing clear: The human brain is a social organ. Its
physiologicalandneurologicalreactionsaredirectlyand
profoundly shaped by social interaction. Indeed, as
Lieberman puts it, “Most processes operating in thebackground when your brain is at rest are involved inthinking about other people and yourself.”
This presents enormous challenges to managers.
Although a job is often regarded as a purely economic
transaction, in which people exchange their labor forfinancialcompensation,thebrainexperiencesthework-
place first and foremost as a social system. Like the
experiment participants whose avatars were left out ofthe game, people who feel betrayed or unrecognized atwork—forexample,whentheyarereprimanded,given
anassignmentthatseemsunworthy,ortoldtotakeapay
cut—experienceitasaneuralimpulse,aspowerfuland
painfulasablowtothehead.Mostpeoplewhoworkin
companieslearntorationalizeortempertheirreactions;
they “suck it up,” as the common parlance puts it. But
they also limit their commitment and engagement.
They become purely transactional employees, reluctant
to give more of themselves to the company, because the
social context stands in their way.
Leaders who understand this dynamic can more
effectively engage their employees’ best talents, supportcollaborativeteams,andcreateanenvironmentthatfos-
ters productive change. Indeed, the ability to intention-
ally address the social brain in the service of optimal
performancewillbeadistinguishingleadershipcapabil-ity in the years ahead.DavidRock
(davidrock@workplacecoaching.com) is the founding president
of the NeuroLeadershipInstitute (www.neuroleadership.org). He is also the CEO ofResults Coaching Systems,which helps global organiza-tions grow their leadershipteams, using brain research as
a base for self-awareness and
social awareness. He is theauthor of Your Brain at Work
(HarperBusiness, 2009) and
Quiet Leadership: Six Steps toTransforming Performance atWork(Collins, 2006).
TriggeringtheThreatResponse
One critical thread of research on the social brain starts
with the “threat and reward” response, a neurological
mechanismthatgovernsagreatdealofhumanbehavior.
When you encounter something unexpected — a
shadow seen from the corner of your eye or a new col-league moving into the office next door — the limbic
system(arelativelyprimitivepartofthebrain,common
to many animals) is aroused. Neuroscientist EvianGordonreferstothisasthe“minimizedanger,maximizereward” response; he calls it “the fundamental orga-nizingprincipleofthebrain.”Neuronsareactivatedand
hormones are released as you seek to learn whether this
new entity represents a chance for reward or a potential
danger. If the perception is danger, then the response
becomes a pure threat response — also known as the
fight or flight response, the avoid response, and, in itsextreme form, the amygdala hijack, named for a part of
the limbic system that can be aroused rapidly and in an
emotionally overwhelming way.
Recently, researchers have documented that the
threatresponseisoftentriggeredinsocialsituations,andit tends to be more intense and longer-lasting than the
reward response. Data gathered through measures of
brain activity — by using fMRI and electroencephalo-
graph (EEG) machines or by gauging hormonal secre-
tions — suggests that the same neural responses that
drive us toward food or away from predators are trig-
gered by our perception of the way we are treated by
otherpeople.Thesefindingsarereframingtheprevailingview of the role that social drivers play in influencing
how humans behave. Matthew Lieberman notes that
Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” theory may
have been wrong in this respect. Maslow proposed that

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4humans tend to satisfy their needs in sequence, starting
withphysicalsurvivalandmovinguptheladdertoward
self-actualization at the top. In this hierarchy, social
needssitinthemiddle.Butmanystudiesnowshowthat
thebrainequatessocialneedswithsurvival;forexample,
being hungry and being ostracized activate similar neu-
ral responses.
The threat response is both mentally taxing and
deadlytotheproductivityofaperson—orofanorgan-ization. Because this response uses up oxygen and glu-
cose from the blood, they are diverted from other parts
of the brain, including the working memory function,
which processes new information and ideas. This
impairs analytic thinking, creative insight, and problemsolving; in other words, just when people most need
their sophisticated mental capabilities, the brain’s inter-
nal resources are taken away from them.
The impact of this neural dynamic is often visible
in organizations. For example, when leaders trigger a
threat response, employees’ brains become much lessefficient.Butwhenleadersmakepeoplefeelgoodabout
themselves,clearlycommunicatetheirexpectations,giveemployees latitude to make decisions, support people’sefforts to build good relationships, and treat the wholeorganizationfairly,itpromptsarewardresponse.Others
in the organization become more effective, more open
to ideas, and more creative. They notice the kind of
information that passes them by when fear or resent-
Physical
Pain Social
Pain Exhibit1: Social and Physical Pain Produce Similar Brain Responses 
Illustr ation: Samue lValasco
Source: Eisenb erge r,Lieberm an,andWilliam s,Science, 2003 (socialpainimages); Lieberman etal.,“The NeuralCorrela tesofPlaceboEffects:ADisruption Account,”
Neuroimage, May2004(physicalpainimages) Brainscans captu redthrough function almagneticresonance imagin g(fMRI) showthesame areas associat edwithdistress, whether causedby
socialrejectionorphysicalpain.The dorsa lanteriorcingul atecortex(highligh tedatleft)isassociatedwith thedegr eeofdistress;theright ventral
prefrontalcortex(highlighted atright)isassoci atedwithregul atingthedistress.
o ci al 
a in 
re jec tio no rp hys ica lp ain .T hedor sal an ter ior ci ngu lat ec ort ex(hi ghl igh ted at le ft) is 
nta lc ort ex(hi ghl igh ted at ri ght )i sa sso cia ted wi threg ula tin gt hedis tre 
N eura lCo rrel ates ofPlac eboEffe cts: AD isru ptio nAc coun t,”
tion :
Sam
: 
Eis enbe rger ,Li ebe
 pa ini mage s);Lieb er
ma ge, 
May 200 4(p hysi calpain ima ges) 
mu elV alas c
h ys ic 
a in 
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rma net al. ,“T heN 
 r man, and Wil liam s,
Scie nce, 
200 3(s ocia l
o
e ss.

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strategy + business issue 56mentmakesitdifficulttofocustheirattention.Theyare
lesssusceptibletoburnoutbecausetheyareabletoman-
age their stress.They feel intrinsically rewarded.
Understanding the threat and reward response can
alsohelpleaderswhoaretryingtoimplementlarge-scale
change. The track record of failed efforts to spark
higher-perfomance behavior has led many managers to
conclude that human nature is simply intractable: “You
can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”Yet neuroscience has
also discovered that the human brain is highly plastic.Neuralconnectionscanbereformed,newbehaviorscan
be learned, and even the most entrenched behaviors
can be modified at any age. The brain will make these
shiftsonlywhenitisengagedinmindfulattention.Thisis the state of thought associated with observing one’s
own mental processes (or, in an organization, stepping
back to observe the flow of a conversation as it is hap-
pening). Mindfulness requires both serenity and con-
centration; in a threatened state, people are much more
likelytobe“mindless.”Theirattentionisdivertedbythe
threat, and they cannot easily move to self-discovery.
In a previous article (“The Neuroscience of
Leadership,” s+b,Summer 2006), brain scientist Jeffrey
Schwartz and I proposed that organizations could mar-
shal mindful attention to create organizational change.Theycoulddothisovertimebyputtinginplaceregular
routines in which people would watch the patterns oftheir thoughts and feelings as they worked and thus
develop greater self-awareness. We argued that this was
theonlywaytochangeorganizationalbehavior;thatthe
“carrots and sticks” of incentives (and behavioral psy-
chology) did not work, and that the counseling and
empathy of much organizational development was notefficient enough to make a difference.Researchintothesocialnatureofthebrainsuggests
another piece of this puzzle. Five particular qualities
enable employees and executives alike to minimize the
threat response and instead enable the reward response.
These five social qualities are status, certainty, auton-
omy, relatedness, and fairness: Because they can be
expressed with the acronym SCARF, I sometimes think
of them as a kind of headgear that an organization can
weartopreventexposuretodysfunction.Tounderstandhow the
SCARFmodel works, let’s look at each charac-
teristic in turn.
StatusandItsDiscontents
As humans, we are constantly assessing how social
encounters either enhance or diminish our status. Re-
search published by Hidehiko Takahashi et al. in 2009showsthatwhenpeoplerealizethattheymightcompare
unfavorably to someone else, the threat response kicksin, releasing cortisol and other stress-related hormones.
(Cortisol is an accurate biological marker of the threat
response;withinthebrain,feelingsoflowstatusprovoke
the kind of cortisol elevation associated with sleep dep-
rivation and chronic anxiety.)
Separately,researcherMichaelMarmot,inhisbook
The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our
Health and Longevity (Times Books, 2004), has shown
that high status correlates with human longevity and
health,evenwhenfactorslikeincomeandeducationare
controlledfor.Inshort,wearebiologicallyprogrammedto care about status because it favors our survival.
As anyone who has lived in a modest house in a
high-pricedneighborhoodknows,thefeelingofstatusis
always comparative. And an executive with a salary of
US$500,000 may feel elevated...until he or she isNeuroscience has discovered that the brain
is highly plastic. Even the most
entrenched behaviors can be modified.

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assignedtoworkwithanexecutivemaking$2.5million.
A study by Joan Chiao in 2003 found that the neural
circuitry that assesses status is similar to that whichprocessesnumbers;thecircuitryoperatesevenwhenthestakes are meaningless, which is why winning a board
gameorbeingthefirstoffthemarkatagreenlightfeels
so satisfying. Competing against ourselves in games like
solitaire triggers the same circuitry, which may helpexplain the phenomenal popularity of video games.
Understanding the role of status as a core concern
can help leaders avoid organizational practices that stircounterproductive threat responses among employees.
For example, performance reviews often provoke athreatresponse;peoplebeingreviewedfeelthattheexer-
cise itself encroaches on their status. This makes 360-degree reviews, unless extremely participative and well-designed, ineffective at generating positive behavioral
change.Anothercommonstatusthreatisthecustomof
offeringfeedback,astandardpracticeforbothmanagersand coaches. The mere phrase “Can I give you some
advice?” puts people on the defensive becausethey perceive the person offering advice as claiming su-
periority.Itisthecortisolequivalentofhearingfootsteps
in the dark.
Organizations often assume that the only way to
raise an employee’s status is to award a promotion. Yetstatus can also be enhanced in less-costly ways. For
example,theperceptionofstatusincreaseswhenpeople
aregivenpraise.ExperimentsconductedbyKeiseIzuma
in 2008 show that a programmed status-related stimu-lus, in the form of a computer saying “good job,” lights
up the same reward regions of the brain as a financial
windfall. The perception of status also increases whenpeople master a new skill; paying employees more forthe skills they have acquired, rather than for their
seniority, is a status booster in itself.
Valueshaveastrongimpactonstatus.Anorganiza-
tion that appears to value money and rank more than a
basic sense of respect for all employees will stimulate
threat responses among employees who aren’t at the top
of the heap. Similarly, organizations that try to pit peo-
ple against one another on the theory that it will makethem work harder reinforce the idea that there are only
winners and losers, which undermines the standing ofpeople below the top 10 percent.
ACravingforCertainty
When an individual encounters a familiar situation, his
or her brain conserves its own energy by shifting into akind of automatic pilot: it relies on long-established
neural connections in the basal ganglia and motor cor-tex that have, in effect, hardwired this situation and the
individual’sresponsetoit.Thismakesiteasytodowhat
the person has done in the past, and it frees that person
todotwothingsatonce;forexample,totalkwhiledriv-ing. But the minute the brain registers ambiguity orconfusion—if,forexample,thecaraheadofthedriverslams on its brakes — the brain flashes an error signal.With the threat response aroused and working memory
diminished, the driver must stop talking and shift full
attention to the road.
Uncertainty registers (in a part of the brain called
theanteriorcingulatecortex)asanerror,gap,ortension:something that must be corrected before one can feel
comfortable again. That is why people crave certainty.Not knowing what will happen next can be profoundly
debilitating because it requires extra neural energy.This
diminishes memory, undermines performance, and dis-
engages people from the present.
Of course, uncertainty is not necessarily debilitat-
ing. Mild uncertainty attracts interest and attention:
New and challenging situations create a mild threat
response, increasing levels of adrenalin and dopamine
just enough to spark curiosity and energize people to
solve problems. Moreover, different people respond to
uncertaintyintheworldaroundthemindifferentways,depending in part on their existing patterns of thought.
For example, when that car ahead stops suddenly, the
driver who thinks, “What should I do?” is likely to
be ineffective, whereas the driver who frames the inci-dent as manageable — “I need to swerve left nowbecausethere’sacarontheright”—iswellequippedtorespond. All of life is uncertain; it is the perception offeatures specialreport
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strategy + business issue 56too much uncertainty that undercuts focus and per-
formance. When perceived uncertainty gets out of
hand, people panic and make bad decisions.
Leaders and managers must thus work to create a
perceptionofcertaintytobuildconfidentanddedicated
teams.Sharingbusinessplans,rationalesforchange,and
accurate maps of an organization’s structure promotesthis perception. Giving specifics about organizational
restructuring helps people feel more confident about a
plan, and articulating how decisions are made increases
trust.Transparentpracticesarethefoundationonwhich
the perception of certainty rests.
Breaking complex projects down into small steps
canalsohelpcreatethefeelingofcertainty.Althoughit’s
highly unlikely everything will go as planned, people
function better because the project now seems lessambiguous.Likethedriverontheroadwhohasenoughinformation to calculate his or her response, an em-
ployee focused on a single, manageable aspect of a task
is unlikely to be overwhelmed by threat responses.
TheAutonomyFactor
Studies by Steven Maier at the University of Boulder
show that the degree of control available to an animal
confrontedbystressfulsituationsdetermineswhetheror
not that stressor undermines the ability to function.
Similarly, in an organization, as long as people feel they
can execute their own decisions without much over-
sight, stress remains under control. Because human
brainsevolvedinresponsetostressorsoverthousandsof
years, they are constantly attuned, usually at a subcon-scious level, to the ways in which social encountersthreaten or support the capacity for choice.
Aperceptionofreducedautonomy—forexample,
becauseofbeingmicromanaged—caneasilygeneratea
threatresponse.Whenanemployeeexperiencesalackof
control, or agency, his or her perception of uncertainty
is also aroused, further raising stress levels. By contrast,theperceptionofgreaterautonomyincreasesthefeeling
of certainty and reduces stress.
Leaderswhowanttosupporttheirpeople’sneedfor
autonomy must give them latitude to make choices,
especiallywhen they are partof a team or working withasupervisor.Presentingpeoplewithoptions,orallowing
them to organize their own work and set their own
hours,provokesamuchlessstressedresponsethanforc-ing them to follow rigid instructions and schedules. In1977, a well-known study of nursing homes by Judith
Rodin and Ellen Langer found that residents who weregiven more control over decision making lived longer
andhealthierlivesthanresidentsinacontrolgroupwho
had everything selected for them. The choices them-
selveswereinsignificant;itwastheperceptionofauton-omy that mattered.
Another study, this time of the franchise industry,
identified work–life balance as the number one reason
thatpeopleleftcorporationsandmovedintoafranchise.Yet other data showed that franchise owners actually
workedfarlongerhours(oftenforlessmoney)thanthey
hadincorporatelife.Theyneverthelessperceivedthem-
selves to have a better work–life balance because they
had greater scope to make their own choices. Leaders
whoknowhowtosatisfytheneedforautonomyamong
theirpeoplecanreapsubstantialbenefits—withoutlos-ing their best people to the entrepreneurial ranks.
RelatingtoRelatedness
Fruitful collaboration depends on healthy relationships,
which require trust and empathy. But in the brain, the
ability to feel trust and empathy about others is shaped
by whether they are perceived to be part of the same
socialgroup.Thispatternisvisibleinmanydomains:in
sports (“I hate the other team”), in organizational silos(“the ‘suits’ are the problem”), and in communities
(“those people on the other side of town always messthings up”).
Each time a person meets someone new, the brain
automatically makes quick friend-or-foe distinctions
and then experiences the friends and foes in ways that
arecoloredbythosedistinctions.Whenthenewperson
is perceived as different, the information travels along
neural pathways that are associated with uncomfortable
feelings(differentfromtheneuralpathwaystriggeredby
people who are perceived as similar to oneself).
Leaderswhounderstandthisphenomenonwillfind
many ways to apply it in business. For example, teams
ofdiversepeoplecannotbethrowntogether.Theymustbedeliberatelyputtogetherinawaythatminimizesthepotential for threat responses.Trust cannot be assumed
or mandated, nor can empathy or even goodwill be
compelled. These qualities develop only when people’s
brainsstarttorecognizeformerstrangersasfriends.Thisrequires time and repeated social interaction.
Once people make a stronger social connection,
their brains begin to secrete a hormone called oxytocin
in one another’s presence. This chemical, which has
been linked with affection, maternal behavior, sexualarousal, and generosity, disarms the threat response and

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8The cognitive need for fairness is so strong that
some people are willing to fight and die for causes
they believe are just — or commit themselves whole-
heartedly to an organization they recognize as fair. An
executive told me he had stayed with his company for22 years simply because “they always did the right
thing.” People often engage in volunteer work for simi-
lar reasons:They perceive their actions as increasing the
fairness quotient in the world.
In organizations, the perception of unfairness cre-
ates an environment in which trust and collaboration
cannot flourish. Leaders who play favorites or whoappeartoreserveprivilegesforpeoplewhoarelikethem
arouse a threat response in employees who are outside
theircircle.Theoldboys’networkprovidesanegregious
example; those who are not a part of it always perceive
their organizations as fundamentally unfair, no matter
how many mentoring programs are put in place.
Like certainty, fairness is served by transparency.
Leaders who share information in a timely manner can
keep people engaged and motivated, even during staff
reductions. Morale remains relatively high when people
perceive that cutbacks are being handled fairly — thatnoonegroupistreatedwithpreferenceandthatthereis
a rationale for every cut.
PuttingontheSCARF
If you are a leader, every action you take and every
decision you make either supports or undermines theperceived levels of status, certainty, autonomy, related-
ness, and fairness in your enterprise. In fact, this is why
leading is so difficult. Your every word and glance is
freighted with social meaning. Your sentences andgestures are noticed and interpreted, magnified andfurther activates the neural networks that permit us toperceive someone as “just like us.” Research by MichaelKosfeld et al. in 2005 shows that a shot of oxytocindelivered by means of a nasal spray decreases threatarousal. But so may a handshake and a shared glance
over something funny.
Conversely, the human threat response is aroused
when people feel cut off from social interaction.Lonelinessandisolationareprofoundlystressful.JohnT.
Cacioppo and William Patrick showed in 2008 that
lonelinessisitselfathreatresponsetolackofsocialcon-
tact, activating the same neurochemicals that flood the
system when one is subjected to physical pain. Leaders
who strive for inclusion and minimize situations in
which people feel rejected create an environment that
supportsmaximumperformance.Thisofcourseraisesa
challenge for organizations: How can they foster relat-edness among people who are competing with one
another or who may be laid off?
PlayingforFairness
The perception that an event has been unfair generates
a strong response in the limbic system, stirring hostility
and undermining trust. As with status, people perceive
fairness in relative terms, feeling more satisfied with afair exchange that offers a minimal reward than anunfair exchange in which the reward is substantial.
Studies conducted by Matthew Lieberman and Golnaz
Tabibnia found that people respond more positively tobeing given 50 cents from a dollar split between them
andanotherpersonthantoreceiving$8outofatotalof$25.Anotherstudyfoundthattheexperienceoffairnessproduces reward responses in the brain similar to thosethat occur from eating chocolate.We now have reason to believe that economic
incentives are effective only when people perceive
them as supporting their social needs.

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strategy + business issue 56combed for meanings you may never have intended.
TheSCARFmodel provides a means of bringing
conscious awareness to all these potentially fraught
interactions. It helps alert you to people’s core concerns
(which they may not even understand themselves) and
shows you how to calibrate your words and actions to
better effect.
Startbyreducingthethreatsinherentinyourcom-
panyandinitsleaders’behavior.Justastheanimalbrain
is wired to respond to a predator before it can focus
attention on the hunt for food, so is the social brain
wired to respond to dangers that threaten its core con-
cerns before it can perform other functions. Threatalways trumps reward because the threat response is
strong, immediate, and hard to ignore. Once aroused,it is hard to displace, which is why an unpleasant
encounter in traffic on the morning drive to work can
distract attention and impair performance all day.
Humanscannot think creatively,workwellwith others,ormakeinformeddecisionswhentheirthreatresponses
are on high alert. Skilled leaders understand this andact accordingly.
Abusinessreorganizationprovidesagoodexample.
Reorganizationsgeneratemassiveamountsofuncertain-ty, which can paralyze people’s ability to perform. Aleader attuned to
SCARFprinciples therefore makes
reducingthethreatofuncertaintythefirstorderofbusi-
ness.Forexample,aleadermightkickofftheprocessby
sharing as much information as possible about the rea-
sons for the reorganization, painting a picture of the
future company and explaining what the specific impli-
cationswillbeforthepeoplewhoworkthere.Muchwill
be unknown, but being clear about what is known andwilling to acknowledge what is not goes a long way
toward ameliorating uncertainty threats.
Reorganizations also stir up threats to autonomy,
because people feel they lack control over their future.
Anastuteleaderwilladdressthesethreatsbygivingpeo-
ple latitude to make as many of their own decisions as
possible — for example, when the budget must be cut,
involving the people closest to the work in decidingwhat must go. Because many reorganizations entailinformation technology upgrades that undermine peo-ple’sperceptionofautonomybyfoistingnewsystemson
them without their consent, it is essential to provide
continuous support and solicit employees’ participation
in the design of new systems.
Top-down strategic planning is often inimical to
SCARF-related reactions. Having a few key leaders come
upwithaplanandthenexpectingpeopletobuyintoit
is a recipe for failure, because it does not take the threatresponse into account. People rarely support initiatives
they had no part in designing; doing so would under-
mine both autonomy and status. Proactively addressing
these concerns by adopting an inclusive planning
process can prevent the kind of unconscious sabotage
thatresultswhenpeoplefeeltheyhaveplayednopartin
a change that affects them every day.
Leaders often underestimate the importance of
addressing threats to fairness. This is especially true
when it comes to compensation. Although most people
are not motivated primarily by money, they are pro-
foundly de-motivated when they believe they are
being unfairly paid or that others are overpaid by com-
parison. Leaders who recognize fairness as a core con-
cern understand that disproportionately increasing
compensation at the top makes it impossible to fully
engage people at the middle or lower end of the payscale. Declaring that a highly paid executive is “doing agreat job” is counterproductive in this situation because
thosewhoarepaidlesswillinterpretittomeanthatthey
are perceived to be poor performers.
For years, economists have argued that people will
change their behavior if they have sufficient incentives.But these economists have defined incentives almost
exclusively in economic terms. We now have reason tobelievethateconomicincentivesareeffectiveonlywhen
people perceive them as supporting their social needs.
Status can also be enhanced by giving an employee
greater scope to plan his or her schedule or the chance
todevelopmeaningfulrelationshipswiththoseatdiffer-
ent levels in the organization. The
SCARFmodel thus
provides leaders with more nuanced and cost-effective
ways to expand the definition of reward.In doing so,
SCARFprinciples also provide a more granular under-
standing of the state of engagement, in which employ-
ees give their best performance. Engagement can be
induced when people working toward objectives feelrewarded by their efforts, with a manageable level ofthreat:inshort,whenthebrainisgeneratingrewardsin
several
SCARF-related dimensions.
Leaders themselves are not immune to the SCARF

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10dynamic; like everyone else, they react when they feel
their status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fair
treatment are threatened. However, their reactions have
more impact, because they are picked up and amplified
by others throughout the company. (If a company’sexecutive salaries are excessive, it may be because othersare following the leader’s intuitive emphasis, driven by
subconscious cognition, on anything that adds status.)
If you are an executive leader, the more practiced
you are at reading yourself, the more effective you will
be.Forexample,ifyouunderstandthatmicromanaging
threatensstatusandautonomy,youwillresistyourown
impulse to gain certainty by dictating every detail.
Instead,you’llseektodisarmpeoplebygivingthemlat-
itude to make their own mistakes. If you have felt thehairs on the back of your own neck rise when someonesays,“CanIofferyousomefeedback?”youwillknowit’sbest to create opportunities for people to do the hardwork of self-assessment rather than insisting they
depend on performance reviews.
When a leader is self-aware, it gives others a feeling
ofsafetyeveninuncertainenvironments.Itmakesiteas-
ierforemployeestofocusontheirwork,whichleadsto
improvedperformance.Thesameprincipleisevidentin
other groups of mammals, where a skilled pack leader
keepsmembersatpeacesotheycanperformtheirfunc-tions. A self-aware leader modulates his or her behavior
to alleviate organizational stress and creates an environ-
ment in which motivation and creativity flourish. Onegreat advantage of neuroscience is that it provides hard
data to vouch forthe efficacy and value of so-calledsoft
skills. It also shows the danger of being a hard-charging
leader whose best efforts to move people along also set
up a threat response that puts others on guard.
Similarly,manyleaderstrytorepresstheiremotions
in order to enhance their leadership presence, but this
only confuses people and undermines morale. Exper-
iments by Kevin Ochsner and James Gross show that
when someone tries not to let other people see what he
or she is feeling, the other party tends to experience a
threat response.That’s why being spontaneous is key to
creatinganauthenticleadershippresence.Thisapproach
is likely to minimize status threats, increase certainty,
and create a sense of relatedness and fairness.
Finally, the
SCARFmodel helps explain why intelli-
gence,initself,isn’tsufficientforagoodleader.Matthew
Lieberman’s research suggests that high intelligence
often corresponds with low self-awareness. The neural
networks involved in information holding, planning,and cognitive problem solving reside in the lateral, or
outer, portions of the brain, whereas the middle regions
supportself-awareness,socialskills,andempathy.These
regions are inversely correlated. As Lieberman notes, “If
youspendalotoftimeincognitivetasks,yourabilityto
have empathy for people is reduced simply because that
part of your circuitry doesn’t get much use.”
Perhapsthegreatestchallengefacingleadersofbusi-
ness or government is to create the kind of atmosphere
that promotes status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness,
andfairness.Whenhistorianslookback,theirjudgmentof this period in time may rise or fall on how organiza-
tions, and society as a whole, operated. Did they treat
people fairly, draw people together to solve problems,
promoteentrepreneurshipandautonomy,fostercertain-
tywhereverpossible,andfindwaystoraisetheperceived
status of everyone? If so, the brains of the future will
salute them.
+
Reprint No. 09306
Resources
JohnT. Cacioppo andWilliam Patrick, Loneliness: Human Nature and the
Need for Social Connection (W.W. Norton, 2008): A scientific look at the
causes and effects of emotional isolation.
Michael Marmot, The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our
Health and Longevity (Times Books, 2004): An epidemiologist shows that
people live longer when they have status, autonomy, and relatedness, even
if they lack money.
David Rock, Your Brain atWork: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction,
Regaining Focus, andWorking Smarter All Day Long (HarperBusiness,
2009): Neuroscience explanations for workplace challenges and dilemmas,
and strategies for managing them.David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, “The Neuroscience of Leadership,” s+b,
Summer 2006, www.strategy-business.com/press/article/06207: Applying
breakthroughs in brain research, this article explains the value of neuro-
plasticity in organizational change.
David Rock, “SCARF: A Brain-based Model for Collaborating with and
Influencing Others,” NeuroLeadership Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, December
2008, 44: Overview of research on the five factors described in this article,
and contains bibliographic references for research quoted in this article.
Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman, with K.D.Williams, “Does
Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion,” Science,vol. 302,
no. 5643, October 2003, 290–292: Covers the Cyberball experiment.
Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman, “The Pains and Pleasures of
Social Life,” Science,vol. 323, no. 5916, February 2009, 890–891:
Explication of social pain and social pleasure, and the impact of fairness,
status, and autonomy on brain response.
NeuroLeadership InstituteWeb site, www.neuroleadership.org: Institutebringing together research scientists and management experts to explore
the transformation of organizational development and performance.
For more business thought leadership, sign up for s+b’s RSS feeds at
www.strategy-business.com/rss

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