Creating rewarding workshop experiences: How to apply the SCARF model into your facilitation work

I recently co-facilitated a leadership course for mid-level leaders and as part of that, explained the SCARF model. This is a brain based model created by David Rock in 2008. Rock combines all the neuroscience research and makes it easy for people that aren’t brain scientists, like me, use the research to figure out why humans behave in certain ways at certain times. It's a great summary of important discoveries from neuroscience about the way people interact socially.

By the way, if you'd prefer to listen to this article, rather than reading it - you can tune into Episode 44 of the First Time Facilitator podcast.

You can understand why a model like SCARF if important for leaders to understand; but I also think the model can help us in our role as a facilitator.

In this article, I'm sharing my thoughts on how we can embed SCARF to create a safe and rewarding workshop experience for our participants.

What is the SCARF model?

SCARF centres around three core themes or ideas. These three underpinning ideas are:

#1 - ‘Social threats’ are perceived by the brain with the same intensity as actual physical threats. In other words, our brain is sending out the signal that we're in danger. So if you are feeling a threat response, it triggers the same response your brain would feel if you fell over, or got punched in the face…

#2 - When we are under threat, our ability to solve problems or make decisions or interact with others is diminished. When we are in a ‘reward environment’ our abilities are enhanced. No surprises here - if we want our participants contributing openly, we need to optimise the reward response.

#3 - The threat response, or the desire to avoid pain, is more common and always outweighs the desire to seek pleasure. Therefore, the more pain we can avoid in social situations, the more effective we can be. On the flip side, when we feel rewarded (for instance, when we receive praise for our work) our brains release dopamine – the "happy hormone." So we seek out ways to be rewarded again.

I hope I haven’t lost you yet.

Stay with me, facilitators!

The word SCARF is an acronym of the five key "domains" that influence our behaviour in social situations:

These words are: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.

Here's a quick snapshot of these terms:

• Status: Our relative importance to others.
• Certainty: Our ability to predict the future.
• Autonomy: Our sense of control over events.
• Relatedness: How safe we feel with others.
• Fairness: How fair we perceive the exchanges between people to be.

Many guests I've interviewed on the First Time Facilitator podcast mention that it’s important to create a safe environment. If you’re curious about what that means and what it looks like, I think the SCARF model is a really useful lens to examine this topic.

Let’s start with Status.

Status is all about our relative importance to others. It’s all about pecking order. Where am I in the hierarchy, in relation to you?

Status really comes to life in the work environment. There are a ton of signals, identifying someone else's importance in relation to someone else. Think job title, corner office, car park.

Our sense of status increases when we feel better someone else. But we feel threatened when we think our own status is at risk. 

How does this apply when facilitating?

Well, when you’re working with a range of different people, it’s helpful for them to know what the status is in the room. One activity we run in some of our leadership programs, is asking the group to line up in order from most people leadership, to least people leadership experience (and we ask them to do this without using their voice, which makes it fun) (activity attribution to Nikki McMurray from Corporate Learning Partners).

We run this activity very close to the beginning of the leadership course. It also gives you some intel. If you know there’s someone in your workshop with a ton of experience in the subject matter you’re facilitating, it can sometimes be a good idea to draw on their knowledge, or even check-in and say things like, ‘So Janice, have you had this type of experience over your years as a leader?’.

You can also reduce threat responses by the way you deliver feedback. If you ask a question to the group, and someone responds but the ideas isn’t exactly on track or correct, instead of shutting them down and saying, ‘That’s wrong’, a good approach would be to say, ‘Oh that’s interesting. Can you explain your thoughts’, or ‘Thanks for your comment. What do others in the room think?’.

If you shut that person down and tell them they’re wrong - it puts out a signal to the rest of them room, that you’re not saving face with your questions. You haven’t created an environment where it’s safe to throw around answers. 

As a result, others may not feel so comfortable to raise their hand and respond.

The next domain is Certainty

Certainty is all about our ability to predict the future.

We like knowing what will happen in the future. This is why, we as humans, generally tend to struggle with change.

I was at a conference a couple months back in Brisbane, which had over 80 people attending and they had assigned seats. However, there was no seating plan at the entrance to tell you where your seat was, so I watched many people arrive, walk into the venue, and try to casually walk past each table setting, darting their eyes to see where on earth they were sitting.

In my observation, not having a seating plan raised a threat response. I looked over and could tell there were more than a few nervous looking people, trying to make light of their situation. However, I could also sense them thinking, ‘I hope they haven’t forgotten my table card’, and when they found their seat allocation, they were almost visibly sighing with relief. So a simple move, would have been to have a seat plan available.

Certainty also plays out with start and end times. Make sure you start on time, make sure you finish on time. If you tell your participants that you’re going to cover Content A, B and C, then cover Content A, B and C.

This all works well unless you’re running some type of experiential learning initiative, which in that, you want to cause a bit of chaos!

How else do you create a sense of certainty? Well, when you explain activities or tasks - you need to do as clearly and precisely as you can.

We use a tool in construction and mining to delegate tasks, it’s called CPQQRT (yes, sorry for throwing yet another acronym at you). This also works well as a useful model when you need to explain an instruction.

• Context: The why
• Purpose: The what
• Quantity: How many
• Quality: To what level
• Resources: What resources will you be given to complete the task
• Time: When do you need this by?

"You have learnt the theory behind the SCARF model. Let's see how this works in an applied situation (Context)

I will hand out a task-sheet that will explain your group activity. As a team, you’re to read it together and plan your approach (Purpose)

In a moment I’m going to ask you to stand up and break into four, equally sized groups and sit at the four desks at the back of the room. (Quality and Quantity)

You will need to select a team leader for this activity. I will give you your task sheet, a flipchart paper and marker for your team to record any findings. (Resources)

I’m going to give you 20 minutes to complete the activity and write your findings on the flipchart (Time).

I’m going to ask you to stop your approach and each team leader to present their findings back to the group. Any questions?"

When you prescribe activities using the CPQQRT approach, it's extremely clear what the task requires - here's one way you reduce the threat response for Certainty.

Let's move over to A for Autonomy.

Autonomy is our sense of control over events.

The less autonomy the person experiences, the more the situation is treated as a threat. On the other hand, the sense of autonomy activates the reward structures of the brain, creating a more stress-free experience.

The control of the autonomy domain is especially crucial in corporate life, where micromanagement can often be the norm. Therefore, reducing the threat to autonomy is an important aspect of management.

Where I observe First Time Facilitators tripping up, is thinking they need to explain every detail of a model, or be the expert, to justify their place up the front of the room.

The difference between teaching kids and facilitation in corporate/work environments, is that adults have a ton of experience that they want to share with others. 

If you’re facilitating soft-skill type of workshops, most of the concepts you facilitate are relatable/they have stood the test of time. The value you bring to the conversation, is your ability to harness all the previous experience and stories and learnings from the group you have in front of you, to really make the model or whatever you’re sharing with the group, come to life.

I do think that there are parallels between a manager micro-managing and a facilitator over-explaining.. Happy to be challenged on this!

Moving onto R for Relatedness.

Relatedness is all about how safe we feel with other people.

We actually perceive strangers as threats.

There’s a great Abraham Lincoln quote which really highlights this one. He said, “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better”.

This is why we run icebreakers/getting to know you games, particularly when you’re bringing together a group of people who are strangers, or don’t really know each other at all.

At the same time as a facilitator, you also can’t assume that a team who have worked together for a few months/a year, actually know each other as humans.

Icebreakers and these type of games seem to get a bad wrap sometimes. Yes, they may appear corny, but the intention is right. The intention is to help feel comfortable with others in the room.

Another way this can play out in workshops is that when we’re left out of an activity, we may perceive this as a threat to both our status and relatedness.

If you have odd numbers in your workshop, and you have a paired activity, be cognisant of the person 'leftover' and ensure they work in a group of three, or you jump in to be their partner.

And finally, Fairness

Fairness is how fair we perceive the exchanges between people to be.

As a facilitator, it’s important to remain unbiased in your approach.

This should be a base level standard for all facilitators - to ensure you treat everyone fairly, encourage mutual acceptance and never show favour or exclude people on purpose.

Sometimes it’s worth deciding on the standard for fairness, and that’s why at times you’ll bring in the ‘rules of engagement/meeting rules’ where the group collectively agree on the standards of acceptable behaviour for the meeting, or workshop. 

The key thing here is that as a facilitator, , you need to enforce those standards. Don't let it be okay for the leader/anyone in the room with high status to break the rules (otherwise, you'll see a threat in the Fairness domain!).

And that's SCARF, folks!

Those are some ideas to help create rewarding workshop experience using the SCARF model.

Has this helped? Did I miss anything? Do you have other ideas? Comment below with your ideas!

About the author

Leanne Hughes is the host of the First Time Facilitator podcast and is based in Brisbane, Australia. She works in the field of Organisational Development for a global mining services provider. She loves to shake up expectations and create unpredictable experiences and brings over 12 years’ of experience across a variety of industries including mining, tourism, and vocational education and training. Leanne believes that anyone can develop the skills to deliver engaging group workshops.