Throughout my many leadership years in education, the month of May was always joyful to me. It was a time for meaningful conversations, reflections and just learning more about my staff doing the important, yet difficult work in education. Some conversations might be about the future of a staff member, others would certainly be about reflections on successes and new possibilities, and some were simply to motivate and ignite. All were joyful to me, even when stressful, as the result was almost always positive movement (the goal).

The greatest gift in my educational career was the opportunity to learn about Cognitive Coaching in its infancy. The skills learned and then deeply developed from our continued learning from the bigger world of coaching, led to our concept of being a “coach leader” today. And then came David Rock with his NeuroLeadership Institute! His early work taught that the brain is always sensing for threat or safety and what we say or do in our conversations almost always brings both.

As his leadership study continued, I bet you remember from our seminar, one gift Dr. David Rock gave us in his research was SCARF. He learned that brains are wired negatively for negative and that brains are wired like Velcro for positive. This information can dramatically change the way we have end-of-year conversations. Well, heck, the way we have any type of conversation!

You remember the brain is always sensing safety/reward or threat. We are either moving Toward safety/reward or Away from threat. Our responsibility as leaders is to create a state where safety is strong. The stronger the sense of threat the less a person hears or listens. Rock also taught us that SCARF, quite simply, offers five elements that when applied become a magical tool for guiding a conversation to a joyful or at least a positive end.

Let’s review how to apply those powerful elements:

S – standing for STATUS: Am I respected and valued?

C – standing for CERTAINITY: Am I in the loop for knowing or getting information?

A – standing for AUTONOMY: Do I have choices and control?

R – standing for RELATEDNESS: Do I belong?

F – standing for FAIRNESS: Do I get the credit and opportunities others do?

Think back and remember the conversations you have had and how intentionally applying these elements when you are sensing another person is uncertain, feeling threatened, or even feeling left out, and witnessing how reducing any threat response results in more relaxed and communicative conversations.

By some small chance, if you have forgotten some of the research you learned, any web search for SCARF will produce so many reminders of your learning….and as you apply it in your conversations, you too, will remember what a powerful tool indeed.

In part two of our learning, we will be looking at three very simple questions. When used with staff at this time of the year, these three simple questions can bring big dividends for starting a new year. Then as we examine the SCARF elements we find and understand the difference this tool can make.

Until then, joyful, and purposeful conversations!!!