[teampractices] Supporting collaboration through neuroscience

[Arthur Richards]

Attached is an article discussing some interesting aspects of the brain
that I think are useful to keep in mind when working with others -
particular in regards to collaboration. I found the article pretty
accessible (I don't normally read neuroscience journal articles and
generally find scienc-y academic articles hard to digest, but of course
ymmv).

Here's a summary:
This article is by David Rock, the same author of the book I recommended
via the Melody Kramer's weekly round up thing a couple of weeks ago ("Your
Brain at Work"), but this short article focuses on one of the things I
found most fascinating and salient from the book: that the brain reacts to
social relationships similarly to how it reacts to food and water. That is,
social relationships create the same kinds of threat/reward responses in
the brain as things we typically consider basic for human survival.

Rock breaks this down further into a model for understanding the major
factors of social relationships that affect threat/reward responses in the
brain. He calls it the 'SCARF' model:
* Status
* Certainty
* Autonomy
* Relatedness
* Fairness

Threats to any of these things will result in an avoidance response
(increased cortisol, reduction in prefrontal cortex functioning, and more!)
which severely limits problem solving, creativity, positive interaction,
etc. The inverse is true - positively supporting each of these things
generates a 'toward' response, increasing problem solving ability,
creativity, positive interaction, etc: collaboration.

TPGers and other good facilitators/managers/etc probably at least
intuitively know this to some degree or another and work with their
teams/groups in such a way that generally supports everyone's SCARF, but I
found it really revealing to better understand the biology behind it.

In addition, by understanding this model as it relates to yourself, Rock
suggests that you can better manage your own responses - when reacting
negatively (eg from a place of reactivity rather than openness) because
something is threatening your autonomy, for example, you can do some small
thing that increases your own perception of autonomy, which can bring you
back into the positive state.

Food for thought!

PS I pulled this from a link on David Rock's website:
http://davidrock.net/publications/
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