Certainty - brain chocolate.

Certainty is to the brain as chocolate is to Tracy & Tammy.

The brain is constantly seeking patterns and is trying to predict the future. It CRAVES certainty. A primary reward or threat for the brain, it causing people who experience an increase in the unknown to AVOID engagement. It causes a negative response in the orbital frontal cortex, we fixate on the threat.

Certainty is the second of five principles of brain-based engagement.  Read more in our previous blogs on SCARF: Overview, S-Status.

Here's an example. A local big box store recently went under massive renovations while still having part of the store operational.  There were tarps hiding what was being worked on, and the layout of the store gradually shifted.  Things were not as they usually were.  People were seen pushing their buggies with glazed expressions, not knowing where to look or where to go. Others couldn't help themselves and peeked behind the tarps, hoping to get more information about what was going on. While others, whose AVOID response was most activated, voluntarily stopped shopping at the store all together.

When you transfer this concept to a situation where an agency is doing a re-org or when someone is new on the job or just moved into a community, or implementing a new software system you can see that a great deal of attention is required to satisfy the huge need for information. It also explains a great deal of the negative behaviours we see during change. When people are AVOIDING due to a lack of certainty, expect some behaviours driven by fear, threat and/or feelings of loss.

So how about you?  In what kinds of situations or level of uncertainty do you begin to AVOID?

Can you arrive at an event to offer your help only to be told to "deal with the catering"?  For some people, questions like; how many people, who is in charge? what's on the menu? screams out.

Are you eager or hesitant when someone is talking and you're not sure if they are asking something of you?

How do you feel if you don't know what your employer's/client's expectations are of you?

Can you tolerate not knowing when you'll next get some chocolate? (just joking!)

What's your certainty threshold?

When dealing with others, remember that we all react differently.  Your threshold might be much more sensitive than another person's.  How do you support a situation if you want someone to be engaged and not running away with fear? Here are a few ideas;

• Clearly map out plans.  Even though things rarely follow a plan, having one appeases our brains craving. Dates and timelines are important in these plans.
• Communicate before, during and after change. 
• Break down complex and confusing tasks into bite sized pieces.
• Establish clear expectations for all involved.
• Regularly provide chocolate!

Brain based engagement? Really?

What stops you from engaging?

Do you truly approach or avoid when working with others?

Personally, we figure ourselves to be fairly "switched on" in the engagement department. And then we discovered Dr. David Rock’s materials and had to think again!

There are obstacles to working together, no doubt. There are familiar conflicts such as; time, resources, power struggles, differing values and agendas, and communication (or lack of) to name a few.

With all of these obstacles – what is happening or NOT happening is engagement. There are two responses we can take when engaging with others. We can approach or avoid a situation or person based on the way our brain perceives the interaction. Our response is based on neuro-biological social triggers. Knowing our triggers helps us understand (and potentially increase) our positive interactions and collaboration with others. Approach or avoid is with us in every interaction we have in this world and it happens in a SNAP (yes, snap your fingers right now, it’s that quick).


How we are with people can be linked to 5 domains of human social experience. Dr. Rock, the creator of this model, proposes that DEEP engagement occurs when people experience rewards from all five domains of SCARF. (See http://www.your-brain-at-work.com/files/NLJ_SCARFUS.pdf for more).

1. Status (relative importance to others)
2. Certainty (ability to predict the future)
3. Autonomy (a sense of control over events)
4. Relatedness (sense of safety with others)
5. Fairness (perception of fair exchanges between people)


These five domains are social needs and in fact are treated in our brain the same way we need food and water. How our brain is wired, however, is that the avoid response is the default setting which means we have to work much harder to be in our approach responses.


Now while this model reflects only ONE way to consider engagement and is not the be-all-and-end-all, it has inspired us (so much so that we have created a workshop around it- see http://www.raisingthevillage.ca/ for more.)

Stay tuned for next week’s blog as we dive further into these five domains and pose some scenarios to find out... what activates an approach or avoid response for YOU?