Most people refer to a rather unpleasant sandwich when it comes to well-known feedback frameworks or models. If you are not familiar with it, the idea is offer ‘negative’ feedback within two slices of ‘positive’ feedback. It’s gone stale. It’s not a useful model as I have written about in previous blogs.
If we are throwing out the sandwich, what is another alternative? When I ask this question in workshops, very rarely, someone will mention the SCARF model, developed by David Rock in 2008. But they have a little trouble remembering what S. C. A. R. and F stand for.
The SCARF model is an interesting approach based on the neuroscience of reward and threat. While it gives us a checklist of five considerations, it does not provide us with a structure or process for feedback conversations. It’s more about creating a safe environment for feedback conversations to take place. It wasn’t designed with feedback specifically in mind, so it can be used in a variety of workplace situations. The SCARF model ties together key social domains:
Status
Certainty
Autonomy
Relatedness
Fairness
Learn more about the SCARF model here.
I reckon you could wear a SCARF while using the Feedback Fitness model! In other words, the SCARF model complements the more useful and practical Feedback Fitness model. While you may throw out the sandwich, you might like to wear a SCARF!
The Feedback Fitness Framework uses the metaphor of a workout.
Warm-up: A series of conversations about feedback that occur before we offer any feedback.
Workout: The offering and receiving of the feedback.
Cool Down: A series of conversations that happen after the offering and receiving of the feedback.
We know we should do a Warm Up before our Workout, and a Cool Down after our Workout (but sometimes we don’t). I like the Feedback Fitness model because:
It is easy to relate to - most people have exercised at least once in their life!
It is easy to remember – Warm Up, Work Out, Cool Down.
It gives you a practical process, a structure, so you always know where you are in the conversation.
I was delivering the Feedback Fitness workshop to a team of thirty government engineers. When I started explaining the metaphor, ‘You wouldn’t sprint 100 metres without warming up first.’ One participant replied:
You are right, I wouldn’t sprint 100 metres! I haven’t exercised since 1997!
The exercise metaphor hadn’t worked for him.
What did work for him was to replace ‘warm-up’ with ‘preparation and planning’, ‘workout’ with ‘implementation’, and ‘cool-down’ with ‘review.’
Whatever works for you!