{"id":7962,"date":"2024-06-24T15:36:30","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T15:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tup.kxe.temporary.site\/why-psychological-safety-is-the-key-to-marketing-team-innovation\/"},"modified":"2024-06-24T15:36:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T15:36:30","slug":"why-psychological-safety-is-the-key-to-marketing-team-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/okdesign.ca\/en\/why-psychological-safety-is-the-key-to-marketing-team-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Why psychological safety is the key to marketing team innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Psychological safety is essential in today\u2019s workplace, but many leaders struggle to achieve it. Workplaces with increased psychological safety saw a 27% reduction in turnover, per a Quantum Workplace survey. Yet, McKinsey\u2019s 2021 survey found that only 26% of leaders create psychological safety for their teams. Yikes!\u00a0<\/p>\n

How can we, as marketing leaders, address this gap? One interesting approach is to look beyond the more conscious emotions and actions and instead explore the role of the brain in our perceptions of safety.<\/p>\n

Understanding the brain\u2019s role in psychological safety<\/h2>\n

Our brains constantly try to minimize threats and maximize rewards, a process essential for survival. We perceive situations as threats or rewards \u2014 there\u2019s no middle ground for the part of our brain that activates the threat response.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also much better at spotting threats than rewards. It\u2019s much more advantageous to see a threat so we can protect ourselves, feel safe and ultimately, survive. While this evolutionary trait makes us adept at spotting threats, it can often lead to unnecessary stress as our brain will identify many perceived threats that unnecessarily activate our stress response.<\/p>\n

When a threat is detected, the sympathetic nervous system triggers a stress response, preparing us for fight, flight, freeze or fawn. This impacts us physically and emotionally: our heart rate spikes, cortisol is released and our vision narrows, among other things. While beneficial in actual danger (or when being chased by a saber-tooth tiger), it\u2019s less helpful in everyday work scenarios where the perceived threat may be a ding to our ego rather than our actual physical safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recognizing these processes is crucial for marketing leaders aiming to create environments where teams feel safe and perform optimally. You can leverage this information to understand how your behaviors and those of others on your team contribute to this stress response and how to promote regulation so our brains and bodies feel safe. Because what happens when we feel safe? We build better relationships, we take risks, we innovate, we\u2019re better at problem-solving, we\u2019re happier; in other words, we thrive!<\/p>\n

Dig deeper: Marketing\u2019s inner game: Unlocking the power of natural productivity cycles<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The SCARF model: A framework for understanding psychological safety<\/h2>\n

This gets much more complex when the social dynamics of collaborating, influencing and connecting in groups are added to the mix. In these scenarios, we all need psychological safety to thrive.<\/p>\n

The SCARF model<\/a>, developed by Dr. David Rock, is a way to understand this. It outlines five key domains that influence human social experiences and determine whether we feel safe. These domains can also activate the exact same threat and reward response in our brains. Ultimately, understanding them can provide useful insights into the perceptions of threats and rewards in workplace interactions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have you ever wondered why your employees recoil when they hear, \u201cCan I give you some feedback?\u201d or why their sense of justice kicks in when an employee is treated unfairly, or perhaps why that one employee is always so defensive when you ask a question?<\/p>\n

The SCARF domains may provide you with some potential reasoning for that activation. These domains can also be viewed from a reward perspective, which can promote psychological safety for your team.<\/p>\n

People feel safe in groups when their social needs are met. This lets them maximize rewards and minimize threats. Given that our brain considers these needs (the five domains) essential for safety and survival, as leaders, we need to be aware of how our behaviors can contribute to either this reward or threat response.<\/p>\n

Each and every one of us has a SCARF order (Yes! There is an assessment<\/a> you can take for this), where we may prioritize one domain over another when it comes to triggers \u2014 both positive and negative.<\/p>\n

These domains are:\u00a0<\/p>\n