Leadership Sauce

My daughter claims to be triggered by the term “triggered”. It’s probably because her little brother likes to talk about triggers. Other people's, as well as his own.  What is a behavioral trigger? Put simply, Marshall Goldsmith says (in his book  Triggers ), the behavioral verb “trigger” is any stimulus that impacts our behavior. My kids, like adults, sometimes think a trigger is permission for contraindicated behavior. (“They made me be critical.”) What if you could control your environment so it triggered your most desired behavior and steered you toward success? Instead of blocking us from our goals, the environment would propel us towards them. Sounds ideal, doesn’t it? It also sounds far-fetched. It is not. To achieve “control” of the environment so that it triggers our most desired behavior, we can look at six distinctions that will help improve our understanding of how triggers influence our behavior. A trigger can be  direct or indirect . Direct triggers are stimuli that i

I don't get computer coding whatsoever. We go from simple 1's and 0's to elaborate algorithms and machine learning. However, I do work with a lot of leaders who started out writing code. Many of them, like me, find much value in using the  SCARF model . In this  simple picture of the basic model , you'll notice the binary, one, and zero constraints with the "away/threat" and "toward/reward" motivators. As depicted, the red "away/threat" arrow is much more prominent than the green "toward/reward" side. This is because humans are (necessary for survival) more adept at seeing and responding to threats. It's the inherent root of human negative bias. The 5 components of SCARF are: Status  – the relative importance to others Certainty  – the ability to predict the future Autonomy  – the sense of control over events Relatedness  – the sense of safety with others Fairness  – the perception of fair exchanges The basic premise of the SC