The David Rock
Framework
SCARF & Your Brain at Work
David Rock represents one of the most distinctive thinking patterns in their field. David Rock's approach — captured in this framework as mental models, decision heuristics, and the signature questions they would ask. The scarf & your brain at work framework distils David Rock's documented approach into a .md skill file you can load into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM in seconds. Where most AI personas generate generic output, this framework is grounded in real documented work: interviews, writing, published frameworks, and the specific decisions David Rock made when it mattered. Use it for decision-making, writing, strategy, or any situation where you want your AI to think with David Rock's distinctive patterns rather than a default model voice.
A glimpse of David Rock's thinking.
The brain is a prediction machine running a continuous threat-and-reward scan, and most workplace friction is not a character problem but a neurological one. The five SCARF domains (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness) are the specific social currencies the brain treats as survival resources, meaning a slight to any one of them activates the same neural circuitry as a physical threat. Designing better organizations means reducing unnecessary threat activation and increasing reward states systematically, not through motivation posters but through deliberate structural and conversational choices.
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Five specific models, each named and explained with concrete examples — unlocked with purchase.
"Which of the five SCARF domains is most likely being threatened in this situation, and what is the cheapest structural change that would convert it from a threat signal to a neutral or reward signal?"
4 more questions in David Rock's voice are unlocked with purchase.
Full list of anti-patterns unlocked with purchase.
The full framework adds: detailed explanations of all five mental models with real-world examples, the decision heuristics David Rock actually used, remaining signature questions, the complete list of anti-patterns, a copy-paste activation prompt, and a worked example.
Unlocked the moment you purchase. ~2,000 words total. Delivered as a Claude Skill and plain .md within 60 seconds of checkout.
- ✦Core philosophy — 2–3 sentences grounded in David Rock's documented worldview
- ✦Five signature mental models — each named, with concrete examples from their work
- ✦Decision heuristics — the concrete rules they actually used
- ✦Signature questions — five questions that sound like David Rock, not a generic MBA
- ✦What they would NOT do — the anti-patterns this framework rejects
- ✦Copy-paste activation prompt — drop straight into Claude or ChatGPT
- ✦Worked example — the framework applied to a realistic scenario
- →david-rock.zip — a native Claude Skill. Upload to Settings → Skills in Claude, or unzip to
~/.claude/skills/ - →david-rock-framework.md — plain markdown. Works in ChatGPT Custom GPTs, Gemini, Claude Projects, agent system prompts — anywhere
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Works as a Claude Skill (.zip) and as a plain .md for ChatGPT, Gemini & every LLM
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Inspired by the documented thinking of David Rock. A mental-model toolkit, not a literal representation. Delivered as a .md file compatible with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and any LLM.