As a headteacher I don’t have a great deal of time to engage in professional reading during the school term. I am a keen user of Twitter and I do read articles and blogs on education and leadership, but rarely do I get the time to consume a whole book.
This leaves the school holidays as the main period when I can dedicate some real time towards becoming engrossed in a book on education. One book that was recommended to me is The Chimp Paradox by Professor Steve Peters.
I raced through this book in a couple of days over the summer and during the first few weeks of term I have found that it has had a profound effect on the way I am leading others in school.
The Chimp Paradox outlines a model for understanding and managing the functioning of the mind. It is neither a hypothesis nor strict scientific fact, but based on the neuroscience of the brain and I have found that it has come in useful in both understanding myself and others.
This model divides the brain into three teams. The first team is you, the Human. You are a conscious thinking analysing being that works with facts and truth and then makes deductions using logical thinking.
The second team is the Chimp, an independent thinking brain that is not under your control. It is impulsive, works with feelings and impressions and then puts the information together using emotional thinking.
The third team is the Computer. This is part of the brain that is at the disposal of the Human and Chimp to put information into for reference.
In simple terms, the inner Chimp is the emotional team within the brain that thinks and acts for us without our permission. The logical team is the real person, it is you; rational, compassionate and humane, and is the Human within. The memory banks for reference are the Computer. So why is this important for me as a school leader?
First and foremost I am faced with a plethora of decisions to make every day. Some are insignificant, some are crucial to the future of the school. School leaders face complex and diverse situations every day and in order for us to be effective we need to engage the parts of the brain that enable us to think clearly and then make logical decisions. In other words, we need to cage our inner Chimp!
How often do you find yourself frustrated by the actions or attitude of a colleague? How many times a day do you find yourself becoming angry by something a student or colleague has done?
How often do we let our emotions influence our own actions in response to these instances?
School leaders can only be effective when we are objective, impartial and apply well-reasoned common sense to these complex situations.
A colleague, who has also read this particular book, received an email from another member of staff a few weeks ago which infuriated him and his first reaction was to send an instant response in language that would be described as curt at best.
My advice to him was to wait, calm himself and maybe even sleep on it before replying. At least then he would be able to engage the human part of his brain and consider the consequences of a terse retort.
This Chimp Paradox has also made me think about interactions with students. Think about how teenagers try to win arguments when there are confrontations; they can be loud, repetitive, they might be aggressive and they certainly act instinctively and emotionally. How do we most effectively deal with this? Most of us would try and remain calm, stick to the facts, explain the consequences and outline the options. Chimp vs Human.
What has been interesting during these first few weeks of term is that I have become increasingly self-aware in terms of knowing the types of situations that bring out an emotional response in me and I believe that by suppressing these urges to act instinctively, and by engaging my Human brain I am making more measured, reasoned and evidence-based decisions, which can only be a good thing!
- SecEd’s headteacher diarist is in his second year of headship at a comprehensive school in the Midlands.