October 2021. Fight, Flight, or Freeze?
Well it is Tuesday 19th October, and it commences. What commences? Erm, life. And danger. Fight, flight, or freeze?
Danger. (With homage to Bill Watterson)
I think sometimes we can crave for security and avoid risk. Perfectly natural for humans, with quite a bit of their Chimp ancestor in them struggling to survive in the jungle of life. And let us face facts, life today can be a bit of a jungle. Is it better to leg it and climb a tree than get into a scrape? And what is a scrape? A roller coaster, to a frightening presentation, to a challenging person or situation. The list is quite endless.
The standard approach of this evolved mammal is fight, flight, freeze. But I think we all know this. Well I hope so. I myself have never been much of a fighter and sit in the flight or freeze categories. Well I used to but have been lucky to have learnt a lot over the last few months which has really helped me to cope with stress, anxiety, or plain daft challenging people, or life situations, oh and the occasional animal.
I am soon to finish off The Chimp Paradox, which I have been meaning to read for a while. But never had the time and was, if honest, a bit loathe thinking it one of “those” books. But in hindsight, with 30 pages to go, it has been an informative read and quite a useful perspective on controlling one’s behaviour. Helping greatly with understanding stress, anxiety, fear, and how to cope with challenges fronted by people, places, and things.
Worth a read.
I have a strong belief when it comes to reading this type of book. I am trying to avoid the term “self-help” as I find that quite a patronising title. Your average human these days can read and write, and mostly find their way home. I think you can take what you need from what you learn and experience, and this also includes reading. We all have volition and can figure things out for the most part, aided by an internal moral compass and a few brain cells.
The premise of the book is to divide the brain into Chimp, Human, and Computer. One is the emotional primate, the other the moral and logical reasoning entity, the last the hardwired element that provides instructions for behaviour in situations.
What I learnt, well reinforced what I already know, in a nice and easy to consume fashion was that we have an emotional element to our brains that can override what makes us human, namely logic and community; being part of a community versus the self. And I can relate to this.
In a stressful situation such as running a head hunting business, living life, being married, owning a Terrier it can be hard and the Chimp in me can take control and the result negative outcomes. Mainly the fight element, or more better put as behaving like an arse with others or in situations. It manifests in selfishness, aggression, territorial dominance, across to hurting people. In real life this is me being nasty, not coping, getting stressed with people, the wife, business associates, the dog. I see myself put me first in a dominant resentful way, eyeballing fellow Chimps who I think are asserting their dominance over me. The Chimp reveals itself before the “human” can interject and assess the situation using pre-ordained and programmed logic from the “Computer” or memory, as developed by thinking and learning.
For example let us say I am dealing with a demanding candidate over a senior head hunting brief when running found us, my head hunting and consultancy business. The candidate is pestering me and not following process and interfering with my time and control of the brief. The Chimp in me becomes resentful, angry, frustrated, and this can lead to taking a chunk out of the candidate’s Chimp or worse. This does not endear itself to interpersonal relations which is key to head hunting. And it does not bode well for life in general. Do we all know two Chimps having a verbal scrap between man and wife? How we have felt afterward and the outcome? And regrets that we did not handle it better (the Human utilising the stored Computer information)?
So, how does one feed the Chimp bananas?
Really easily if you read the book, and it all makes sense. It is about keeping your internal Chimp calm and thus outsider’s Chimps calm.
The trick is to press “pause” on the Chimp behaviour thus giving enough time for the Human to take control of the brain processing of what to do next in a stressful, anxious, or challenging situation. The Human in the aforementioned example can say to themselves “pause” and “change”. Prof Peters recommends this, and guess what? It works. Two simple words. One to pause the Chimp and remind you of it and possible poor consequences. The second word to remind you that you can change how you handle this situation. A situation you undoubtable have witnessed before - someone trying to control you.
The Human can take charge and use logic to firstly understand the situation and secondly decide on a plan of action. You could for example arrange a call or Zoom with the candidate to explain the process involved for the brief and that you are acting diligently on their behalf, so calming their probably demanding Chimp. You can use prior learning from the Computer to handle the situation, knowing that getting Chimp angry will only anger their Chimp and it will more than likely go “Pete Tongue”.
Another method similar to the above is to use the 3 R’s.
Retreat - detach from the situation, take a breath, count to ten, walk around the block.
Re-Think - have a think about the situation, and don’t just observe you initial thought or behaviour. For example in the above, I might be initially inclined to view the candidate as an asshole or get angry. Letting the Human think assuages the first thought, with the second thought process asking and drawing on Computer experience; what is the best approach? And what is likely to happen if I get angry?
Respond - note the word, and not react. This is about taking calm logical morally driven action and behaviour. In my example I have explained the situation and importantly my position to the candidate. After all this is about my well being.
Have a read of the book to AVOID CHIMP CHAOS. Which we are all capable of.
Don’t be a Chimp (in public)
(With homage to Bill Watterson)
So what about found us, head hunting, sales and marketing consulting?
I’ve found that blending together self-learning, listening to people, and importantly reading has allowed me to understand how I and others can behave, which has been vital and of upmost usefulness when dealing with senior candidates who can certainly (like me) have strong Chimps. It all comes down to conflict avoidance when dealing with people. I enjoyed The Chimp Paradox as it confirmed a number of known things, whilst teaching me a couple of new tricks.
Being self aware of yourself and of others comes back to that first point I made, which is community, of being part of the Chimp Troop as Prof Peters explains. In understanding your behaviour and modifying it you make an assimilation with others and can work productively. This helps greatly in working with candidates to bring the best out of them in an honest manner, whilst also achieving the same with the client - a veritable meeting of minds, which leads to solid senior placements. A symbiotic way of working. The interview process in one sense then becomes a formality with all the ground work having been done before.
found us has always been about putting good people together in an honest and humble fashion. And it works.
Also have a look at Businessballs on Self Awareness.
Always be aware of others in your Chimp Troop.