Are Our Chimps Running the Organisation? Emotional Decision-Making, Human Factors and Learning Culture

Organisations often describe serious decisions as rational, evidence-led and proportionate. Yet leaders make those decisions in conditions shaped by fear, urgency, scrutiny, uncertainty and reputational pressure. When something goes wrong, the question is not whether emotion enters the room. It is whether we notice how emotion changes the question the organisation is trying to answer.

Professor Steve Peters’ Chimp Model offers an accessible way to explore that challenge. Combined with insights from cognitive bias, situational awareness, SEIPS, SHELL, local rationality and psychological safety, it invites a deceptively simple question: are our Chimps running the organisation?

A cycling recommendation that stayed with me

I have been a competitive cyclist for around 20 years, albeit rather less competitively during the last year or two. I first became curious about The Chimp Paradox after hearing Sir Chris Hoy discuss Professor Steve Peters’ work.

I do not agree with every element of the book, but its central model has given me a practical language for understanding the gap between how we intend to respond and how we sometimes react under pressure. My own Chimp is called Michelangelo, in homage to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the brilliant artist whose short life was also marked by a formidable temper. Michelangelo gives the book four out of five bananas.

Using the Chimp Model with children

I am fortunate to have two youngish children who are both at junior school. We spend time helping them understand themselves: what they notice, what triggers a reaction and what helps them create space between an event and their response.

Meditation is part of that work. We frame it as learning a skill rather than escaping an emotion: the skill of noticing what is happening and managing yourself more effectively. They have also named their Chimps. Those names are not mine to share, although they did make us laugh.

What are the Human, Chimp and Computer?

In Peters’ model, the Human uses facts, logic, perspective and rational thinking. The Chimp is emotionally driven, fast and impulsive, working through feelings and impressions. The Computer stores experiences, beliefs, habits and automatic responses that can guide both systems. [1]

This is a practical metaphor, not a licence to dismiss emotion. Emotion provides important information. The purpose is to recognise when an emotional response has taken control, understand what triggered it and decide whether it fits the situation.

How emotional decision-making appears in organisations

The same lens can be applied to leadership. A serious incident, complaint, whistleblowing concern, regulatory finding or adverse data trend does not arrive as neutral information. It can trigger fear, embarrassment, anger, anxiety and the need to demonstrate control.

Formal governance can disguise that emotional response. The organisation may rapidly produce meetings, papers, actions, revised policies or additional training. Activity becomes visible, but visibility is not the same as learning.

The critical shift is often from “What have we learnt and how are we improving?” to “How can we demonstrate that we have acted quickly?”

Kahneman, heuristics and the substituted question

Daniel Kahneman’s work explains why this shift is plausible. Human beings use heuristics because complex decisions would otherwise overwhelm us. But a difficult target question can be replaced by an easier question without the decision-maker fully noticing. [2]

Understanding why an event occurred across a complex system is hard. Demonstrating action is easier. The substituted question can therefore produce a polished action plan before the organisation has established whether those actions address the conditions that shaped the event.

External scrutiny can intensify the effect. Regulators, commissioners, coroners, professional bodies, politicians and the media reasonably ask organisations what they have done. Under pressure, “What have you done?” can be heard as “Prove that you are in control.” The urge to reduce anxiety then risks overtaking the work of reducing risk.

When the level of harm becomes the substituted question

Harm matters. It shapes the immediate response, the support required by patients, families and staff, and the organisation’s legal and professional responsibilities. But the level of harm does not automatically tell us how much there is to learn.

A no-harm or low-harm event may expose a fragile system, repeated workarounds or a narrow escape that could produce a very different outcome next time. A high-harm event may arise from a risk that is already well understood and for which improvement work is already under way. If we allow the outcome alone to determine the depth of our curiosity, we risk investigating severity rather than learning potential.

This is another form of substitution. The difficult question is replaced by one that is more visible, more measurable and easier to defend:

• Instead of “What does this event reveal about how the system is working?”, we ask, “How much harm occurred?”

• Instead of “Where is the strongest opportunity to learn?”, we ask, “Does this cross the threshold for an investigation?”

• Instead of “What combination of conditions made this outcome possible?”, we ask, “Who can be held responsible for the most serious consequence?”

• Instead of “Could this happen again with a worse outcome?”, we ask, “Was anyone actually harmed this time?”

• Instead of “What response would produce useful learning and improvement?”, we ask, “What response will reassure the regulator, the press or the public?”

The attraction is understandable. Harm is what headlines, public commentary and regulatory attention can most readily attach themselves to. Leaders may therefore fear that a proportionate response to a high-harm event will be interpreted as minimising it, while a substantial response offers visible evidence that the organisation is taking the matter seriously. But seriousness should be demonstrated through compassionate engagement, sound judgement and effective improvement, not simply through the size of the investigation.

The Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) is actively trying to move the NHS in England away from this logic. It removed the previous “Serious Incident” classification and threshold, and instead asks organisations to use considered, proportionate and system-based responses directed towards learning and improvement. The intended question is not simply, “How bad was the outcome?” It is, “What is the learning opportunity, and what response is most likely to help us understand and improve?” [10]

That does not make harm irrelevant, nor does it remove nationally required responses or the need to engage openly and compassionately with those affected. It does, however, challenge the assumption that severity and learning potential are the same thing. They are not.

For boards and senior leaders, this creates an important test. Can we explain why a response is proportionate when external pressure rewards visible activity? Can we devote attention to recurring low-harm events, weak signals and near misses before a catastrophic outcome makes them newsworthy? And can we resist commissioning an extensive investigation principally because it feels safer reputationally?

Situational awareness: perception is only the first level

Mica Endsley’s situation awareness model distinguishes three levels: perceiving relevant information, comprehending what it means and projecting how the situation may develop. Awareness then informs decisions and action. [3]

Individual and environmental factors shape every level. Goals direct attention. Experience shapes interpretation. Workload, stress, system design, expectations and organisational pressure affect what is noticed and what it is taken to mean.

If leaders are trying to learn, uncertainty and weak signals may appear important. If they are trying to reassure others, evidence of activity and closure may dominate. If they are trying to defend reputation, challenge can feel like threat.

Is impatience costing us learning opportunities?

The danger is not simply that leaders miss information. It is that they move from perception to action before sufficient comprehension has occurred. Speed can be necessary, particularly where an immediate safety risk exists. But urgent containment and deeper learning are different tasks. One should not displace the other.

SEIPS, SHELL and the external environment

SEIPS treats healthcare as a complex socio-technical system in which work-system factors interact to shape processes and outcomes. Its work-system elements include people, tasks, tools and technology, organisation, the internal environment and the external environment. [4]

The SHELL model similarly examines the fit between a person and software such as procedures, hardware such as tools and interfaces, the environment and other people. A poor fit at any interface can shape performance. [5]

These models matter because major inquiries can draw attention towards the internal organisational environment while the external environment receives less analysis. Regulation, litigation risk, commissioning, political pressure, financial constraint and media attention all influence leadership behaviour. They affect the goals leaders prioritise, the time they believe they have and the response that feels safest.

Recognising those influences does not dilute accountability. It makes accountability more intelligent by examining the system that repeatedly produces defensive or performative responses.

Inside the tunnel: understanding local rationality

Hindsight places reviewers outside the tunnel. We know the outcome, possess information that was distributed across different people and can see signals that only became meaningful when assembled later.

Learning requires us to reconstruct the view from inside. What was the person trying to achieve? What did they know? What did they expect? What pressures and trade-offs shaped the decision? Why did the action seem reasonable at that moment? Local rationality asks us to understand actions within the goals, knowledge, attention and constraints that existed at the time. [6]

This is not the same as concluding that every decision was acceptable. Understanding and agreement are different. But without understanding, we are likely to design improvements for an imagined version of work rather than work as it was actually done.

What major inquiries reveal about organisational response

The Francis Inquiry, the Ockenden review and the Thirlwall Inquiry examined different events and reached findings specific to their evidence. They should not be reduced to one generic story. Nevertheless, each reinforces the importance of leadership, governance, listening, culture and the organisational response to concern. [7][8][9]

The recurring question is what happens when information threatens the organisation’s preferred account of itself. Does the response widen inquiry or narrow it? Does challenge generate curiosity or defensiveness? Does the organisation ask “What do we need to do about this?” or “How bad are people going to believe this is?”

Reputation is not irrelevant. Public confidence matters. The problem arises when reputational anxiety becomes the principal lens through which evidence is interpreted. The organisation may then manage the appearance of control rather than the conditions required for safer care.

Psychological safety for leaders as well as staff

Organisations commonly ask staff to reflect, speak up and remain curious. They are less consistent in creating the time and conditions for leaders to examine their own triggers and defensive responses.

A psychologically safe organisation is not one without standards or consequences. It is one where interpersonal fear does not silence relevant questions, information or concerns. Leaders therefore need to create safety for others and develop enough self-awareness to receive difficult information without treating the messenger as the threat.

The Chimp Model may offer a useful shared language. Not as a label to attach to colleagues, and certainly not as a clinical explanation, but as an invitation to pause: What has been triggered? Which fear is setting the pace? Are we answering the original question, or an easier and more reassuring one?

Practical questions for boards and leadership teams

When an uncomfortable issue arises, boards and executive teams could ask:

• What is the immediate safety risk, and what containment is required now?

• What question are we trying to answer?

• Has it changed since the issue first arose?

• Which emotions and external pressures may be shaping our interpretation?

• What information do we not yet have?

• Have we moved from perception to action before achieving enough comprehension?

• What would this situation have looked like from inside the tunnel?

• Are our actions designed to improve the system, or mainly to demonstrate visible activity?

• Who can challenge our current interpretation safely?

• How will we preserve time for deeper learning after immediate action?

The question to take back to the organisation

My children are learning that having a Chimp is not a flaw. The task is to recognise it, understand what activates it and develop responses that better reflect who they want to be.

Organisations face the same task. Bad things happen and difficult information arrives. Leaders will experience fear, embarrassment and anxiety because leaders are human. Strong governance does not pretend those responses are absent. It helps leaders notice them before they narrow the evidence, change the question and accelerate the organisation towards an answer that feels safe but teaches very little.

The issue is not whether the organisation has a Chimp. It is whether the Chimp is at the helm, holding the reigns.

References:

1. Peters, S. (2012), The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness. London: Vermilion.See also: Chimp Management, “The Chimp Model”https://chimpmanagement.com/the-chimp-model/

2. Kahneman, D., Thinking, Fast and Slow

3. Endsley’s three-level model of situation awareness: perception, comprehension and projection

4. NHS England, SEIPS Quick Reference Guide and Work System Explorerhttps://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/B1465-SEIPS-quick-reference-and-work-system-explorer-v1-FINAL.pdf

5. SKYbrary, ICAO SHELL Modelhttps://skybrary.aero/articles/icao-shell-model

6. Local rationality and understanding why actions made sense at the timehttps://publications.ergonomics.org.uk/uploads/Local-rationality-question-tool-understanding-why-it-made-sense-at-the-time.pdf

7. The King’s Fund, Patient-centred leadership: lessons from the Francis Inquiryhttps://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/reports/patient-centred-leadership

8. Department of Health and Social Care, Final report of the Ockenden reviewhttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/final-report-of-the-ockenden-review

9. The Thirlwall Inquiry, Chair’s final statement, 15 September 2026https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/transcript-of-chairs-final-statement/

10. NHS England, Patient Safety Incident Response Frameworkhttps://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/patient-safety-incident-response-framework/

Background: National Gallery biography of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/michelangelo-merisi-da-caravaggio