My Thermostat: Is Seeing, Believing?

Living in the Midwest has been interesting this summer. More articulately, it’s been hot. Record heat, dramatic drought, it’s definitely been trying. And so thank goodness I’m fortunate enough to have an air-conditioned home; even if I keep the thermostat set high. I like the heat, but I do have a limit.

It seems my air conditioner had a limit, too. Somewhere around the fourth consecutive day of 105+ degree temperatures I noticed my home was warmer than usual. It was in the evening and the thermostat thermometer read 79 so I decided to sleep on it and see what the next day brought. (Rookie homeowner mistake.) The next day I was met with unquestionable heat and a thermostat in the 90s. The repairmen were booked for the day, “Oh, honey you should have called last night, you know we book up all our appointments the evening prior.”

I sweated through another balmy night and the next day the repairman arrived, replaced some stuff and voila! cool air was once again blowing through the vents. At this point it was afternoon so my house had been baking in the sun and had no intention of cooling off quickly. Cut to later that evening, the thermostat now reads 87 but surely the house couldn’t still be that warm. I hold my hand up to the air vent and yes that is definitely cool air. I think it’s cool air. It seems cool. Hmm. Well, it’s definitely air moving. I ask my friend who has braved the sauna-house and she confirms it doesn’t feel like 87. But maybe it’s just because it’s so hot outside? Hard to tell, really.

Finally, after the sun set and my house had a fair chance in the fight to cool it, my thermostat returned to its usual temperature and the house felt ‘right’ again. As I settled into bed, comfortable for the first time in several days, I reflected on how strange it was to “feel” something but to “see” something else. My senses were telling me cold air was blowing and that the house was cooling off and yet my brain was processing a numerical figure and trying to make right the dissonance.

Oftentimes with faith we ask to see so that we may believe; “Just give me a sign, God.” But sometimes what we see makes us question what we believe; “How could a loving God do that?” As a perpetual optimist, I’m often slapped with the comment; “You simply see what you want to see.” And as a Catholic who sometimes struggles with the institution; “You only believe what you choose to believe.”

Maybe it’s a classic “both, and” situation. Both the house was hot, and the air was cool. Both my brain, and my senses were ‘right’ in their judgment. Seeing is both believing, and doubting. Just as faith may be both anchoring and releasing.

Deceptively Simple Questions

Where do you work? What are you working on? Who do you work with?

These questions are often bandied about at cocktail parties as simple conversation-starters. Yet, they’re really rather probing. How often have you stopped to reflect and really consider: Where DO I work? What AM I working on?

Similarly, Patrick Lencioni writes about six critical but deceptively simple questions in his latest book, The Advantage. The exercise is part of a model that includes four disciplines to achieve organizational health.

1. Why do we exist?
   The answer to this question will yield a core purpose.
2. How do we behave?
   This question examines behaviors and values required for success.
3. What do we do?
   This answer provides a simple, direct explanation of the company.
4. How will we succeed?
   This question requires the team members to develop a strategy.
5. What is most important, right now?
   The answer to this question is the establishment of a unifying thematic goal and action plan.
6. Who must do what?
   This question addresses roles and responsibilities.

Next comes the task of communication. Steps 3 and 4 in Lencioni’s Healthy Organization model are to over-communicate the clarity created from answering the six critical questions and then to reinforce the clarity/communication. Lencioni says the sign of a good parent is if their kids can do an impression of them when they’re not around, “Don’t stay out after midnight, nothing good can happen.” The same is true for good leaders. Unless your line managers, your junior contributors and your executive VPs can all mimic you, “We have to get XX right, we can not get it wrong.” then you’re not yet doing your job.

We often hear, “Do what you say, and say what you do.” But if nobody’s paying attention or unable to mimic your language and behaviors, then you best change how you’re saying it or change how you’re doing it.

So what are you saying? What are you doing? And to bring it full circle, where do you work? And what are you working on? Here is a quick look at how fellow Juniper colleagues in Engineering took on those deceptively simple questions: 

The Slinky: A Study in the Spectrum of Sin

I recently had an insight (while searching for an alliterative headline) that the Slinky proves an excellent analogy for the spectrum of sin between good and bad that I have been noticing lately. If you will, imagine a slinky from your childhood and label one end “good,” or right relation and one end “bad,” or sin.

Now think about that Slinky when compacted and held tightly together. The distance between the good and bad is very, very short – perhaps an inch. Or if you imagined a metal version versus the plastic kind, that distance may be even less.

Next, consider the Slinky extended wide, accordion-style with one end stretching long to the other end with good to bad being very, very far apart. I think this helps me understand how before, within an inch you could cross from good to bad. But now with the distance of an inch, you are simply one inch away from good. You might even be six inches away from good but still be on the healthy side of the good to bad spectrum. This comforts me when I see where I stand on an issue compared perhaps to where my peer group or family stands on that issue. Even though I may be more liberal or farther away from the “good” starting point, I still haven’t crossed over to the sin side.

Then I also think about a Slinky sitting at the top of a staircase. With just a simple push the Slinky is sent on a collision course of top over bottom, good over bad, good over bad. I’ve also felt like this before in my sin life. Like I’m tumbling over and over and unsure which way is up.

Or, imagine when you hold the Slinky ends in both hands. You lift your left hand, everything cascades to the right. You lift your right hand, everything cascades to the left. Left. Right. Left. Right. Good. Bad. Good. Bad. Just when you think you’ve lost a particular dirty sin, habitual momentum brings it right back.

And then for those who’ve ever seen a toddler with a Slinky, or a Slinky that met its demise through an unfortunate encounter with the family pet, you can see how completely gnarly the spectrum of sin can get. You may be much closer to the opposite end that you realize, all the while thinking you’re comfortably sitting aside good.

All of this is to say that while good and bad may be concrete, defined, black and white concepts, the spectrum of sin seems to expand and contract. It seems to allow more room on some issues than on others and is much harder to pin down.