Set Points and Sabotage
My current set point is approximately 220. I remember when it was 245. My goal is to get it closer to 200.
It may take a while before I get there. But that’s OK, because I’m playing the long (and, I believe, healthier) game.
A “set point” in an organism or system refers to a place of sustainable, normative operation.
Everything feels just a little more comfortable there.
It’s the place we return to after a push, or after a period of relaxation.
It’s our natural state of operation. It’s “how we do things ‘round here.”
To move an organism or system from one natural state of operation to another:
takes significant, sustained, intentional effort, and
has an inevitable injurious impact on the current state.
There is no getting around it. Change is hard, because change hurts.
Whichever direction it goes, moving the set point, in business, life, or faith, is one of the most difficult challenges of leadership, particularly if the move is in a healthier, more productive, efficient, and effective direction.
It’s a little easier to gain weight, lose efficiency, or over-spend and move the set point that direction – to loosen the belt, so to speak – than it is to lose weight, increase efficiency, or right-spend and tighten the belt.
But either direction injures the system at one level or another.
It's that felt sense of injury that makes the journey all the harder, because the organism or system will, quite naturally and understandably, fight back.
Sabotage is to be expected.
Please do not be surprised by it, or even mad at it. Expect it.
In the physical health journey, this is when your mind and body start to turn against you.
You are so tired. You are so hungry. Your muscles hurt. You crave the foods you used to enjoy at a chemical level. You’ve hit a plateau, and nothing seems to be working anymore.
This runs DEEP.
Everything in your body, mind, heart, and soul just wants to do one thing – go back to the way it used to be, to its previous set point.
So, it fights against you. YOU fight against YOU.
Sabotage.
The same thing happens within our organizational systems. The system itself will naturally fight back, fueled by its desire to return to its set point.
It’s rarely a single person, policy, or practice. It’s a collective emotional system that you’re up against.
The task?
To pursue a new set point that moves the needle in the right direction but doesn’t trigger an all-out counterattack.
To purposely irritate the system at a tolerable level on the way to a clearly stated goal.
To live at that new set point for a while.
To allow the system to normalize to the point where the system honestly believes THIS is the new normal.
Then, to do it all over again.
Yes, the only constant in our world is change.
And it is our job as leaders to facilitate that change in a healthy, positive direction.
But understanding the realities of internal emotional system pressures and their natural tendency to return to their set point can go a long way in helping us navigate these tumultuous waters well.
And the more complex the emotional system, the more deliberate you and I will need to be in that work.
Blessings to you, my friends!
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This Week’s Resource Recommendation is
A Trilogy of Books by Peter L. Steinke:
How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems
Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach
Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What
Please Note: These books are GOLD and are excellent resources for any Christian leader – in the business, church, or non-profit sector.
Though there are any number of influences behind today’s MMS subject, these three volumes were my foundational introduction to Bowen Family Systems Theory and its application within the walls of Christian leadership.
As leaders, we do not operate in a vacuum or a machine. We exist within interconnected emotional systems that often work against us. This is normative behavior. Increasing our awareness as to why and how that happens is a great place to start.
MMS 24-06
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Blessings to you, my friend!
