Ice cubes in a sauna

A while ago, I built a sauna in my garden. I bought a used fence, a second-hand wood oven, and a thermometer and improvised my way from there. The sauna is small but borders a lake and has windows. It might be the smallest and most basic sauna in the world, but I love it and I'm proud of how it turned out. Since it is wood-fired and not perfectly insulated, getting it to the right temperature requires patience and dedication. I’ll chop wood, make a fire, and then set the alarm to check on the fire and temperature every 10 minutes.

It takes about 10 minutes to warm up 10 degrees, so on a hot summer day, it takes much less time than when it's freezing. There’s another thing I noticed: the temperature drops when we're inside. Initially, I thought it was just the fire dying or that we kept the door open too long, but then it dawned on me: when we're in the sauna, we're like ice cubes in a cup of tea. The sauna warms us up, but our body temperature hovers around 36 degrees, which is considerably colder than the sauna’s 80-degree hot air. And so it makes sense that as we warm up our bodies, we also cool down the air around us.

You can observe a similar effect when you grill a steak. I’ve learned that it's essential to keep moving the steak around to different parts of the frying pan, and that makes sense: as the searing hot pan fries your steak, your steak cools down the pan. So, if you want to get a crunchy crust on your steak, you better keep it moving around to new places where the steak hasn’t cooled off.

I guess this is my layman’s version of the observer effect, which deals more with physics and states that just by observing a system, you’re disturbing it or at least affecting it. I don’t think the observer effect applies to human ice cubes in saunas, but still, it makes sense to realize that in every conversation, conflict, and partnership, your presence affects your surroundings.

To give you a positive spin on this, there is a management strategy called “Management by Wandering Around" (MBWA), which refers to a style of management whereby managers walk around and seek spontaneous and unscripted interactions with employees. The effect has proven to increase productivity and efficiency, improving morale and team spirit. Of all the management strategies, I liked this one best because it fits my character; I want to play around, wander the hallways, and imagine myself as a melting ice cube.

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten Founder, TNW

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