Page 197 - The Power to Change Anything

186 INFLUENCER

full minyan is required to be present before public services can
be held. So, the Delancey version of a minyan is a self-support-
ing group that’s able to do what residents would be unable to
do on their own. At Delancey, minyans practically print social
capital.
Minyan leaders take primary responsibility for residents’
growth, needs, and supervision. Minyans, in turn, are super-
vised by a “barber.” (A good bawling out on the street is some-
times referred to as a “haircut.” Hence, the title barber goes to
those whose job it is to ensure that everyone in the minyan is
challenging everyone else.)
The use of social capital takes on still more forms. For
example, residents work for crews with crew bosses who are also
peers. The average person arrives with a seventh-grade educa-
tion, and each is required to leave Delancey with at least a high
school equivalency certificate. And Delancey achieves this
amazing result without hiring a single professional teacher.
They build social capital by tutoring each other.
To see how all this coaching, teaching, modeling, and tutor-
ing plays itself out, consider the field of romance.
“We’re not healthy,” our Delancey resident James admits.
“We shouldn’t be in relationships until we can see the thing is
more than sex. We tend to just say, ‘The hell with it!’ when the
relationship gets tough.”
So to prepare to go on dates (something they’re not allowed
to do for at least six months), residents attend couples’ groups
which, as you’ve probably guessed, are taught by resident cou-
ples who have been dating slightly longer than the new students.
The more seasoned couples teach others how to behave on dates
as well as how to talk about what’s working and what isn’t. And
guess who will be going along with each new couple on their
first few dates. A chaperone who is assigned by the barber to
keep the two on the straight and narrow.
This is but a small sampling of how an organization that
has virtually no professional resources invests in social capital