Page 248 - The Power to Change Anything

Change the Environment 237

doesn’t trust or get along with whom in a company, take out a
tape measure.
But not everyone suffers from the negative effects of space
and distance. Some people use it as a powerful influence
lever. And when it comes to exploiting the use of space as a
means of fostering vital behaviors, Delancey Street once again
sets the standard. Dr. Silbert’s goal, remember, is to foster two
vital behaviors. She wants residents to be responsible for oth-
ers rather than just themselves, and she wants to ensure that
everyone confronts everyone with whom they have concerns.
But how? These are people who are just as likely to punch each
other out as anything else.
The first thing Silbert does is to stack previously mortal ene-
mies on top of one another. She takes three guys—one new
resident who’s a card-carrying member of the Mexican Mafia,
another who six months earlier was a Crip, and another
who just a year ago was a leader in the Aryan Brotherhood—
and makes them roommates. Nine such diverse folks will
share a dorm. Someone from another background will be the
crew boss. Perhaps a member of yet another race will be the
minyan leader. It’s like international spaghetti with every pos-
sible politically incorrect grouping tossed into the mix, and
then they’re asked to help and confront each other—in healthy
ways.
We (the authors) watched the effects of placing former ene-
mies in close proximity while eating in Delancey’s restaurant.
A fairly new employee named Kurt—a white man embroidered
with tattoos from neck to fingertips—dropped a plate that
smashed to pieces. Kurt had been at Delancey for just a cou-
ple of months and had been given the simple assignment of
busing tables. Apparently he hadn’t mastered the job yet.
And why should he? Kurt had come from a high-crime,
largely black area of Richmond, California, where he had
been schooled since age six in the hateful propaganda of the
white-gang culture, not the restaurant business. He had been