Page 249 - The Power to Change Anything

238 INFLUENCER

homeless for five years before joining Delancey, and for the first
60 days after entering the program he thought he’d die as his
body adjusted to a life without drugs. He was hardly in any
shape to be impressing customers.
When Kurt’s plate shattered on the floor, he ducked his
head in shame. A few dozen customers reflexively lifted their
heads from their meals to look toward the source of the noise,
only adding to his humiliation. Kurt was torn between want-
ing to curse at the onlookers and wanting to disappear entirely.
What happened next was compelling evidence of the power of
propinquity. The black maître d’—a former gang rival from
Richmond and now a roommate—hurried over to where Kurt
was kneeling over the broken plate and put his hand on Kurt’s
back in a gesture of support. He then knelt down and helped
Kurt pick up the broken plate. He smiled at him and shrugged
his shoulders, offering a look that said, “It happens.” And with
that, Kurt shook it off and returned to his duties.
While there’s a lot going on at Delancey to influence
change, you can’t help but notice how propinquity is used to
foster relationships. When you assign people interdependent
roles and then put them in close proximity, you increase the
chance that relationships that had once been the bane of their
existence are now a big part of their personal transformation.
Families are also affected by how they make use of their
space. For example, a recent study showed that the family din-
ing table is vanishing from homes at a rapid rate. A parallel rise
in family dysfunction and discontent suggests that familial
unity is declining at a similar rate. Could there be a correla-
tion here? The idea is not that a drop in furniture sales will
harm family solidarity. It’s that the dining room table is a sig-
nificant facilitator of family togetherness. Do away with the
table, and family members lose a fairly large portion of their
time together.
But why would families stop buying and using dining room
tables? Behold the microwave. There was a time when the