Page 251 - The Power to Change Anything

240 INFLUENCER

can be a real benefit. And once again, distance kills the chance
of people running into each other and then working together
on a shared project. In fact, in a study conducted at Bell Labs,
researchers tested for factors that determine whether two sci-
entists might collaborate. The best predictor was, you guessed
it, the distance between their offices. Scientists who worked next
to one another were three times more likely to discuss techni-
cal topics that lead to collaboration than scientists who sat 30
feet from one another. Put them 90 feet apart, and they are as
likely to collaborate as those who work several miles away! The
probability of collaboration sharply decreases in a matter of a
few feet.
Given the overwhelming impact of proximity on informal
contact and eventual collaboration, savvy leaders rely on the
use of physical space as a means of enhancing interaction.
Instead of simply telling people to collaborate, they move
employees next to one another or provide them a shared com-
mon area or eating facility. At Hewlett-Packard, executives
take it step further by mandating a daily break where everyone
leaves his or her desk, retires to a common area, and drinks fruit
juices while chatting with fellow employees about what’s hap-
pening at work.
Over the years, this forced elbow-bumping has cost the
company tens of thousands of dollars in food and drink, but
many will argue that the benefits that come from informally
chatting, collaborating, and eventually synergizing are well
worth the investment. When it comes to corporate effective-
ness, you can have propinquity work against you, or, as in HP’s
case, make it your ally.
Community leaders can benefit as well. For example,
Muhammad Yunus discovered the importance of propinquity
when working with poverty-stricken women in rural villages of
Bangladesh. For generations women had been kept from ven-
turing very far outside their own homes. When Dr. Yunus
decided to give Bangladeshi women a hand-up by extending
them microloans—in groups of five so they could support one