Page 261 - The Power to Change Anything

250 INFLUENCER

environment. Fortunately, this is fairly easy to change. Often all
that’s required to make good behavior inevitable is to structure
it into your daily routine. If we’ve learned only one thing about
today’s overscheduled world, it’s that structure drives out lack
of structure. Meetings happen. On the other hand, “I’ll get back
to you sometime later”—maybe that won’t happen. So if you
want to guarantee a positive behavior, build it into a special
meeting or hardwire it into an existing meeting agenda.
For example, the CEO of a large defense contracting com-
pany the authors worked with saw a massive increase in inno-
vative breakthroughs when he and his senior leadership team
scheduled and met regularly with groups of employees to
solicit ideas. This calendared practice created a forum that
encouraged and enabled new behaviors, thereby making the
right behavior inevitable. At Delancey, Silbert makes use of cal-
endared events by taking them one step further and transform-
ing them into rituals. These ordered procedures consist of
hardwired meetings that are never missed and that are highly
symbolic, quite volatile, and enormously effective at making
the right behavior inevitable. Consider the Delancey ritual
referred to simply as “Games.” This particular ritual is not
always fun, but it’s always done.
Say you’re a resident at Delancey. Three times a week you
and members of your minyan get together to dump on each
other. A disinterested person ensures that nothing gets physi-
cal, but beyond that it’s pretty unstructured. During “Games”
people learn the egalitarian approach to feedback that
Delancey wants. Anyone can challenge anyone. If you think
your crew boss is a jerk, you give him a slip of paper inviting
him to a Game. He must show up. And when he’s there, you
can unload on him to your heart’s content. Anyone from
Silbert on down can be invited to a Game by anyone else.
Over time, the quality of Games increases as the volume
decreases. Residents become better at sharing feedback. What
doesn’t change is that this long-standing ritual makes the right