Propinquity: Is Your Flatware Making You Fat?

Does the size of your spoon affect your waistline?

Will the location of a scientist's cubicle impact his productivity?

Can the width of an aisle determine the future of a nation?

If you want the answer, ask Joseph Grenny. He's an expert in propinquity. It's a word I probably missed on the SAT (and can still barely pronounce), but apparently it's been affecting me every single day of my life.

Propinquity, from Latin propinquitas (nearness), means physical proximity, a kinship between people, or a similarity in nature between things.

Grenny and his partners at VitalSmarts have spent years studying how to influence and change human behavior, and they've discovered propinquity plays a major role. Our physical surroundings -- the objects and the spaces themselves -- affect our daily decisions more than we ever dreamed.

For example, if you take a tub of Ben and Jerry's out of the fridge, grab a giant serving spoon and hit the couch, you are making a propinquity decision.

By choosing the container instead of a bowl, a ladle instead of a teaspoon, and the couch instead of a chair, your unconscious decisions have a dramatic impact on how much you eat.

The problem is, we're often completely unaware of just how much these seemingly mundane choices determine our behavior, and we rarely pause to consider the role that physical environments play in the behavior of others.

Grenny says, "When I try to explain someone's behaviors, I attribute most of what you do to your attitudes or your values. We overemphasize internal components and don't look at the environment."

I knew it!

It's not my fault I'm addicted to Chunky Monkey ice cream. It's those big spoons my husband forced me to buy. If we had chosen the dainty set I wanted to register for 20 years ago when we got married, I would probably look like Cindy Crawford. But nooo, Mr. "I want something hefty in my hands" had to go for the jumbo size. Combine his Jolly Green Giant flatware with the big, fat, comfy couch he insisted we buy, and it's no wonder my waistbands are tight.

But it's not just our personal habits; physical surroundings have a huge impact on our workplace as well.

In their new book Influencer: The Power To Change Anything, Grenny and partners describe a Bell Labs study in which researchers tested for factors that determine whether two scientists might collaborate.

The best predictor? The distance between their offices. As Grenny says, "First we shape our buildings, then they shape us."

Which kind of makes you wonder about Congress, where the two political parties literally sit on opposite sides of a big wide aisle. Is it any wonder that they don't get along? They work in a space that's specifically designed to separate them.

Rumor has it that the work of Grenny's team has found an audience in Washington. I don't know if that means we'll soon see the House Floor redesigned into a web of interconnected red and blue work tables, or perhaps the White House is going to insist that the conservative and liberal journalists share cubicles.

But I do know that I've made a propinquity decision myself. Tomorrow, I'm buying smaller spoons, and if my husband still insists on using the jumbo size, it's his own propinquity fault if he stays fat.

Lisa Earle McLeod is an author, syndicated columnist and inspirational thought-leader. A popular keynote speaker, Lisa is the principal of McLeod & More, Inc., a training and consulting firm specializing in sales, leadership and conflict management. Her newest book is The Triangle of Truth: The Surprisingly Simple Secret to Resolving Conflicts Large and Small (Jan 2010 from Penguin Putnam). More info: www.LisaEarleMcLeod.com

Follow Lisa Earle McLeod on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lisaearlemc

Comments

[PhilipB]

Brilliant, funny and insightful.
Thank you.

[timezone]

So true! When I wanted to lose weight, I started eating with a seafood fork. It forced me to slow down and take smaller bites. More bites, more slowly, more weight loss.