History
We Save Lives By Changing Behavior
In January of 2014 bestselling business author, Joseph Grenny, and his wife, Celia, got an unexpected letter from an inmate named Zach at Utah County Jail. Weeks earlier Zach had been arrested with a car full of drugs, guns and forged documents after a high-speed chase – a chase Zach said he initiated hoping the police would be provoked into shooting him. For months prior to the arrest Zach had become disgusted with his life. He had spent twelve of the previous sixteen years of his life incarcerated. He had fathered a child he had no relationship with. He had no real friends. He was alienated from his parents.
Somehow, while in jail, Zach found a copy of influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, written by Joseph. Zach read it. He learned about Delancey Street. As a long shot, he contacted Joseph. He wanted a different life. He knew that prison had done nothing but harden him. After he finished his likely 15-year sentence, his only hope for a different future would be something like Delancey Street. In his letter, he asked whether, when he was released, Joseph would introduce him to Delancey Street. “I know I can’t do this on my own,” he wrote. “I think it might be what I need.”
Rewind ten years. In the course of Joseph’s research for the book, he had met with a friend and mentor–the legendary psychologist Albert Bandura in his office at Stanford University. Bandura urged Joseph to drive up the peninsula and study the work of Mimi Silbert at Delancey Street. So he did.
Mimi’s organization so impressed Joseph that he wrote about it in his book. Over the past 45 years, Delancey has helped over 20,000 people who would otherwise be in jail or prison transform their lives. It has helped the state of California avoid the expense of over 100,000 years of incarceration. “It was astounding,” Joseph recalls. “I’ve driven by it in San Francisco dozens of times and thought it was a bunch of Mediterranean villas owned by tech millionaires. It is a gorgeous 300,000 square foot complex on some of the priciest real estate in San Francisco. It was built entirely by convicts. It was paid for by convicts. It receives no government funding. No one pays a dime to enter. It sustains itself entirely by running businesses that constitute the therapy that helps the students change their lives. It was unbelievable.”
Joseph is a realist, “I get it that many people are not ready to change. The public deserves to be protected from them. But there are many who want to change and lack the tools. These people often come from very damaged lives—sexually abused as a child, given meth by mom, children of addicts, and so on. They don’t need rehabilitation, they need habilitation. They don’t know to live an orderly and decent life because they’ve never seen one.”
The night Joseph and Celia considered Zach’s request, they felt his fifteen-year-long goal would be realized too late. Coincidentally, Joseph’s brother-in-law was the Utah County Attorney. Joseph called him and asked if Utah would consider sending someone to Delancey Street in California as an alternative to a prison sentence. Jeff Buhman, the County Attorney, was skeptical. “I think it’s a great idea, but there are too many people who would have to be convinced to make it realistic for Zach. Let’s start building support so sometime in the future someone will be able to go. But it won’t be Zach.”
Joseph hung up, discouraged. But the feeling didn’t leave him. He called Jeff again, “Let’s just try one guy. If we strike out, we strike out.” Buhman agreed. A few days later he called back, somewhat incredulous, “They’ve all said yes,” he reported.
But bureaucratic wheels turned slowly. It took months for Zach to clear all the approvals required to go to Delancey. But eventually California and Utah, along with Mimi Silbert, agreed not only to allow Zach to come but to permit four candidates from Utah to enter Delancey Street as a way of introducing the option in Utah. Zach willingly pled guilty to all his charges—a requirement for all students who receive this alternative to incarceration. If he were to leave before finishing his two-year minimum commitment, he would automatically be required to serve his full sentence. In the intervening period Christine Scott, the prosecutor assigned to Zach’s case, became a regular visitor to Utah County Jail – encouraging and mentoring Zach.
“The more we worked on Zach’s case, the more it became clear the vision was bigger,” Celia adds. “We started to feel that this was not just about Zach – it was about taking a proven idea and making it much more widely available.”
Christine Scott continued to mentor Zach, who became the recruiting officer for the idea in Utah County Jail. The delays in his departure to California became an asset as he vetted candidates to ensure three others were found who seemed sincere in their desire to change.
As doors continued to open, Joseph and Celia made a personal commitment to bring the program to Utah. Others began to join the effort – and in January 2015, a group including John Curtis, then mayor of Provo, Parker Douglas, chief of staff to the Attorney General, Ted Broman, a prominent Utah businessman, and other influential Utahans was led by Joseph and Celia to Delancey Street for a two-day “replication training.” Afterward, the group met over dinner in San Francisco. “We felt both committed and terrified,” Ted Broman remembers. “We knew it needed to be done, but we were daunted by the complexity and risk of it.”
This is why all who attended the January 2015 trip marveled at the breathtaking progress of The Other Side Academy. By December of that same year:
Charlotte Harper, a 38-year veteran of Delancey Street, has joined as an advisor
Four highly qualified Delancey graduates (Dave Durocher, Alan Fahringer, Lola Zagey and Steve Strong) left friends, family, and careers elsewhere to move to Utah and lead the effort
Tim Stay agreed to bring his rare mix of for-profit and non-profit expertise as CEO
Dozens of generous Utahns donated seed capital, labor and goods
The historic Armstrong Mansion in downtown Salt Lake City became home to The Other Side Academy
A moving truck and food truck were purchased
Students seeking to mend their broken lives began to arrive from jails and the streets
At the entrance to The Other Side Academy is a bench. This is the potent symbol and invitation of The Other Side Academy. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all someone needs to do to get help is sit on this bench. Anyone who does so is interviewed. The only criterion we are looking for; “Are you serious?”.
The mission of The Other Side Academy is to create a “therapeutic community” available across the world to all who need it. This bench—and many more future benches—exists because an inmate in Utah County jail had a sincere desire to change. To all the men and women of the world like Zach, there is now a bench for you.