Have you read Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? Perhaps the most quoted (and mis-quoted) book title ever. If only it were read half as often as it’s mentioned!
The sixth habit is “synergise”. Covey provides his own paraphrase for synergy: creative cooperation. It’s the crowning achievement of his program. If you and I are in search of the same general outcome, but we differ on ways and means, on details, on the path to get there – then we need a paradigm shift from either/or to the third alternative. If we truly synergise (creatively cooperate), the third alternative achieves more and takes us further than either of us would go alone. It’s greater than the sum of its parts.
This is the essence of the best boardroom debate, the best strategy creation, the best succession planning, the best soul-searching to find our common purpose. And it’s hard. It takes the hard-earned trust in ourselves and each other to be confident our creative cooperation can bring us to this third alternative that achieves more than either of us started with. It takes a deep commitment to win-win. It takes the effort of truly understanding different and even conflicting views. No wonder it builds on five other habits! And if you’ve been there, you’ll know that’s where the magic happens.
One of the main challenges to synergy, in my experience, is to fully value diversity. We like it when people think like us, come from the same perspective. We forget that the strength of the working relationship is in having differing points of view. I can’t put it better than Covey himself: “Sameness is not oneness… Sameness is uncreative and boring. The essence of synergy is to value the differences.”
Have you met leaders who are surrounded by people who don’t dare disagree with them? Sometimes this happens of its own accord; sometimes dissent has been actively suppressed. Either way, the result is an echo chamber, where the third alternative doesn’t stand a chance. Blind spots are not detected, and innovation dies on the vine.
So how about your team, your network, your family members, your collaborators and joint venture partners? Are you truly and actively synergising? Are you valuing the dissenters and diverse thinkers? Cos that’s what it takes.
Could synergies propel your business to the next level? Give us a call, let’s talk about what we might create together!