Synergize

What I Took From Habit 6: Synergize

Bailey Sergott (777)

A few weeks ago, I experienced my first escape room. An escape room is a fun room where a group of people must solve riddles and clues to figure out how to escape in less than a certain time. The goal is to work as a group to piece all the clues together and eventually, complete the task. When I went with my family we had my grandparents, young cousins, aunt and uncle, my siblings, and my parents! The more people you go with, the more brains can work together to get out. Everyone in the room can work on their own clues, or work as one. My brother handed me a bow tie and that was the clue that I began to search for. I started putting that bow tie everywhere I put it on the walls, on the mirrors, even on a creepy old doll in the corner, and finally I put it up to a man in a picture frame and it unlocked a drawer. It was so unexpected it caused my father and I both to jump! My strategy was simply just attempting everything with little to no reasoning and it ended up being exactly what was needed. My dad on the other hand, would’ve tried to think of every logical place to put a bow tie and he may have never figured it out. The neat thing with these fun games is that you can play with all genders and all ages. The point is to use everyone's strengths to come up with a solution, to free the group before the timer goes off.

Synergy

Everyone views the world as they see it and not always as it is. In the photo above, one cartoon character is arguing that there are three blocks while the other character says there are four. They could argue with each other all day attempting to convince the other that they are wrong, instead of looking from another perspective and realizing there is an alternative answer, that they are both correct. Sometimes people get so caught up in being right that they refuse to look at other perspectives and it can stop them from coming up with an alternative solution, that they would never come up with otherwise. People often only see two possibilities, theirs and the “wrong” one. According to Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey states that there is always a third alternative. This is the idea of synergy which means the whole is greater than its parts.

Becoming one...

Synergy is all around in nature and in our everyday lives. Synergy takes a large amount of internal security to be open to new creativity and discoveries. It takes leaving your comfort zone and heading into an unknown area of new possibilities. One of the most common synergistic events is something like a team sport. Many people have been a part of a synergistic experience in that sense, but other than that most people live in competition without realizing how far they could go, with the help of others. In nature if two trees are planted close together, the roots will intertwine, becoming stronger together than they would be by themselves. The plants coming together as one, improves the soil and the quality of life.

Synergy is about valuing and respecting differences. It is about compensating weakness with the strength of others. My brother, Luke, has always been very good at the subjects math and science. His girlfriend, Reyna, is extremely good at reading and writing. Together, they help each other with their weaknesses and become a stronger whole. Synergy is around us in nature, families and relationships. The essence of synergy is to build on strengths. Covey states that many of us have not experienced synergy in our family lives or other interactions. Synergy starts with thinking win-win and seeking first to understand, then to be understood. Synergy is not something we are always taught and it can take a lot of practice but once you conquer it, it can be life changing.

Final Thoughts

In order to experience synergy you must be open to differences and have a common goal. Covey states that “once people have experienced synergy, they are never quite the same again. They know the possibility of having other such mind-expanding adventures in the future.” Embracing someone’s differences does not always mean that you have to be friends with them and sometimes cooperation can be difficult. Working with different values, strengths and ideas helps lead to tremendous personal growth. If everyone had the same values, then nobody would be motivated to look for new and better opportunities.