My Take on “Synergize”

My second day reading brings me to habit 6 of Public Victory: Synergize is the principle of applying creative cooperation which I am able to relate to my own experience with teams (SMC team and small group learning team).

Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. The essence of synergy is to value differences – to respect them, to build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses. Synergy requires the opening of mind and heart and expressions to find new possibilities, new alternatives, and new options together. However, to many, this does not just happen. It is a process and through such process, when people interact genuinely and are open with each other, new insights and plans that no one anticipated before can be created and achieved. Hence, synergy holds the important idea that the whole is greater than sum of its parts.

So, what does that mean to me? To leverage on the strength of others, it is very important that I am able to recognize and value their difference. So, how much do I value difference? I took a short quiz, tapping on questions that are found in the website (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_36.htm), focusing on valuing differences. Below is the summary of how I rated my own behavior or attitude regarding the statements.

My score of 4 out of 5 stars (generated from the quiz test) seemed to indicate that I am able to manage differences of others. As for myself, I know my own limitations and if I really desire to be effectively independent and interdependent, there is a need for me to open myself to the ideas of others, to learn and add the knowledge, experiences and understandings of others at every opportunity. Hence, valuing the difference of others –always putting myself in the other’s shoes – is the key.

Below is an example of what I perceived as teamwork and the conditions needed to support synergy.

I think of a group of teachers in a small group learning team. The time I took to really get to know the both of them (about one semester) – through which they came to feel I understood them (both colleagues having evaluated me high in both courage and consideration) and that I was willing to listen and do what they asked of me. Likewise, they were willing to do what I wanted of them. Once we established that level of trust, it become easier for all of us to practice synergy working together. As a team, we would do many things collaboratively, learning together and sharing responsibility, which led to an understanding of ourselves. There are things that each of us struggled with but use each other’s individual talents for the benefit of our learning team.