Synergy is the creation of a whole that is more than a simple sum of its parts. The term “synergy” comes from the Greek Attic word συνεργία (synergia), which means “working together”.
Essence
In the natural world, synergistic phenomena are ubiquitous, ranging from physics (for example, various combinations of quarks that produce protons and neutrons) to chemistry (a popular example is water, a combination of hydrogen and oxygen), cooperative interactions between genes in genomes, division of labor in bacterial colonies . Various types of synergies also arise from socially organized groups, from bee colonies to wolf packs and human societies.
Human example
Even the tools and technologies that are widespread in the natural world are important sources of synergistic effects. The remedies that allowed the early hominids to become systematic big game hunters are a primordial human example of synergy.
Group management
When discussing this phenomenon in the context of organizational behavior, it is worth starting from the opinion that a cohesive group is more than the sum of its parts, and synergy is the ability of a group to surpass even the best of its members. These findings are derived from studies conducted by Jay Hall on a number of laboratory group tasks for ranking and forecasting. He found that effective groups are actively looking for points at which they disagree, and as a result, encourage conflicts between participants in the early stages of discussion. Here the expression precisely works: "Truth is born in a dispute."
On the contrary, ineffective groups feel the need to quickly develop a common understanding, use simple decision-making methods, such as averaging and focusing on the task, rather than finding solutions that they could agree with.
The value of groups
In the technical context, their meaning is the construction or combination of various elements working together to achieve results that cannot be obtained by any of these elements. What is synergism? This is what holds these very elements together.
Elements or parts may include people, hardware, software, tools, policies, documents: everything you need to get results at the system level. The value that characterizes it as a whole is created through relations between parts of the system. In essence, a system is a set of interconnected components that work together with a common goal: meeting a specific identified need. This is a partial answer to the question of what is synergism.
In business
When used in business processes, synergy means that teamwork will give a better overall result than if each person in the group worked to achieve the same goal individually. Nevertheless, the concept of group cohesion should be considered to understand what synergism is in the context of group interaction. Group cohesion is a property that is derived from the number and strength of mutual positive relationships between group members. As a group becomes more cohesive, its functioning is carried out in different ways. First, the interaction and communication between members is increasing. Common goals, interests and small sizes contribute to this. In addition, the satisfaction of group members is increasing as it provides friendship and support to its members, as well as protection against external threats.
Negative aspects
There are negative aspects of cohesion that affect decision making and, therefore, the effectiveness of the group as a whole. There are two problems. The risky shift phenomenon is a group's tendency to make decisions that are more risky than those that the group would individually recommend. Polarization is when individuals in a group start from a moderate position on the issue of shared value, and after discussion take a looser position.
Group thinking
The second, potentially negative consequence of group cohesion is group thinking. Usually people who are interested in what synergism is, are not aware of its negative aspects. Group thinking is a way of thinking about the situation that people are involved in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group, when the desire of members for unanimity sometimes drowns their motivation to really evaluate alternative options. Studying the events of several American political disasters, such as the inability to anticipate a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (1941) and the fiasco of the invasion of Gulf of Pigs (1961), Irving Janice claimed that they were caused by the cohesion of the committees, which ultimately accepted the wrong solutions.
That decisions made by committees lead to failure in a simple system, says Dr. Chris Elliot. His case study examined the so-called “IEEE-488 category,” an international standard established by the leading US standardization body. Its introduction at one time led to the failure of small automation systems using the IEEE-488 standard (which encoded the HP-IB communication standard). The external devices used for communication were manufactured by two different companies using different standards, and their incompatibility led to financial losses. This is an example of the eternal synergy and antagonism of large groups in the form of bureaucratic institutions.
Practical implementation
The idea of a systematic approach was endorsed by the UK Executive Director of Health and Safety. The successful implementation of labor protection and safety measures depends on the analysis of the causes of incidents and accidents and learning from them the right lessons. The idea is that all events (not only those that cause injuries) are failures in control and provide an opportunity for training and improvement of both individual specialists and entire groups. Such “medicinal” synergism is now used all over the world and in almost all areas of life.