Hello Everyone,
It’s been a long time since I have posted here. And I realized I am still on the Habit 6 of the book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by the author Stephen R. Covey. I am sorry for being so inactive lately, I got caught up in some other work. But here I am today, with Habit 6 which is ‘Synergize.’
What does synergize mean? To understand it, let me tell you a Panchatantra story to help you in understanding it.
Once there lived an old man with his four sons. His sons used to fight a lot, and this disturbed the old man. One day, he thought of a trick. He called all his sons and gave each of them a stick to break. They all broke it easily. But then the old man made a bundle of sticks to break. They could not break it.
This cooperation is a part of synergy. Synergy simply means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It means that the relationship which the parts have to each other is a part in and of itself. Notice that here we are talking about two things, ‘parts’ and the ‘relationship between parts.’ In the above story, we talked about the cooperation between parts. What about the ‘relationship between parts,’ what does it mean? To this I will say, keep reading you will get to know about it. 😉
What is Creative Cooperation or synergy?
To understand it synergy let me give you an example of a couple.
So there is this couple, they both have been busy in their work so much that for months they didn’t have time to spend quality time together. One weekend the wife planned a trip with her friends, they planned everything, and when she reached home to tell about the planned trip to her husband she got to know that her husband has already planned a trip for both of them. Her husband had to go on an official trip after that for almost a month and wanted to spend a few days with his wife. But the wife has already made plans with her girlfriends and wanted to go with them as she needed some good time with her friends too, and after that, it will be difficult to plan another trip. So let’s see how they can handle this situation.
If this couple has low trust and bad communication between them they both will have defensive communication. They both will defend their own plan and would want the other one to join their plan. This will create more problem between the two.
Now, if this couple has good trust and good communication between them then they might listen to each other understand other’s point of view, respect each other’s opinion and will have either a low form of win/win or no deal. Which means that there has to be some compromise made on both parts. For example, they can shorten the span of their trip and the wife will go on two trips, one with her friends and one with the husband.
Suppose this couple have high trust and very good communication. Then they both will not only listen to each other and respect each other but will also listen to each other empathically. The husband will understand that how important it is for the wife to go on this trip with her girlfriends, she has been planning it for months now and they could not make it for one or the other reason, and this time they have the opportunity to go. The wife will understand that her husband wanted to spend some quality time with her as after that he will be away for some official work. Now after understanding, they can think of the third alternative together. They can decide that the wife will go on a trip with her friends now and may later join him for some days after his official work is done. Or maybe they can decide to add her friend’s partners too and can all spend time together. There can be many solutions. In this situation they both synergize, they both went for what we call is creative cooperation.
They both are empathic listeners, they both didn’t know what the end will be after the communication, but they do know that they want to work on it. They both are looking for a solution which will benefit both of them. This is where synergy comes into play. In this kind of communication 1+1 may equal to 8. 16 or even 1000. They both were not protective about their own solution they both looked for another creative option, which they have created. And this is what we call creative cooperation. And this is where we can understand the relationship between ‘parts’. The husband and wife were the parts but the synergy is also about the relationship they share.
How to synergize?
Now that we know what synergy is, the question which arises is how to master it.
- To attain interpersonal synergy, first we have to attain intrapersonal synergy, that is synergy within ourselves. And to attain that we have to embody the principles of Habit 1, Habit 2 and Habit 3. These 3 habits will give us the internal security which makes us capable of handling risks of being open and vulnerable.
- After this to attain interpersonal synergy we have to follow Habit 4 and Habit 5. We have to think win-win, we cannot think win-lose, lose-win etc. to attain the principle of synergy. Similarly, one has to understand the point of view of others too, not only just understand but feel them. It is only after this that you will be able to find out solutions together and attain synergy.
- Lastly, value the differences, if two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary. But if two people have different opinions and perceptions that is when we can learn about their point of view. It gives us the opportunity to see the problem differently. So it is important to value the differences. You cannot perform synergy when you say something and other party agrees to it and follow your instructions. That’s not the way to synergy.
And with this, we have come to an end of this post. I hope this post helped you in understanding the importance of creative cooperation. I will see you in the next post with the last habit of the book.
Till then, keep celebrating life.
With Love,
Komal
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