Week 2: Seven Habits
Day 13: Habit #6 – Synergize
Synergy is a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table. Together, they can produce far better results that they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves. It is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
– Stephen Covey
“By synergistically creating a mission statement, it becomes engraved in the hearts and minds of the participants.”
– Stephen Covey
A Mission Statement such as this:
G-d sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but G-d; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. – Genesis 45:7,8
It took a Joseph, with all of the knowledge and skill that make up Yesod, to manage this process of synergy between his brothers.
From Stephen Covey:
“When people begin to interact together genuinely, and they’re open to each other’s influence, they begin to gain new insight. The capability of inventing new approaches is increased exponentially because of differences. Valuing differences is what really drives synergy. Do you truly value the mental, emotional, and psychological differences among people? Or do you wish everyone would just agree with you so you could all get along? Many people mistake uniformity for unity; sameness for oneness. One word–boring! Differences should be seen as strengths, not weaknesses.”
From Tom Rath and the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment tool:
“While individuals are rarely balanced, teams always should be … Diverse teams have a much larger pool of strengths and experiences to draw from, so it’s easier to solve challenges as they occur. Everyone doesn’t have to be awesome at everything – by working together, diverse teams can accomplish their objectives far more effectively.”