Synergize

Habit 6: Synergize

Syn­ergy is where all of the pre­vi­ous habits come together.  It is the pay­off.  To quote Stephen Covey “Syn­ergy is the high­est activ­ity in all of life.”  “The essence of syn­ergy is to value the dif­fer­ences.”  By doing so, the human gift of cre­ativ­ity can be lev­ered to pro­duce new and excit­ing options for the future.

By doing all the work in Habits 1,2, and 3 you develop inter­nal con­fi­dence from a life rooted in prin­ci­ple.  This con­fi­dence  then allows for respect­ful inter­ac­tion with oth­ers.  To make this work prop­erly requires habit 4, Think Win / Win and habit 5 Seek First to Under­stand and then to Be Under­stood.  You accept that you may have dif­fer­ing views, but that fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples that guide life remain.  Thus it is pos­si­ble to explore new ideas with­out fear and inse­cu­rity.  You are inter­de­pen­dent.  You are open to the opin­ions of oth­ers.  You under­stand the value of your per­spec­tive, while real­iz­ing that “all peo­ple see the world, not as it is, but as they are.”  “The per­son who is truly effec­tive has the humil­ity and rev­er­ence to rec­og­nize his own per­cep­tual lim­i­ta­tions and to apre­ci­ate the rich resources avail­able through inter­ac­tion wiht the hearts and minds of other human beings.”  Covey goes on to state,  has  “When we’re left to our own expe­ri­ences, we con­stantly suf­fer from a short­age of data.”

As humans some of us are very expres­sive by nature.  Oth­ers are very ana­lyt­i­cal.  Some are highly emo­tional, and oth­ers very log­i­cal.  All see the world from dif­fer­ent angles.  Lever­ag­ing this diver­sity of views is a crit­i­cal part of syn­ergy.  Fur­ther, it does not stop with per­son­al­ity type.  Every per­son has expe­ri­enced dif­fer­ent things, has dif­fer­ent val­ues, dif­fer­ent skills, and dif­fer­ent areas of knowl­edge — each with the poten­tial to bring unique per­spec­tive and value to a situation.

Covey then goes on to talk about how syn­ergy works in com­mu­ni­ca­tion.  It is the idea that when some­one dis­agrees with you, rather than becom­ing defen­sive, you say “Good! You see it dif­fer­ently.”  You may not agree with them but you appre­ci­ate their per­spec­tive.  Even if some­one insults you, you choose not to take it per­son­ally, but instead to see it as a way to “improve your point of view and to enlarge your per­spec­tive.”   Covey says it like this, “If a per­son of your intel­li­gence and com­pe­tence and com­mit­ment dis­agrees with me, then there must be some­thing to your dis­agree­ment that I don’t under­stand, and I need to under­stand it. You have a per­spec­tive, a frame of ref­er­ence I need to look at.”

How does this apply to social media?

Social media is all about synergy.

If you fol­low Stephen Covey’s quotes in this post as you engage in con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple through social media chan­nels, you are truly going to get value out of the expe­ri­ence.  If you are cre­atively express­ing your­self, peo­ple are going to dis­agree with you from time to time.  If you imme­di­ately get defen­sive, you will turn peo­ple away.  This is not easy.  Our knee jerk reac­tion is to hit back when some­one hits us.  Not to men­tion that text on the web tends to read more neg­a­tively than is intended quite often.  Thus we can eas­ily over­think a com­ment or a post writ­ten by some­one that is at odds with our view of the world.

Real­ize that it might just be an oppor­tu­nity for syn­ergy.  It gives you the chance to explore some­one else’s view, to broaden your per­spec­tive, and ide­ally through the respect­ful exchange of ideas, to develop some­thing new.  Sure, some­times you come across the lame per­son that just wants to throw “salt in your game.”

Another point — Syn­ergy does not always involve a dis­pute.  It might just involve find­ing a great solu­tion.  One great thing about the poten­tial to con­nect with the world is the poten­tial to tap into that world for answers.  The syn­ergy might take place between totaly strangers who take an inter­est in answer­ing a ques­tion you pose on a blog, forum, pod­cast or social net­work.  The col­lec­tive wis­dom of the world is at your fin­ger­tips.  Real­ize that you can engage peo­ple to help you.

Tap­ping into syn­er­gis­tic com­mu­ni­ca­tion is an invig­o­rat­ing expe­ri­ence.  It is one that you can proac­tiv­ley cre­ate by using social media to express your ideas and explore your cre­ative potential.

“You have a per­spec­tive, a frame of ref­er­ence I need to look at.”  — Well said Mr. Covey.  Well said.