Sunday Funday Monday Leftover Knowledge Drip

Every Monday at 7pm central, TipsyRoo and I host (except when we don't) a live community event where, collectively, we solve a NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle (without using the internet!). Each week following the episode either I, or the community, will select a clue/answer from that puzzle and I will delve further into the history & look for fun facts.

Drip #3: Synergy

Puzzle Date: January 18th, 1998
Puzzle Theme: Prophecy
Episode: 43, recorded live on January 18th, 2021
Clue: Cooperative interaction
Answer: synergy

Intro

We've all seen or heard the term. You've likely used it in conversation to describe something you've witnessed, a positive experience you've had while working with another, or maybe its something you strive to achieve within your own community/workplace. If you've spent any amount of time in the corporate world, you’ve seen this in some bullshit corporate documentation, an equally bullshit corporate tagline, or heard it as a buzzword in a pointless-could-have-been-an-email meeting.

According to the BBB, there's over 3,000 businesses with the word, synergy, in their name in various industries. Locally there's dental groups, lifestyle medicine, learning software, and even a lubricant distributor (teehee) that all have this word in their name.

WHAT IS IT?

You guessed it: synergy. Or, maybe you didn't guess it. There's an entire list of buzzwords that the above describes.

ANYWAY, what does synergy really mean?

One of the many brilliant demotivators available at Despair.

History/Etymology

The word, synergy (from the Latin & Greek word, synergia, as early as 1650), is made up of syn- "together" and ergon "work". The definition, according to dictionary dot com is, "the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements".

Dictionary dot com has a few examples of what synergy is (scroll down to the VOCAB BUILDER section) and if I had to choose a favorite, it's this:

When you combine things—chemicals, ingredients, people—you often expect these things to interact in a certain way based on what has been included. But when something extra happens, something greater, this is synergy. Synergy implies that the magic is in the combination, as opposed to in the individual elements themselves.

We often refer to synergy when speaking about working with others.

Synergy in a team environment generally produces better results than if each person was working on the same goal individually. I've experienced this in my professional life; with proper planning and the right amount of involved humans, wonderful things can be accomplished. However, one potential side effect of this is "group think". "Group think" is where the people involved in the group strive for unanimity, rather than realistically approaching alternative courses of action. In my own words, this means agreeing for the sake of not being the odd one out and dealing with any uncomfortable feelings that brings on or simply agreeing just to agree and be done with it.

Types

Synergy isn't something specific to humans working with one another. There's various synergies in the biological science world, computer world, and even more in the corporate world (insert elmo fire gif here). Hooray. These and more can be found on the Wikipedia page. Have fun. Or don't.

Final Thoughts

Throwing more people at a problem does not immediately create synergy, especially if what's needing to be accomplished is already behind schedule. There's a popular book by the title of "The Mythical Man-Month" that discusses how adding more people into the mix exponentially increases the complexity & amount of communication required thus making a late project even later.

As I was reading up on synergy, some questions came to mind. I've yet to dig into any of these to see if there are potential answers. Perhaps you, dear reader, will have some thoughts. About synergy & the following questions. Or maybe some random thoughts not at all related to synergy?

Are there varying levels of synergy?

How do you know you've experienced synergy as opposed to just a normal job well-done?

Can you cultivate synergy?

Can you have synergy with yourself?

References

https://www.etymonline.com/word/synergy

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/synergy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergy

Sunday Funday Monday is the brain-child of TipsyRoo that I’ve been honored to be a part of. Past episodes can be found on YouTube.