![]() Organizations strive to achieve positive synergy or strategic fit by combining multiple products, business lines, or markets. Also, groupthink -the pressure to conform -may cause the group to strive for harmony instead of evaluating information and alternative courses of action honestly and objectively. ![]() Negative synergy can also occur in group decisions if an individual is allowed to dominate and control the group decision. The opportunity costs for having a group of high-paid executives spend an afternoon in a meeting rather than in more productive endeavors can be quite high. Groups commonly experience negative synergy because group decisions are often reached more slowly, and thus may be more expensive to make than individual decisions. Negative synergy occurs in groups, committees, and other joint efforts for a number of reasons. Much of the current interest in teams and team building is an effort to achieve positive synergy through the combined efforts of team members. Positive synergy resulting from group decisions may well include the generation of more ideas, more creative solutions, increased acceptance of the decision by group members, and increased opportunity for the expression of diverse opinions. By combining their knowledge, insights, and ideas, groups often make better decisions than would have been made by the group members acting independently. ![]() Synergy can result from the efforts of people serving on committees or teams. One way to observe synergy in an organization is to observe the combined efforts of individuals working together. Discussions of synergy also figure in medical literature, such as in research that addresses how the effects of medication on individuals are magnified when combined with a special diet or exercise. Synergy was developed as a measure of the effectiveness of the joint efforts of various subsystems. Systems theory was one of the first management theories to explicitly state that changing one of the subsystems could have an impact on the total system. To fully understand the larger system, one must examine the subsystems and the interrelationships. The human body, as a system, is comprised of a set of interrelated subsystems, including the brain, skeleton, muscles, and others. Systems theory, as applied to biology and the physical sciences, describes the interdependence of various parts of an organism, such as the human body. In recent years the term has most often been used in association with systems theory. Synergy has origins as a theological term describing the cooperation of human effort with divine will. Negative synergy can result from inefficient committees, business units that lack strategic fit, and from other poorly functioning joint efforts. However, with negative synergy, the combination of their efforts results in less output than what they would have achieved if they had each worked alone. Again, individuals operating alone can each produce two units of output. Negative synergy can be called the 2 + 2 = 3 effect. However, by combining their efforts and working together effectively, the two subsystems can produce five units of output. Operating independently, each subsystem can produce two units of output. ” Positive synergy is sometimes called the 2 + 2 = 5 effect. Synergy can be a positive or negative outcome of combined efforts.Īccording to the American Heritage Dictionary, the term “synergy ” is derived from the Greek word sunergos, meaning “working together. For example, two people can move a heavy load more easily than the two working individually can each move their half of the load. Simply stated, synergy results when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Synergy, also known as synergism, refers to the combined effects produced by two or more parts, elements, or individuals.
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