“Synergy is the highest activity in all life – the true test and manifestation of all the other habits put together.” — Stephen R. Covey
Habit 6 is the crowning achievement of all the previous habits. When properly understood, synergy is the highest activity in life. It catalyzes, unifies, and unleashes the greatest powers within people. All the previous habits prepare us for synergy – the principle of creative cooperation. Simply defined, synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three, or six, or sixty.
Synergy is everywhere in nature. Two plants grown close together will intertwine their roots and grow better than either would alone. Two pieces of wood together can hold far more weight than the sum of what each could hold separately. The performance of a great team exceeds what each individual could achieve working alone.
Synergy is the essence of principle-centered leadership. It is the essence of principle-centered parenting. It catalyzes, unifies, and unleashes the greatest powers within people.
The essence of synergy is to value differences – to respect them, to build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses. It takes enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure. It requires all the habits of interdependence: proactivity (Habit 1), personal vision (Habit 2), personal management (Habit 3), interpersonal leadership (Habit 4), empathic communication (Habit 5).
The person who is truly effective has the humility and reverence to recognize their own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts and minds of other human beings.
If two people have the same opinion, one of them is unnecessary. If I see the world only the way you see it, what value do I add? The strength of a relationship, a team, or an organization lies in having different perspectives.
Most people do not really want to listen to another perspective. They want to be validated. It takes genuine internal security to consider ideas that challenge your own. When someone disagrees with you, you can say: “Good! You see it differently. Help me see what you see.”
That response requires all the maturity of Habits 1 through 5. But when you can genuinely say it – and mean it – it opens the door to synergy.
Covey presents a continuum of communication that moves from defensive to synergistic:
Low Trust, Low Cooperation: Defensive (Win-Lose or Lose-Win)
Medium Trust, Medium Cooperation: Respectful (Compromise)
High Trust, High Cooperation: Synergistic (Win-Win)
Most people have never experienced true synergy. They have been conditioned to defend and protect, to stay safe, to avoid vulnerability. But when the conditions are right – when trust is high and people feel safe to be open – synergy creates results that no one could have anticipated.
Synergy is not about my way or your way. It is about finding a Third Alternative – a solution that is better than anything either person could have produced alone.
The key question in synergistic communication is: “Are you willing to search for a solution that is better than what either of us has proposed?”
This requires a willingness to let go of your position, to be influenced, and to enter the creative space where something entirely new can emerge. Most people are not willing to do this. They come to the table to defend their position and persuade the other person to adopt it. Synergy requires a fundamentally different approach.
The process looks like this:
When both parties commit to this process, creative alternatives emerge that neither could have imagined alone.
Covey shares powerful examples of synergy from his teaching experience. In his best university classes, there were moments when the discussion took on a life of its own. Students would become so engaged, so open to new ideas, that insights would cascade. People would say things they had never thought before. The group would produce knowledge and understanding that went far beyond what any individual – including the teacher – brought to the room.
Consider the ecological system of a forest. Trees, soil, insects, fungi, moisture, and sunlight are all interdependent. Remove one element and the whole system changes. No single element could create what the whole produces together.
Human synergy works the same way. When diverse perspectives, skills, and experiences combine in an atmosphere of trust and openness, the creative output exceeds what any individual contributor could generate. This is why the most innovative companies, the strongest families, and the most effective teams are not collections of similar people but diverse groups united by trust and shared purpose.
When trust is low, people move to the opposite of synergy – they become defensive, protective, and political. Covey calls this “negative synergy.” In these environments, 1 + 1 equals less than 1. Energy is consumed by internal conflicts, defensive posturing, and political maneuvering.
“Insecure people think that all reality should be amenable to their paradigms. They have a high need to clone others, to mold them over into their own thinking.” — Stephen R. Covey
To foster synergy in your relationships and teams:
Think of a time when you experienced genuine synergy – when a group produced something far greater than any individual could have created alone. What conditions made it possible? Now think of a current relationship or team where the communication is defensive or merely polite. What would it take to create the conditions for synergy?