My father has an Ivy League engineering degree. He was recruited during his senior year in college to work for a major engineering company with offices in countries all over the world. During his career, he was sometimes partnered with people across one ocean or another, and on occasion flew over to meet in person with colleagues overseas. His drive and determination, his personal commitment to excellence in his work and his ambition to survive every round of layoffs, as well as every big change that occurred in the company during his thirty-plus year tenure, paid off. These attributes were not without cost, however.
My father was scheduled to retire at age 65. He retired earlier, giving up a portion of his pension payments in order to reclaim a portion of his sanity. What drove him to feel he should trade a few extra retirement years for what could have amounted to a lot of money? Issues of synergy.
In Harvard Business Review, Goold and Campbell (1998) express, “The goals of synergy programs tend to be expressed in broad, vague terms: “sharing best practices,” “coordinating customer relationships,” “cross-fertilizing ideas” . . . such fuzzy language obscures rather than clarifies the real costs and benefits of the programs. It also tends to undermine implementation, leading to scattershot, unfocused efforts.”
My father worked for a company that valued international connections and required those international connections in order to succeed in what was, is, and will continue to be a global marketplace. The need for the connections was expressed in forming cross-cultural, international teams to work on projects together. The idea was (is) great, the goal was (is) honorable, and the efforts were (are) ultimately successful, but the details were difficult to manage. My father frequently had to attend a conference call with international partners at midnight, or 2:00 a.m., and then was still expected to show up in the office in the morning as usual for meetings and work with local coworkers. He was exhausted by the time he decided to take that early retirement.
My parents are planning to buy an RV and travel the country. They’ll be shopping for the perfect bed to put in it – and my father will finally be able to sleep all night long, every night, in that RV, until the morning sunshine wakes him. I think he’s earned that, and taking early retirement was a great choice, because while synergy is paramount to success in a global experience, it cannot be created by broad goals and a desire to team up – it must take into account the measurable differences – things like time differences – that exist between cultures on each team, and adjust expectations and processes to account for those and allow every team member to continue thriving both inside his or her own cultural experience, and the synergistic experience of the team as a whole.
Reference
Goold, M., & Campbell, A. (1998, September-October). Desperately Seeking Synergy. Harvard Business Review: Managing People. Retrieved September 30, 2018 from https://hbr.org/1998/09/desperately-seeking-synergy
I enjoyed reading your post! Synergy can be difficult to embrace, let alone implement when working internationally. You have to make sure everyone is on board with decisions that are made and that you are working together harmoniously. I also agree that synergy is more of a feeling than just its logistical characteristics. I am sure those 2 am conference calls do not make it easy to create that feeling. Sometimes as hard as we work to achieve something, the synergy cannot be forced, especially in international relations.
I enjoyed reading about your father’s career and how his attempt at creating and maintaining synergy was difficult. Unfortunately, synergy isn’t easily obtained or maintained. Perhaps that is what makes it so special. Synergy is made of cooperation and combined actions for a common cause, and sometimes, well, not every team is made of members that agree on the goals. (Moran, 2014) Just like you mentioned, broad goals and little understanding of cultural differences could make it difficult for any leader to get everyone on the same page. Even the well-intentioned and eager team members may not develop the excitement for the outcome.
The idea that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” must have been tough for him to explain to his team members outside of the United States when details about the goal may be unclear. In order to be successful, the team needed to be efficient and feel comfortable sharing their knowledge and insights. I tend to think of synergy as a feeling in addition to the more logistical characteristics and I can imagine that intangibles like enthusiasm and building trust are hard to convey over a conference call.
It’s great to hear that your father was able to retire early. After all of his time, I am sure he was able to create synergy a few times. I imagine that he was able to build trust among departments and offices and involved them in the decision-making processes. I guess now the only thing he had to create synergy with the road on which his RV cruises. 😉