Blog #2 – Team Synergy

Why team synergy is important

In every organization, someone will find themselves working with teams and having to collaborate with people outside of our norms. It is most important that everyone can work together cohesively and respect differing opinions and ideas. This may be hard for some depending on their background, so if they do not understand or dislike someone on their team or a co-worker, they will not have a positive vibe and working relationship with them. According to the book titled, Managing Cultural Differences by authors, Neil Abramson, and Robert Moran, “Synergy is a cooperative or combined action and occurs when diverse or disparate individuals or groups collaborate for a common cause. The objective is to increase effectiveness by sharing perceptions and experiences, insights, and knowledge.” (Abramson & Moran, 2018, pp. 239-240) We will work with someone that is from a different culture and may not understand them and sometimes negative emotions will occur between working relationships. I recall working with a co-worker that I did not understand well and did not always handle tasks the way I thought she should have. She was slow at doing things, never asked questions so I perceived her to be lazy and didn’t care, so I never gave her the benefit of the doubt or got to know her better. My lack of understanding her ways is why teaching diversity is important because it will help with team synergy.

Incorporating synergy in the workplace begins with our organization’s mission and values and our leaders. According to authors Abramson and Moran, “Multicultural and multifunctional teams are becoming commonplace. Further-more, the complexity of society and the human systems devised to meet new and continuing needs require a pooling of resources and talents.” (Abramson & Moran, 2018, p. 243) With many organizations today, now working with different global leaders, the organization will shift into a multinational corporation culture. The organization will have to promote workplace diversity by conducting training to bring self-awareness on stereotypes, different cultural backgrounds, and religious beliefs, and personality traits. Leaders must first learn about different cultural backgrounds and lead by example to teach others how to effectively communicate with different working styles, work etiquette, and how to manage conflict professionally.

Once an organization recognizes and promotes diversity, employees can effectively work with others and work in teams that can recognize the importance of a healthy working relationship which now promotes team synergy. According to an online article by author, Silvia Pencak,” Diversity will never work without team synergy. Synergy is defined as working together but it is way more than that. Team synergy is a term that describes the uniqueness of the team. Each team is comprised of individuals with unique strengths, talents, experiences and work styles.” (Pencak, 2021) I believe aligning the organization’s values with concerns and expectations with their global counterparts will help to enhance the acceptability of each mission and values and effectively work towards the same goals.

Without Synergy a team will be unable to work together, and loss of valuable productivity will occur. Synergy helps with workplace motivation and with the knowledge of diversity, each member will understand that they all have different ways of doing things or communicating, but they are all working towards the same goal and can work cohesively together. According to authors, Abramson and Moran, “to ensure top performance, the global leaders continually update and broadens his or her understanding of culture and its impact on our lives.” (Abramson & Moran, 2018, p. 252) When the leaders understand the different cultures, he will be able to have his team members understand and identify when cultural classes are occurring by observing the language barriers, nonverbal communication signs, or lack of listening and understanding. Once these items are immediately identified, the leader can help with applying different management practices that one country can adapt, which now promotes cultural synergy to occur.

 

Works Cited

Abramson, N. R., & Moran, R. T. (2018). Managing Cultural Differences. New York: Routledge.

Pencak, S. (2021). Team Diversity or Team Synergy? Retrieved from Silvia Pencak: https://silviapencak.com/team-diversity-or-team-synergy/