Synergy is an interaction or cooperation giving rise to a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts (i.e., a non-linear addition of force, energy, or effect).
In Christian theology, synergism is the idea that salvation involves some form of cooperation between divine grace and human freedom.
In the natural world, synergistic phenomena are ubiquitous, ranging from physics (for example, the different combinations of quarks that produce protons and neutrons) to chemistry (a popular example is water, a compound of hydrogen and oxygen), to the cooperative interactions among the genes in genomes, the division of labor in bacterial colonies, the synergies of scale in multicellular organisms, as well as the many different kinds of synergies produced by socially-organized groups, from honeybee colonies to wolf packs and human societies: compare stigmergy, a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions that results in the self-assembly of complex systems.
These conclusions are derived from the studies conducted by Jay Hall on a number of laboratory-based group ranking and prediction tasks.
He found that effective groups actively looked for the points in which they disagreed and in consequence encouraged conflicts amongst the participants in the early stages of the discussion.
In contrast, the ineffective groups felt a need to establish a common view quickly, used simple decision making methods such as averaging, and focused on completing the task rather than on finding solutions they could agree on.
The elements, or parts, can include people, hardware, software, facilities, policies, documents: all things required to produce system-level results.
[8] If used in a business application, synergy means that teamwork will produce an overall better result than if each person within the group were working toward the same goal individually.
Studying the events of several American policy "disasters" such as the failure to anticipate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (1941) and the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco (1961), Irving Janis argued that they were due to the cohesive nature of the committees that made the relevant decisions.
The successful performance of the health and safety management depends upon the analyzing the causes of incidents and accidents and learning correct lessons from them.
Its message is that organizations must manage health and safety with the same degree of expertise and to the same standards as other core business activities, if they are to effectively control risks and prevent harm to people.
[11] Mathematical formalizations of synergy have been proposed using information theory to rigorously define the relationships between "wholes" and "parts".
There is, thus far, no universal agreement on how synergy can best be quantified, with different approaches that decompose information into redundant, unique, and synergistic components appearing in the literature.
[13][14][15][16] Despite the lack of universal agreement, information-theoretic approaches to statistical synergy have been applied to diverse fields, including climatology,[17] neuroscience[18][19][20] sociology,[21] and machine learning[22] Synergy has also been proposed as a possible foundation on which to build a mathematically robust definition of emergence in complex systems[23][24] and may be relevant to formal theories of consciousness.
[25] Synergy of various kinds has been advanced by Peter Corning as a causal agency that can explain the progressive evolution of complexity in living systems over the course of time.
The thesis, in a nutshell, is that synergistic effects have often provided functional advantages (economic benefits) in relation to survival and reproduction that have been favored by natural selection.
[26][27][28] Similarly, environmental systems may react in a non-linear way to perturbations, such as climate change, so that the outcome may be greater than the sum of the individual component alterations.
[32] Toxicological synergy is of concern to the public and regulatory agencies because chemicals individually considered safe might pose unacceptable health or ecological risk in combination.
[34] The United States Environmental Protection Agency has one of the more detailed and precise definitions of toxic interaction, designed to facilitate risk assessment.
During the registration of pesticides in the United States exhaustive tests are performed to discern health effects on humans at various exposure levels.
Some groups think that the rising rates of cancer, asthma, and other health problems may be caused by these combination exposures; others have alternative explanations.
[1] Human synergy can also occur on a smaller scale, like when individuals huddle together for warmth or in workplaces where labor specialization increase efficiencies.
The authors of Creating the Best Workplace on Earth Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, state that "highly engaged employees are, on average, 50% more likely to exceed expectations that the least-engaged workers.
And companies with highly engaged people outperform firms with the most disengaged folks- by 54% in employee retention, by 89% in customer satisfaction, and by fourfold in revenue growth.
[39]: 100 Also, those that are able to be open about their views on the company, and have confidence that they will be heard, are likely to be a more organized employee who helps his/ her fellow team members succeed.
[40] Eastern Orthodox theology, in particular, uses the term "synergy" to describe this relationship, drawing on biblical language: "in Paul's words, 'We are fellow-workers (synergoi) with God' (1 Corinthians iii, 9)".
This type of synergy is a nearly ubiquitous feature of a corporate acquisition and is a negotiating point between the buyer and seller that impacts the final price both parties agree to.
Financial synergy gained by the combined firm is a result of number of benefits which flow to the entity as a consequence of acquisition and merger.
A cost synergy refers to the opportunity of a combined corporate entity to reduce or eliminate expenses associated with running a business.
The synergistic action gives different dimensions to competitiveness, strategy and network identity becoming an unconventional "weapon" which belongs to those who exploit the economic systems' potential in depth.