Arithmetic governs many aspects of human life but there is a high order form of cooperation that often yields results which defy normal number crunching…
HAVE you ever been in a meeting in which distressing fault lines developed and two distinct groups ended up arguing intensely? Over the years I’ve learnt a core skill of negotiation that can defuse and redeem such situations.
That skill goes by different names. Some people refer to it as “looking for the Third Alternative”. My preferred term, though, is ‘synergise’, which comes from the word ‘synergy’. In most normal human interactions the mathematical relationship of 1 + 1 = 2 holds. But when synergy exists, 1 + 1 might equal 3 or 4 or even 500!
In the ancient city-state of Athens – in the Attica region of Greece – the dialect Attic Greek was spoken. According to modern linguists, our English word synergy stems from the original Attic Greek word ‘synergos’, which means ‘working together’.
Over the centuries we have come to understand that synergy, often seen in successful biological processes and less so in some high profile but otherwise ridiculous corporate exercises, means that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.
A happy marriage is synergistic. So too are business and work projects where care is taken to appreciate diverse opinions, which results in a Third Alternative that is often quite different from the two original suggestions that opposing groups had attempted to defend at the start.
CREATIVE COOPERATION
Truly successful people often exercise the powerful habit of synergising whenever possible. In Stephen Covey’s most famous book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he acknowledges this.
Covey Habit 6: Synergise builds upon the first five he covered in his 1989 classic, which I have written about in my five previous columns. You may access those at www.nst.com.my/authors/rajen-devadason.
Synergising or exercising principles of creative cooperation is often difficult, but when successful its harvest is immense. Covey writes: “Synergy is everywhere in nature. If you plant two plants close together, the roots co-mingle and improve the quality of the soil so that both plants will grow better than if they were separated.”
He goes on to add: “If you put two pieces of wood together, they will hold much more than the total of the weight held by each separately.”
In my financial planning practice, I’ve seen the power of this habit up close. The best definition I know of financial planning comes from an old version of the www.cfp.net website, which states: “Financial planning is the process of meeting your life goals through the proper management of your finances.”
HARNESSING THE POWER OF SYNERGY
The most important takeaway from the definition is that financial planning is a process. It is NOT a product or even a series of products. And yet products like bank accounts, bank loans, credit cards, stocks, bonds, REITs, unit trusts, ETFs, insurance policies, wills and trusts are all important components people may use — as modular building blocks — to achieve their ‘life goals through the proper management of their finances’.
Note: Those modular products are NOT the holistic financial planning process, just as supplies of steel, concrete and glass are NOT equivalent to an architect’s extensive notes and drawings.
For an exemplary job to be done in structuring someone’s personal finances, the financial planning process must precede the dovetailing together of the various financial products in a rational, well thought out manner just as the specialist construction workers and craftsmen need to first have blueprints to follow when building any complex physical construct.
It may interest you to learn that the way some of my fellow licensed financial planners and I harness the power of synergy is two-fold:
1.We take time to understand the specific nuances of our respective practices so that if a potential client is not an ideal fit for one of us, a referral can be made in good faith so the client’s interests are kept paramount above any short-term profit motive; and
2. We cultivate an ecosystem around us of experts within various financial silos such as banking, insurance, portfolio investing, fund management, estate planning, taxation, real estate, corporate finance and law so that we can selectively and judiciously draw resource people into working teams so we don’t foolishly try to be all things to everyone but instead build synergistic groups geared toward achieving the holistic goals and aspirations of our clients.
Now ask yourself: In your career, are there yet untapped opportunities that will allow you to better serve your employer or your clientele in a value-added synergistic manner to enrich everyone concerned?
I hope there are. However, you must understand such symbiotic systems can only germinate, take root and thrive in a high trust environment. Therefore, don’t rush the process.
Take your time assessing the people you think you might like to work with. When all the parts come together and eventually mesh, the ensuing synergistic alchemy can help us, over the long haul, to have much more fun at work and explode our incomes by several orders of magnitude. Wouldn’t that be cool?
As Covey puts it: “Synergy is exciting. Creativity is exciting. It’s phenomenal what openness and communication can produce. The possibilities of truly significant gain, of significant improvement are so real that it’s worth the risk such openness entails.”
© 2019 Rajen Devadason
Rajen Devadason, CFP, is a Licensed Financial Planner, professional speaker and author. Read his free articles at www.FreeCoolArticles.com; he may be connected with on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason, or via rajen@RajenDevadason.com You may follow him on Twitter @RajenDevadason