Synergy and Lack of Trust

To me Synergy is a magic word! I have seen miracles happen as soon as people get together in an open and cooperative setting. You feel the energy going up. Old paradigms step aside and new ways of looking at the world and the possibilities in it, start to go loose.  

But there is something weird with this image I have of Synergy and the way lots of others seem to see it. My experiences with creativity, innovation and creating new options and chances are for real and the effects are measurable and very valuable. Even though I am certain of the quality groups of people can achieve I often think I stand alone on this.

Here is one painful example of that! I tried to get a group of very diverse people into creating a new multifunctional building that would mean being able to share all kind of facilities, getting a new building, low on energy, high on comfort and nothing but quality to win for everyone. And this held against the existing situation that all these parties cannot keep their out of dated solitary current facilities in a good shape, because of the lack of income they get out of their shrinking clientele in this small village were more and more people are getting older and youth is getting out. As You might see as well, I sense a huge opportunity to grow something new out of the interests and energy of these villagers and their associations, who have everything to loose and a lot to win.

But it did not turn out to become Synergetic. It went the exact other way. A lack of Trust with one particular party closed the door every time new options came nearby. We did not succeed in getting their real pain on the table and trying to discuss aspects that would mean gaining for all stakeholders, got stuck in hiding behind virtual walls of "meaningless fears" in the eyes of others. And instead of better, it got worse every time we tried to get closer to one another.

Metaforely spoken  I sometimes explained it as if we thought we had a good conversation and made a step forward. But as we turned around and saw the effect on the board we tried to communicate with, we seemed to have knocked over another precious vase and they reacted as if we had left them with only bits and pieces.

In this environment we could not make Synergy take place and I still feel very helpless about that. After years of hard effort with different kind of volunteers, the outcome is that there will be some kind of pitiful surrogate alternative that is no fraction of the possibilities we had in mind with our team. This result will mean nothing to most of the involved parties, who will still have the same trouble keeping their heads op in the coming years. And some of them won't, I am particularly sure of! 


Despite it took years, money options dried up because of the crisis kicking in, and university research turned out that the mentioned party had closed up on society for the past ten years, I still think we where almost there several times. Close to high energy solutions, making use of each others idea's and creativity to arrive at real Synergy.

The lesson learned to me is that I should never stop working on Synergy, even though others seem not to be able (or willing)  to reach for the skies. Because we have so much to win and so much to loose if we don’t. But at the same time all energy must go to gaining Trust instead of trying to convince others. As long as there is no real appreciation of what the group as a whole is trying to achieve, there can and will be nothing but losers!