Updated July 22, 2021 395 Author: Dmitry Petrov
Hello, dear readers of the KtoNaNovenkogo.ru blog. There are words whose meaning is clear to us, but their use turns out to be limited only because we either do not want to seem “smart”, or we know only its one – the most immediate or most common – meaning.
One of these words is synergy, the definition of which is much broader and more interesting than we thought.
Let us make a reservation right away that the term “synergy” is indeed a purely scientific one, and outside science and in everyday life its morphological form – “synergy” – is more often used.
There is no difference between these concepts, but the second option, you see, is more pleasant and digestible for our speech - it just doesn’t hurt the ear as much.
The essence of synergy and its role
It is necessary to consider this applied tool from the perspective of science, theory, modern life, economics, business and technology. Realities show the existence of crises in different areas: in politics, art, ecology, and so on. Moreover, such problems can exist in both developing and developed countries. Crises gradually begin to spread to new areas, acquiring the characteristics of a system. Synergy is a young scientific view that examines the issues of cause-and-effect relationships of problems and crises.
History of synergetics and its formation
Synergy - what is it? Translated from Greek, this word means “joint action.” The history of this discipline began in the twentieth century. A group of Belgian scientists led by Nikolaev and Rogozhin observed some chemical processes and discovered interesting patterns in the behavior of complex systems and structures with certain characteristics of orderliness or chaos in the external and internal environment. The desire to move to a new stage in the evolution of the system through increasing the complexity of its structure was noted. Synergy is an exact science that has begun to spread over time to almost all areas of modern life.
Fundamentals of synergistic knowledge
The world is a system that is fractal and integral at the same time and which consists of an almost infinite number of interdependent and interconnected closed and open systems. If you break the system into an infinite number of elements, then they will all be fractal, or holographic, in nature. Synergy is a scientific view that postulates that the information found in one element contains information about all other phenomena associated with it. Moreover, when one element changes, the properties of the other associated with it also change.
A few words about Synergy University
This is in no way an advertisement or a recommendation, since there is too much ambiguous information about this largest private university - MFPU , or Moscow Financial and Industrial University.
And there are catastrophically few confirmed facts in this mass of scandalous information, although VGTRK reporters in Vesti Nedeli tried to present their investigation in the form of factual material.
According to the authors of Wikipedia, the issue dated February 12, 2012 was about poor quality education. Among other “formal universities” where you can simply buy an education, Synergy was also mentioned, uniting within its walls about fifty thousand students, 75% of whom study either part-time or remotely (via Skype).
Thanks to this report, based largely on letters and reviews from former students and graduates, Synergy became involved in a high-profile scandal. As a result, the Ministry of Education and Science conducted an inspection of the quality of education at the Moscow Financial Educational Institution in December of the same year.
Based on the monitoring results, the university was recognized as “effectively operating” and continued its activities. You can judge for yourself how well this activity lives up to its name by watching this 11-minute video:
Properties of elements and system
The synergy effect is what follows from the main characteristics of the system, such as functionality, adaptability and resilience. All elements have unique energy potentials that bring the system as a whole into a state of permanent change. For example, if we imagine a person as an organic system, then such a property as vitality is expressed in the unswerving pursuit of one’s own destiny. Functionality in this case lies in the process of developing one’s own uniqueness. Adaptability, as the third property of a complex system, forces its individual elements to coexist in harmony with themselves and with the surrounding world.
Examples of synergy manifestations
Synergy is the increase in the total effectiveness of the efforts of two or more participants in a certain process as a result of combining these efforts. As a rule, it leads to the achievement of a much better result than what would be obtained by simply adding up these efforts without combining them for a common goal.
Examples of such interaction are:
- synergy of several connected fragments of a radioactive substance, after reaching a critical weight, more energy is released than as a result of simple addition of the radiation of each of these fragments;
- the skills and abilities of fruitfully cooperating people are mutually complementary, which results in them achieving impressive collective success;
- The revenues of several firms after their merger often become greater than the sum of their revenues before the merger.
Are synergy and synergy the same thing?
Let's look at another important question. Synergy – what does it mean? Is this concept identical to such a term as “synergetics”? It is difficult to answer this question unequivocally. In any case, these are related and related concepts that became the ancestors of a huge conceptual mechanism for many key aspects of modern science. This is a synergetic paradigm, a synergetic concept of cognition and understanding of life and the world, a synergetic approach, and synergetic methods. Using these concepts, modern scientists explain the behavior of different systems. On the other hand, practical and theoretical models of synergy have spread to all areas of life, be it sociology, psychology or business, that is, this term is very abstract. But synergetics is, rather, a derivative concept that denotes a specific science.
Popularity of synergy
Synergy - what is it? It is the force or energy that is created by different parts as they work together. In business, for example, this term can be used to describe the benefit that is obtained by combining several elements in such a way that their productivity in this case will be greater than just their sum. From Greek this term is translated as “cooperation, joint action”, “interaction”. All these definitions accurately reflect the specifics of using synergy in any area of life. The popularity of this concept in the names of educational schools, magazines, research institutes, banks and corporations is explained by the fact that the connection between functionality, adaptability and resilience, that is, the basic law of synergy, is the fundamental basis for the existence and development of any system, factors that directly influence on the success of a particular project.
Synergy in natural sciences
Synergy, as a result of mutually beneficial cooperation, gives an effect that cannot be achieved using individual components.
This is the main advantage of using synergetic laws. And they work in almost every area of human activity.
In medicine, in particular, this term is used in relation to the healing process. As a rule, the patient is prescribed complex treatment , consisting of several types of medications and/or procedures. If you remove at least one component, the treatment process may be delayed or may not give the expected result.
In this case, the properties of all combined measures aimed at improving the patient’s health will produce synergy, and one of the components is not always a drug.
Medical synergy is when each element of therapy complements each other, reveals its properties more widely and gives a significantly greater effect than if the drugs used were used separately.
However, synergy is not always beneficial. So, for example, a combination of certain components can lead to the opposite result, thereby worsening the patient’s condition.
In pharmacology they talk about drug synergy. The principle is the same: the combination of two or more components enhances the healing properties of the drugs. Therefore, the patient is prescribed some additional drug to the main drug, which will reveal the potential of the first drug.
For example, every hypertensive person knows that if you take a pill for high blood pressure along with a diuretic, your blood pressure numbers will return to normal faster.
In psychology, synergy means the disclosure of certain qualities of a person who was influenced by another, stronger, wiser, experienced or competent person.
Let's say the man was a completely ordinary person, without any special talents, merits or outstanding qualities. But after meeting and creating a relationship with a certain lady, he was literally reincarnated. The man began to advance in his career, felt confident and strong. Sometimes unexpected talents are discovered this way (what is that?).
And we are talking not only about people from a person’s “everyday” environment, but also about the relationship, for example, of a psychotherapist with his ward. There is a positive facilitation effect here – classic synergy.
However, the opposite may well be true. The most obvious example would be about a bad company that a child got involved with. The influence of his friends revealed his negative tendencies, helped them to come out and express themselves in full force.
As you can see, each industry puts its own meaning into the meaning of synergy. Therefore, the term must be applied based on the specifics of a particular area.
Features of synergistic knowledge
Unlike many new sciences, which arise at the junction of several other previously existing ones, synergetics is based on the internal points of contact of the different currents with which it intersects. That is why synergy is playing an increasingly important role even in classical physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics. We can conclude that the new young science is a set of methods that seek to explain the contradictions in the modern world and show the path to achieving perfection in self-organization.
Human synergy
It often happens that several gifted people together achieve much greater success than they could by realizing their talents alone.
A typical example of such fruitful cooperation is the famous British TV show about cars Top Gear.
Each of its presenters is a bright personality, but it was their creative union that made them legends of automotive journalism. That is why their record of popularity could not be repeated by any of the foreign versions of Top Gear, nor by the British team that replaced them.
Synergetics in computer science, business and economics
It is these three areas that have begun to most actively apply the laws of synergy in their activities. These principles have their own characteristics, namely that if certain conditions are met, the result can significantly exceed expectations. This is precisely the effect that is necessary for business, for the economy, and for rapidly developing information technologies. The practical novelty of synergy lies in the fact that this science itself acts as an element of the system, which is integrated into different spheres of life. Moreover, this discipline can also be called a connecting link, since its laws allow both strengthening and weakening of existing connections.
The phenomenon of synergy. A simple explanation of the concept of synergy
My first acquaintance with the concept of synergy took place after entering the Faculty of Economics. This term is popular among pundits, but is almost unknown outside the scientific community. With all this, its meaning is quite simple and quite accessible to people far from science.
Synergy is a combination of factors in economics and other areas when, figuratively speaking, two plus two does not equal four. For example, thanks to the division of labor, a company consisting of only two professionals with a narrow specialization can produce many times more products than a company with numerous but unqualified personnel.
You can also give an example from everyday life. It is given in the famous parable about the many weak twigs of one broom: connected in a bunch, they will become a monolith and will be able to achieve much more than if they were used simultaneously, but separately.
The root of this word syn is borrowed from Greek and means “together”, “together”. The second part of the word ergia means “work”. For this reason, the word "synergy" is often used in economic treatises.
In the terminology of entrepreneurs, there is the designation win-win. It is used in cases where businessmen manage to conclude a mutually beneficial deal or establish mutually beneficial cooperation precisely through the use of the phenomenon of synergy.
Synergy is also called the process reaching a level where quantity begins to transform into quality.
