🤝Symbergy

When diversity works together

Symbergism, also known as Adizes philosophy, is a current of thought that centers around the need for synergy and symbiosis within the components of a system in order for the system to be healthy and thus efficiently achieve its purpose of existence effectively. when systems lack either synergy or symbiosis, the system disintegrates and energy is lost till the system eventually dies. the father of symbergism, Dr. Ichak Adizes, coined the term and created several tools, processes, and methods that were tested in over fifty countries from companies in the start-up stage to the largest on earth and in multiple industries, and with for or not for profit goals, to reliably and systematically create symbergy in social systems, from individuals and families to corporations and governments. His success with the methodology was repeated by those certified by the institute he founded thus, it is scaleable to achieve the same results.

Symbergism is a play of words joining the terms "symbiosis" and "synergy." Here, symbiosis means common interest or a long-term reason to sacrifice short-term needs for the needs of the system. similarly, synergy means embracing diversity or acknowledging the need for different, often conflicting and opposing roles in a system for it to make better decisions. it is achieved through the mutual exchange of information and judgments. it is achieved by creating a learning environment that will happen if there is mutual respect and recognition of each other's right to think differently.

Without symbiosis, components of the system put their needs ahead of the needs of the system. As this phenomenon increases, there is less energy to address the system's needs; and as the system loses energy and its survival horizon diminishes, the long-term interest is lost given that there is increased perceived risk by the individual to remain as part of the deteriorating system. thus, the loss of symbiosis is usually a vicious cycle and requires constant external energy to be stopped: this is one of the reasons why systems disintegrate naturally and require work to integrate back together.

Without synergy, diverse roles do not orchestrate, learn from each other or collaborate. essential roles within the system get subdued and ignored while incumbent roles overly expand. this happens because, although a system is meant to swiftly change the roles, it must prioritize its healthy development. For various reasons, some roles have difficulty developing as needed creating dysfunctional behavior; the organization can not grow and change in a healthy manner. According to the organizational lifecycles theory: how organizations change and grow and what undermines that growth, and why organizations develop dysfunctional behavior that stymies their capability to integrate with their markets, also developed by Dr. Ichak Adizes, a synergy rarely occurs without symbiosis since diverse roles will only be willing to cooperate if they have an important reason to, or common interest. Thus, establishing a common interest is usually the first step to creating symbergy. To contribute to the system a priori, the units composing the system must trust the system that they will eventually benefit from their contribution. The contributions have to be made in a climate of mutual respect so that synergy will occur from mutual learning.

In a social and behavioral context, the word "symbiosis" is often used to conceptualize "trust" "cooperation" and "synergy" to conceptualize "respect" and "collaboration." For a system to be symbergetic, both symbiotic and synergetic, there must be a climate and a culture of mutual trust and respect. experience in over fifty countries with hundreds of companies shows that a company or a society with high mutual trust and respect will overperform another group or society that lacks them.