Operational Audit: Synergy

     Within any business and most departments there are a number of functions that are completed by various groups or people. For any company to be truly successful it must have synergy. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines synergy as combined action or operation. The second meaning is a mutually advantageous conjunction or compatibility of distinct business participants or elements (as resources or efforts). Based on this meaning we can ascertain that to have synergy we must have combined action or be doing it together and it must be mutually advantageous—it can’t only benefit one department or function, it has to be for the greater good of the company. So how do we know if our departments or companies are synergized?
     For starters, you want to evaluate if information is flowing freely. This includes information flowing from the top down, down up, and side to side. Free information flow is critical to being on the same page. If the top leadership develops strategy and your front line workers don’t have a clue you can be sure information is not flowing freely. Same applies if top leadership is not aware of the environment on the front lines whether it is workload capacity, lack of resources, personnel issues, etc. And just as important, you have to be able to determine if the departments or functions are communicating with each other. If there is an objective that requires a combined effort (as in majority of organizations) to execute and only half of the group is aware and as a result are not working together to determine the best course of action, your final product or service will only be half as good as it could have been. To determine this, select an organization wide initiative and begin asking the various parties what they know about that initiative and what their role is. I assure you, you will quickly be able to grasp how freely information is flowing.
     The next step you will want to identify is how well the departments or functions follow-up with each other. Do these departments place a high value on communicating with each other? This can quickly be determined by conducting a few interviews with the various functions and/or departments. Without prompt follow-up a negative environment will begin to grow because people’s natural response will be to think that they don’t respect me enough to communicate back with me. Morale will be impacted. Productivity will be stifled since people will not be able to move forward because they won’t have the necessary information. Without proper follow-up you’ll be fighting against the grain since your teams will be exuding energy on hunting down what they need versus focusing on process or service improvements.
     Another important aspect to evaluate is whether key decisions are made in a vacuum or involve all departments involved. It is pretty common for key decisions to be made by a single department that for the most part is responsible for the initiative. But 99.9% of the time that department will have to rely on other departments to execute the final objective. As a result, when other departments are needed to support this initiative they are unaware and unprepared resulting in unnecessary stress. And whether we like it or not, animosity probably begins to set in—further reducing synergy. Turf wars begin to develop and productivity once again is impacted.
     The last area to assess is to try and determine if there is a mechanism for feedback and candid communication. There has to be an open door to leadership at all levels where employees can freely come in and share frustrations, ideas, solutions, etc. Jack Welch in his book Winning says, “Trust happens when leaders are transparent, candid, and keep their word. It’s that simple.” Leadership has to be candid and allow for their employees to be candid. This creates transparency for the organization and as a result everyone is on the same page and moving in the same direction. And when that happens, trust happens, and when trust happens, synergy happens!