Social Synergies

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 / Unsplash

Hey all,

I've been reflecting a lot this week on the differences between the social connections I've made here at college and my friends back at home. As a result, I've become very interested in this idea of social synergy and maximizing productivity and happiness within groups of people, so I thought I'd share a bit of that thinking today.

But first off, what is social synergy?

Well, as Stephen Covey (author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) puts it: "synergy means 'two heads are better than one.'"

💡

Personally, though, my definition of synergy takes the idea even further: two heads together are better than 2, 3, or 5 heads apart. If done right, that combination of perspectives and ideas multiplies the effective intelligence of people by five or even tenfold.

And hey, that might sound outlandish to some of you who have had bad experiences with group projects or never experienced highly effective, dynamic group learning or work. However, that's alright because it can be difficult for people to become comfortable and vulnerable enough with each other for social flow/synergy to happen.

Lucky for me, this was something my high school did very well. Even though we were never the most talented students, there was a high level of unconditional respect between many different groups and people, borne of strong connections across cliques and people bridging the gaps between social groups.

While I didn't realize it then, I'm coming to realize that my experience was pretty unique in the context of all the other high schools my peers at college went to (or maybe it's just a California thing).

As a result, my junior and senior year classes were some of the most dynamic learning experiences I've ever participated in. There was constant contribution of ideas, people building off of each other, and enough jokes to keep every day enjoyable.

That's why I'm hoping you all will be able to experience what I have. However, keep in mind that it takes time and vulnerability for people to get to know each other. On some level, you need to be the person who bridges the gaps between different people you know and puts themselves out there to connect with people outside your race, interests, and comfort zone.

Still, once you get to the point where people are driven, interested, and comfortable enough with each other to add, edit, and evaluate their ideas together, I know you'll find the collective perspectives of different people enhance each other, creating productivity individuals could never achieve alone.

And, as a side note for my Northwestern peers, I hope we can do our best to achieve the social synergy that will build us into world-class workers, researchers, and thinkers. Because isolating ourselves and maliciously competing with each other just puts us further and further behind our true enemies: UChicago and all the other world-class students across the globe.

But that's just my take. Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

-Ethan