How to Create Team Synergy and Achieve OKR Easily

A goal-setting framework used by individuals, teams, and organizations to define measurable goals and track their outcomes is known as Objectives and key results (OKR).

Synergy within team dynamics is absolutely essential if you want to easily achieve OKR.

What exactly is synergy? And how does it help in achieving OKR?

Definition of Synergy

Synergy is when two or more individuals, teams, or organizations work together to achieve greater results and produce something of value.

Synergy takes inspiration from the Ancient Greek philosophy that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Synergy simply means to work together or collaborate.

Working together or collaborating with others results in a higher level of efficiency in production, in creativity and in producing better results. To achieve your OKR easily, it is best to collaborate and work together with other people who have similar goals and objectives as you.

Synergy is effectively connecting, communicating, and collaborating with cross-functional partners to achieve a common goal and result.

How to Build Team Synergy

Team synergy takes the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Team synergy enables team members to work together with their unique life experiences, perspectives, talents, and knowledge to achieve a common goal and result.

By leaning into each team member’s unique strength, a team can achieve better results than they would be able to achieve individually.

Building team synergy takes time and effort. There are some vital strategies you need to implement to build team synergy. These strategies include:

1. Start with communication

Effective communication is the core of any strong working group or team. Effective communication is especially vital for diverse groups.

The value of a diverse group comes from the differences of opinion, knowledge and experiences that each team member possesses and brings to the table.

For each team member to share their opinion, knowledge and experiences with the others, they need to feel comfortable expressing themselves, and this is only possible with effective communication.

With effective communication, team members can express themselves freely and accurately to the understanding of others. They can express themselves more effortlessly to achieve synergy.

To start building effective communication skills within team members, you need to;

Establish where your team should communicate and what they should communicate about

When team members understand where to communicate, and what they should communicate about, they have better a understanding of how they should communicate.

Set and share a communication plan with your team so that each team member will know how they should communicate with each other.

Prioritize two-way communication

Two-way communication means listening and speaking. Team members should listen to other team members’ ideas before sharing their own ideas. Encourage team members to practice active listening before speaking.

2. Foster trust and collaboration

After knowing how to communicate effectively with each other, team members need to trust each other and feel comfortable communicating with each other.

Ensure that you create an enabling environment for team members to bring their full selves to work without reservations.

To foster trust and collaboration:

Invite co-creation

Co-creation means building an idea together. A key part of team synergy is working together to produce something better that each individual wouldn’t be able to produce on their own.

To do this, hold brainstorming sessions, and invite discussion. You need to also open the door to disagreement during brainstorming sessions and discussions. Healthy disagreement is key to good team collaboration.

Encourage open communications

You need to encourage open communication by making team members feel comfortable to say what they feel, give their opinion on projects, or disagree with other team members.

Lead by example

The best way to foster trust and collaboration is to lead by example. You need to model the behavior you want to see in your team.

Ensure that you’re always inviting co-creation and welcoming new opinions. When you lead by example, you’ll start to see your team do the same.

3. Set group norms

The unspoken rules that guide how team members interact are known as group norms. If you don’t set group norms it can lead to some bad practices within team members, and can ultimately lead to bad group dynamics.

Ensure that you set group norms to guide your team members. Setting group norms make it easier for team members to collaborate.

What is synergy in the workplace?

Synergy in the workplace focuses on teamwork or collaboration between team members to produce collaborative and better results that each team member won’t have been able to achieve on their own.

Synergy in the workplace combines each individual effort to enhance team achievements and provide better results.

What are the examples of synergy?

Examples of synergy in the business world include:

• Business mergers or acquisitions

• Combining or creating compatible product lines

• Creating cross-disciplinary workgroups

What are the 3 types of synergies?

There are broadly three different types of synergies. These include:

1. Revenue Synergies

A revenue synergy occurs when two companies are combined and as a result can produce or sell more products or services than they would have been able to produce or sell separately.

An example of a revenue synergy can be found in the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook in 2012.

Instagram reportedly had zero revenue at the time of the acquisition. However, Facebook believed that acquiring Instagram and combining the two social media sites would create significant revenue opportunities or synergies.

2. Cost Synergies

Cost synergies represent the opportunity to reduce overall costs by combining businesses.

There are several ways in which organizations seek to extract cost synergies through mergers and acquisitions. These include:

• Reducing staff by identifying functional duplication

• Reducing rental by consolidating or merging offices

• Consolidating suppliers or renegotiating supplier terms

• Increasing utilization of capital assets such as factories, transportation, etc.

• Reducing professional services fees

• Reducing costs through exchange of best practices.

A good example of cost synergies is the Nine Entertainment Co acquisition of Fairfax.

In an independent expert report (IER) drafted for Fairfax shareholders, at least $50m in cost savings was anticipated to be fully realized within two years under the acquisition deal.

3. Financial Synergies

Financial synergies relate to the costs a company needs to meet to secure the various funding sources it requires to finance its business.

When a smaller company seeks to borrow money, the lender will charge a given interest rate. The interest rate is to compensate for the risk attached to the loan.

When the smaller company merges with a larger company, the interest rate it will then be charged should be lower in recognition of the larger balance sheet and cash flows from the larger company supporting the loan.

What is synergy in group communication?

Synergy in group communication means effective communication between groups or team members. Like we said earlier, effective communication is the core of any strong working group or team. Effective communication is especially vital for diverse groups.

The value of a diverse group comes from the differences of opinion, knowledge and experiences that each team member possesses and brings to the table.

For each team member to share their opinion, knowledge, and experiences with the others, they need to feel comfortable expressing themselves, and this is only possible with effective communication.

With effective communication, team members can express themselves freely and accurately to the understanding of others. They can express themselves more effortlessly to achieve synergy.

What are potential synergies?

Potential synergy is when two companies are planning to merge together or a large company is planning to acquire a smaller company, thereby increasing the efficiency of its operations and revenue.

Potential synergy is measured in terms of the potential to increase productivity and revenue.

What are synergy targets?

Synergy targets or synergy realization is vital if you want to achieve the purpose of synergy. To maximize your synergy realization, you need to follow these vital tips:

Don’t lose sight of your goal/objective

To achieve synergy, ensure that all team members and stakeholders and stay focused on the predetermined goal/objective.

Focus on “easy” value drivers

It is best to prioritize synergies that are “easy” to capture and will produce the best results. These “easy” value drivers should match your goal/objective, be trackable, and have a high probability of success.

Properly plan for integration

Poor integration practices and failure to properly plan for integration often result in lost synergies. You need to properly plan for integration.

Keep companies key employees

Employees are what make companies successful. When a merger or acquisition takes place, key employees are often the targets for recruiters. Key employees of both companies should be retained

Track synergy process

Company leaders must track the progress of the different synergies involved in their deal. Synergy benchmarks for the merger or acquisition deal should be created and revisited.

Analyze your customer base to capture revenue synergies

In order to capture revenue synergies, it is important to create a deep analysis of each customer.

The Importance of Synergy in Teams

• Team synergy enables each team member to be their best

• Team synergy enables each team member to work together to produce a better result that wouldn’t have been possible if they worked individually.

• Team synergy increases productivity and efficiency within team members for the betterment of the company or organization.

• Team synergy reduces redundancy and time-wasting

• Team synergy helps generate better solutions to problems and help achieve organizational goal/objective.

How to Create Synergy Between Cross-Functional Teams

To get two different operational teams to work together in a way that produces maximum impact on results, you need to create synergy between the teams.

The tips below show how you can create synergy between cross-functional teams:

Set goals as a group

Both teams should be aligned around a common goal. Both teams should have input and brainstorm on how they can achieve the common goal.

Visibility is a motivator

The activities and progressions of every team member and department should be clearly displayed and visible for everyone to see. This will make each team members know where they’re lacking behind and what they need to do to move ahead.

Encourage proximity between team members

Making team members sit alongside each other can help increase productivity and better synergy.

Hearing each other on the phone, communicating with each other across the aisles and gaining a better understanding of how each other works can help the team become more productive.

Celebrate results

You can encourage team members to work better by celebrating results. Celebrate team members that are meeting their targets, and achieving great results for the company. Give rewards for excellence. All these will help enhance synergy between teams.

Encourage friendship between team members

When you encourage friendship between team members, they will naturally like to work together to achieve better results.

Team members that are friends can work more efficiently than team members that don’t like each other. Team members that are friends develop team spirit and solidarity.

Team Synergy Team Building Activity

Team building activities are activities that encourage team spirit and solidarity. These are activities that strengthen the team and make team members work together as a single body.

There are many different activities that team members can engage in to build team synergy.

These include:

• Going out together for lunch

• Playing games together

• Celebrating each other birthdays and special events

• Getting each other gifts

• Organizing brainstorming sessions

• Organizing group meetings

• Organizing group seminars and workshops