Why has there been so little appreciation – if not reverence – for synergy over the years? If human societies in fact depend on synergy, why is the word not on everyone's lips?

Why Not Synergy?

One reason is that there is a common tendency to define the term narrowly. Many people equate synergy with the cliche (a paraphrase of Aristotle) that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” They assume that synergy is limited to organized “systems,” or to phenomena with quantitative properties (2+2=5), like the GE ad suggested. Others identify the term only with some specific synergistic effect – business deals, drug interactions, group “syntality,” technological innovations, the division of labor, or the like. They don't recognize that “synergy” is an umbrella term for irreducible cooperative effects of all kinds.

Another reason for underrating synergy has to do with the way our minds seem to work. As a rule, we tend to focus either on the whole or some part, but not on how the parts interact to produce wholes. Most of us have trouble visualizing complexity, especially when we are unable even to see or directly experience the parts and the relationships between them. The “microcosmos” is incomprehensibly small.