Habit No. 6: Synergize.
"The 'high' way."
Synergy In the Air. Once we are thinking win-win and communicating with each other, Habit number six teaches us to synergize. Synergizing is when people work together to achieve a greater goal. Like the geese that fly South for the winter, people have to work together to boost each other up, share leadership, encourage each other, stick together, and pick each other up when one is down. If you've been on any team that's really about teamwork, you've felt synergy. But even just partnering up with a friend to do a school project, work out, or just practicing a healthy friendship gives you a taste of what synchronized energy is about.
Diversity. An important part of synergizing with others is to learn to celebrate diversity. Diversity includes, but is not limited to, age, gender, background, sexuality, race, wealth, and height. There are three different ways a person can react to diversity. Those who shun diversity are afraid of difference. They think if people are different from them in one way or another, they shouldn't be accepted in society because they're weird. Racists and anti-gays are diversity shunners. That is definitely not the way to synergize, as you're being closed minded and not sticking to Habit five, so you can't progress very deep into Habit six. Those who tolerate diversity don't push the idea away, yet they don't let it actually affect them. They feel diversity is something to be expected, but don't get to experience synergizing firsthand. Then there are those that celebrate diversity. They see difference as a positive thing, an advantage. They believe diversity will promote opportunity and are open minded to synergizing with people who aren't just like them. They embrace the creativity that can come from putting such seemingly opposites together.
Roadblocks to Embracing Diversity. There are some things that greatly influence how open we are to celebrating diversity. Cliques often have a big problem with acceptance, seeing as they keep to themselves, and exclusively to themselves. Cliques aren't efficient in the practicing Habit six, because much of the time, they can't recognize identity. Prejudice is also not a step in the direction of embracing difference. Stereotypes have been around for a long time, and probably won't go away any time soon. However, labels don't define us, and since we were created equally, we should be treated as such. Like diversity celebrators, relish in the amazing things that can come from putting different kinds of people together. And that, and exactly that, is how people synergize.
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