Synergy: 互利之“道” （读Covey， 做笔记之三）
当人是强者，强到可以面对和表现真实的自己，就可能有Synergy了。The more authentic you become, the more genuine in your expression, particularly regarding personal experiences and even self-doubts, the more people can relate to your expression and the safer it makes them feel to express themselves. That expression in turn feeds back on the other person’s spirit, and genuine creative empathy takes place, producing new insights and learning and a sense of excitement and adventure that keeps the process going.
然后，最幸福的交流是：People then begin to interact with each other almost in half sentences, sometimes incoherent, but they get each other’s meanings very rapidly. Then whole new worlds of insights, new perspectives, new paradigms that insure options, new alternatives are opened up and thought about.
科维版的‘我有一个梦想’，读来很感慨，尤其是眼下这个时候！‘We obviously value the physical differences between men and women, husbands and wives. But what about the social, mental, and emotional differences? Could these differences not also be sources of creating new, exciting forms of life–creating an environment that is truly fulfilling for each person, that nurtures the self-esteem and self-worth of each, that creates opportunities for each to mature into independence and then gradually into interdependence? Could synergy not create a new script for the next generation–one that is more geared to service and contribution, and is less protective, less adversarial, less selfish; one that is more open, more trusting, more giving, and is less defensive, protective and political; one that is more loving, more caring, and is less possessive and judgmental?’
这个科维梦想，是站在全人类整体利益的高度的。如果我们能朝这个方向进化多好！昨天，听Sir Brian Heap 讲能源危机和全球变暖及人类该如何应对。他的主要观点是为群体利益适当牺牲国家个人个体利益，否则，tipping point 一过就来不及了。可是，国家民族个人的个体利益也很重要，更局部却更紧迫清晰，因为那就是你的 ‘true self’之核。于是我们都各有立场，急了都defensive, protective,于是judgemental.
这两天在新西兰和澳大利亚是ANZAC日。是纪念差不多一百多年前的一场战争叫做‘Gallipoli’的。奥克兰博物馆在搞活动。仰望他们的‘战争英雄纪念碑’和纪念牌。上面写着纪念那些为了他们的国家捐躯的人们。每个文化和民族都有这个。就像蚂蚁和蜜蜂为了种群繁衍而做的分工：Queen专门繁殖，工蜂工蚁为了族类贡献体力和生命，当战争是必要的时候。
战争是人类交流Synergy无能的的时候一种Lose/Lose 方案。我知道。但是如果我被选担当工蜂工蚁，我也会为了自己的族群生存而牺牲生命，即使象一战时死在疆场的千万青年一样, 他们中有不少还是virgins.
寻求Synergy的要求并不高：Listen empathically and seek first to understand and then to be understood. Plus, 双方有一定水平的Emotional Bank Account 存着信任与互利，加上Win/Win mentality. 就会寻求 ‘the middle way’. Middle in this sense does not mean compromise; it means higher, like the apex of the triangle.
The person who is truly effective has the humanity and reverence to recognize his own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts and minds of other human beings. That person values the differences because those differences add to his knowledge, to his understanding of reality. When we’re left to our own experiences, we constantly suffer from a shortage of data. 想到了我自己的CAS模型，不同世角，提供的是不同的components.
科维说： ‘Although you cannot control the paradigms of others in an interdependent interaction or the synergistic process itself, a great deal of synergy is within your Circle of Influence.’ 我的研究也一直这样对科技创业者说。他的说法比俺的好。从此后引用他的了。（p. 283, Simon&Schuster Ltd 1992版 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic)
另外，一些具体的对教学和学术交流有益的观点如下：
p. 263: The creative process is also the most terrifying part because you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen or where it is going to lead. You don’t know what new dangers and challenges you’ll find. It takes an enormous amount of internal security to begin with the spirit of adventure, the spirit of discovery, the spirit of creativity. Without doubt, you have to leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown wilderness. You become a trailblazer, a pathfinder. You open new possibilities, new territories, new continents, so that others can follow.’
p. 264: Most all creative endeavors are somewhat unpredictable. They often seem ambiguous, hit-or-miss, trial and error. And unless people have a high tolerance for ambiguity and get their security from integrity to principles and inner values they find it unnerving and unpleasant to be involved in highly creative enterprises. Their need for structure, certainty, and predictability is too high.
p. 268: Past meetings had been generally respectful exchanges, occasionally deteriorating into defensive Win/Lose ego battles. They were usually predictable, uncreative, and boring. … They were to come to the meeting prepared to listen rather than to present, prepared to create and synergize rather than to defend and protect.
A good attitude academics should all take, on page 270：
‘If a person of your intelligence and competence and commitment disagrees with me, then there must be something to your disagreement that I don’t understand, and I need to understand it. You have a perspective, a frame of reference I need to look at.’ –plus, I haven’t made mine clear enough for you to understand, so I will work on it too, meanwhile.
交流三境界： p. 270 图
1. low cooperation + low trust: Defensive –> W/L.protectiveness,legalistic language
2. medium level of both: Respectful compromise (1+1=1.5, mature, independent, not open to new possibilities )
3. high level of trust and high level of cooperation: Synergistic (Win/Win) 1+1=8, 16, 1600.
It’s a pity I can’t structure my E&I course as ‘Win/Win or No Deal’. But I can remind the groups of students:
How much negative energy is typically expended when people try to solve problems or make decisions in an interdependent reality? How much time is spent in confessing other people’s sins, politicking, rivalry, interpersonal conflict, protecting one’s backside, masterminding, and second guessing? It’s like trying to drive down the road with one foot on the gas and the other foot on the brake!
And instead of getting a foot off the brake, most people give it more gas. They try to apply more pressure, more eloquence, and more logical information to strengthen their position.
The problem is that highly dependent people are trying to succeed in an interdependent reality. They are either dependent on borrowing strength from position power (me: ‘like some parents do, for example’) and they go for Win/Lose, or they’re dependent on being popular with others and they go for Lose/Win. They may talk Win/Win technique, but they don’t really want to listen; they want to manipulate. And synergy can’t thrive in that environment.
Insecure people think that reality should be amenable to their paradigms. They have a high need to clone others, to mold them over into their own thinking. They don’t realize that the very strength of the relationship is in having another point of view. Sameness is not oneness; uniformity is not unity. Unity, or oneness, is complementariness, not sameness. Sameness is uncreative…and boring. The essence of synergy is to value the differences. (p. 274)
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