Synergy

The concept of synergy was first introduced to the social sciences by anthropologist Ruth Benedict. She analyzed communities of Native Americans and noted that while some cultures seemed vital, others seemed to deplete the energy of their members. She wrote, “The conclusion emerges that societies where non-aggression is conspicuous have social orders in which the individual by the same act and at the same time serves his own advantage and that of the group … not because people are unselfish and put social obligations above personal desires, but when social arrangements make these identical.”

She is suggesting that in some communities the social obligations and personal desires are connected in a mutually reinforcing loop. In such situations, duty becomes delight and work becomes pleasure. These communities have a shared vitality and energy.

Abraham Maslow was greatly influenced by Ruth Benedict. At one point he studied people who experienced self-actualization. They were people of high character who were creative and potent. He observed that his research participants often transcended normal dichotomies. Work and pleasure, for example, could not be differentiated in these research participants because they were doing what they loved—for them, work was pleasure.

Maslow made the seemingly paradoxical claims that his self-actualizing subjects were often both concrete and abstract, serious and humorous, introverted and extroverted, intense and casual, mystic and realistic, active and passive, masculine and feminine, and so on. Because people are more predisposed to differentiate than to integrate, Maslow’s claim may seem perplexing. This kind of paradox was also evident in how Kelli described her relationship with her students in chapter 1. Her students bring her joy and frustration; they make her cry and give her hope. Without them, Kelli does not feel “whole.” When she invests in them, she says, “I become the best me.” Perhaps what Maslow was trying to say is that self-actualizing people become more complex, adaptive systems. In other words, perhaps self-actualizing people are able to live and work out of all four quadrants.

Consider Diana, the woman who is not interested in survival but instead wants to flourish. For her, teaching is pleasure. She loves what she does. She challenges her students and expects them to make connections on their own. The students are also supported. They feel her love. She provides them with structure, but she is continually improvising with them. The self-actualizing Diana has a powerful “life force” because she is an evolving person who is continuously learning. Diana’s ability to create synergies sometimes gives rise to something she calls the “living beast.”