Words of Importance - Synergy

I have been lax in just assuming that the meaning I know for words IS the correct meaning for those words ('HOW could you? When was the last time you were right about anything?' you exclaim? Well, I see no reason why I should not assume - even wrongly - the essential correctness of my position, when it is such a widely practiced pastime for the rest of the world). This once, though, I shall redress that error and take recourse to dictionary meanings. This word - synergy - apparently means 'the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.'
Of course it stands to reason, does it not? Take a man and a woman, for example. They are one individual each and, if they get together, they should tot up only to two. If they really did add up to only two forever, there would be no population explosion, would there? Synergy, that is what it is. (Oh! And, by the way, if they just added up to two, everyone around them would be pestering them about this lack of synergy, in the Indian context). Or, take any three people in some parts of India. When they get together, you end up having six political parties. Synergy, again!
How I do digress! The point was about how important a word synergy was to management. (Oh! You did not realize that THAT was the point? It's Ok. NOW you know). In the management context, though, this word synergy has acquired a lot more nuances. The way it is used makes you think of the employees like Russian Ballet dancers - each doing his own steps to the same tune and creating a lovely choreographed scene. Harmony - that is the word I was looking for! Synergy, when used by managers, somehow gives an impression of a harmonious whole.
Wait a minute! Harmony? In organizations? Where the marketing guys are convinced that the production guys insist on producing saris, when the whole world is clamoring for jeans AND the finance guys get in the way of bagging huge order with piffling objections about not selling at Rs. 80/= things that cost Rs. 100/= to produce? Where the production guys feel that the marketing guys create unnecessary difficulties about selling slippers made ONLY for the left leg, thus messing up production efficiency, instead of finding a market of one-legged people hopping around on their left legs; AND the finance people get in the way of production efficiency raising stupid questions about inventory pile-ups? Where the Finance guys are convinced that the rest of the organization was in a fierce competition to see which of them could bankrupt the organization first? Harmony, indeed!
See, all of us tend to underestimate the management chaps. Do you really think that they do not know about lack of harmony within their own organizations? So, they rarely use the word for issues within the organization, whether to mean the dictionary meaning or with the additional embellishment of harmony. No! Synergy was a word most lovingly used when management people talked of "Mergers and Acquisitions". In other words, when they were joining another organization and creating a melded whole in a marriage of equals (Mergers) or where they were swallowing up another organization whole (Acquisitions), this word synergy is scattered around throughout the process like confetti.
In these situations, this thing of synergy is used as though the guys are sitting around fitting a jigsaw puzzle. "This organization has strong engineering; that one has a great reputation for after-sales service. This one has a strong marketing presence in the North; that one is the tops in the South." and, thus, with all these 'synergies' fitted properly in, there is the assumption that the assemblage will work as a harmonious whole and yield returns in excess of the sum of their individual returns. So there - first putting together a 'whole'; then 'harmony' and then the 'whole being greater than the sum of the parts'. What more can you want from synergy?
The problem, as usual, is, as the poet says, that every prospect pleases and only man is vile. In other words, it is rather like the arranged marriage in India. All the synergy exercise is done to check the fit of the two families and it is expected that the two people getting married to each other will live harmoniously together. The failure of synergy exercises is always the people who have to make it work, of course, and never the fault of the people who decided on the synergies. (The poor chaps do not know that the one great talent given to humans is the ability to pull against each other, especially when they are in different groups)
AND, as in arranged marriages, the result is, more often than not, a total lack of synergy. At least in arranged marriages, the whole ends up, more often than not, greater than the sum of the parts in the strictly numerical sense, if THAT is any consolation. (It is, indeed, to the families. The individuals involved, though, may not share that idea.)
In Organizations, too, the whole will certainly be different from the sum of the parts, if there IS a whole for long enough to make an assessment. If THAT is any consolation!