remarks on relationships in Ecclesiastes 4 with these words: “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (v. 12). If you have ever found yourself overpowered or overwhelmed, you know that if you are in a situation alone, you can easily believe it will defeat you. But if just one person comes along to stand beside you and support you, your perspective changes. You begin to believe you can win. When other people infuse their faith, their confidence, their wisdom, or their encouragement into your negative situation, those positive qualities grow exponentially. Soon you feel you have a small army on your side and you find your way to victory.
B EWARE OF N EGATIVE S YNERGY
I hope you are gaining clear insight into the power of win-win relationships and the positive potential of synergy. I also want you to understand the negative aspect of synergy because, as surely as positive synergy will benefit and elevate you, negative synergy can destroy you.
Have you ever noticed that trouble simply seems to follow certain people or that every time two specific individuals get together, something negative happens? I am sure you have. In fact, many mothers seem to have built-in alarm systems that go off when they hear their teenager is “just going out with so-and-so tonight.” Or maybe your day is going just fine until certain people ask for a ride home from work. By the time you get them home, they have dumped such a load of trouble on you through their words and emotions that your head is spinning! Or maybe you have a family member about whom others commonly say, “You’ll never guess what she’s done now,” and each incident seems to be worse than the one before.
The reason some people constantly seem to exhaust or frustrate us is that we have negative synergy with them. Sometimes that happens because of their personalities or their choices; sometimes it arises because of something in us. Regardless of the reason, we need to be diligent to avoid negative synergy.
Many people, maybe even you, are in unfortunate circumstances today because of past relationships. I know people who have been to prison because they got involved with the wrong crowd, people who had children before they were ready because they stayed in bad relationships, and people who have struggled economically for years because of unwise financial alliances with business partners who did not have integrity. I have never onceheard anyone in any of these situations say, “I just woke up one day and decided to do something that would take my life in a different direction. I just decided to risk going to prison or getting pregnant or losing my life savings.” No, what people tend to say is, “I had no idea I would end up like this. I just got into a relationship and I didn’t realize how bad it was until it was too late.”
Negative synergy is always painful and always lose-lose, but it is nothing new. In fact, the apostle Paul wrote to a group of Christians in Corinth centuries ago regarding a specific matter: “I’m not at all pleased. I am getting the picture that when you meet together it brings out your worst side instead of your best!” (1 Cor. 11:17 MSG ). The NIV translation renders this verse, “Your meetings do more harm than good.” The best way I know to succinctly define negative synergy is to say that it does more harm than good; it brings out the worst instead of the best in people. Nobody wins in that kind of relationship; everyone loses. This is why building mutually beneficial alliances with people and cultivating relationships that bring positive synergy to your life is so important.
F INDING W INNING , S YNERGISTIC F RIENDS
The only way to build win-win, synergistic relationships is to develop them with the right people. In this section, I want to identify and explain seven qualities of synergistic friends, but first I want you to understand that I use the word friends in
B EWARE OF N EGATIVE S YNERGY
I hope you are gaining clear insight into the power of win-win relationships and the positive potential of synergy. I also want you to understand the negative aspect of synergy because, as surely as positive synergy will benefit and elevate you, negative synergy can destroy you.
Have you ever noticed that trouble simply seems to follow certain people or that every time two specific individuals get together, something negative happens? I am sure you have. In fact, many mothers seem to have built-in alarm systems that go off when they hear their teenager is “just going out with so-and-so tonight.” Or maybe your day is going just fine until certain people ask for a ride home from work. By the time you get them home, they have dumped such a load of trouble on you through their words and emotions that your head is spinning! Or maybe you have a family member about whom others commonly say, “You’ll never guess what she’s done now,” and each incident seems to be worse than the one before.
The reason some people constantly seem to exhaust or frustrate us is that we have negative synergy with them. Sometimes that happens because of their personalities or their choices; sometimes it arises because of something in us. Regardless of the reason, we need to be diligent to avoid negative synergy.
Many people, maybe even you, are in unfortunate circumstances today because of past relationships. I know people who have been to prison because they got involved with the wrong crowd, people who had children before they were ready because they stayed in bad relationships, and people who have struggled economically for years because of unwise financial alliances with business partners who did not have integrity. I have never onceheard anyone in any of these situations say, “I just woke up one day and decided to do something that would take my life in a different direction. I just decided to risk going to prison or getting pregnant or losing my life savings.” No, what people tend to say is, “I had no idea I would end up like this. I just got into a relationship and I didn’t realize how bad it was until it was too late.”
Negative synergy is always painful and always lose-lose, but it is nothing new. In fact, the apostle Paul wrote to a group of Christians in Corinth centuries ago regarding a specific matter: “I’m not at all pleased. I am getting the picture that when you meet together it brings out your worst side instead of your best!” (1 Cor. 11:17 MSG ). The NIV translation renders this verse, “Your meetings do more harm than good.” The best way I know to succinctly define negative synergy is to say that it does more harm than good; it brings out the worst instead of the best in people. Nobody wins in that kind of relationship; everyone loses. This is why building mutually beneficial alliances with people and cultivating relationships that bring positive synergy to your life is so important.
F INDING W INNING , S YNERGISTIC F RIENDS
The only way to build win-win, synergistic relationships is to develop them with the right people. In this section, I want to identify and explain seven qualities of synergistic friends, but first I want you to understand that I use the word friends in
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