Synchronization and organization growth

Organizations are people. To achieve results, we need to work together and be aligned on what we’re doing and why and the organization will thrive. If you’re out of sync, you can’t function as a whole, and will instead go extinct, break into sub-tribes, close up shop, or never achieve its mission.

Every company has a mission. The mission is its reason for being, why it was originally created by its founders. This mission expands and evolves with every person who joins.

There are a lot of peoples’ lives, personal stories, opinions, ideas, and a lot of personal matters which are never expressed during the creation and development of every organization. How can you facilitate different people working together? What’s their motivation? And the biggest question of how you can do it with an ethical and “gardener” mindset rather than by decree.

Based on my observation the key element that emerges with the right culture established and keeps everything functional is synchronization.

Synchronization is of a very deep-seated natural origin, it exists on different levels of life and across different dimensions and our artificial categories of disciplines: biology, physics, chemistry, social sciences, psychology, and so on.

The importance of synchronization is often neglected or forgotten in a rush to success. At the beginning of any organization’s existence, it’s easier to be connected: if you’re 5–10 people you can reach anyone very easily, the communication stream is uninterrupted, people belong to one tribe.

When an organization grows — it is much harder to keep everyone in sync. While you become 100–200 people, there is a complexity that arises: there are sub-tribes emerging — departments with different functions: engineering, product, sales, marketing, operations, customer success, customer support, and so on. In addition each department, engineering for example, can be divided into sub-teams, squads, or something similar, which usually allows fast-growing startup companies to move even quicker, relentlessly iterate, and eventually become a market leader, building world-class products — the dream of every founder.

With that complexity the distance between people increases, communication gaps grow and conflicts occur. There are cycles and crises in every organization. And what binds people together, and keeps focus in this entanglement — is synchronization.

How does synchronization occur?

Synchronization is spontaneous — not instructed by anyone, but there is one important commonality — there should be strong connections between the parties, they should be close (for any sense of “close”) to each other. It is ubiquitous throughout the universe and life and here are several examples how it manifests on different levels:

Biology and living systems

Synchronous fireflies are a common observation and simulation experiment in a study of complex systems. There is no central control of flashing, but the closer they are to each other the greater their degree of synchronization, and eventually, the majority of fireflies flash at the same time. It’s spontaneous. No one manages this. It just happens naturally.

Synchronized Fireflies. Image source

“I see my neighbor is flashing, so I flash as well.”

Dr. Sarfati explains. Quote from an NYT article.

Physics and astronomy

Planets that are close to each other form planetary systems. The tendency of close objects to be synchronized might be the key why, for example, the solar system and our planet was created. This article states that this may be a clue as to how planets and planetary systems form.

Psychology and religion

Synchrony is observed almost in every religion or spiritual practice in the world. Those actions have a deep purpose: creating connection. Moreover, synchrony evokes more compassion and altruistic behavior.

Using a manipulation of rhythmic synchrony, we show that synchronous others are not only perceived to be more similar to oneself but also evoke more compassion and altruistic behavior than asynchronous others experiencing the same plight. These findings both support the view that a primary function of synchrony is to mark others as similar to the self and provide the first empirical demonstration that synchrony-induced affiliation modulates emotional responding and altruism.

From the publication “Synchrony and the Social Tuning of Compassion”.

What about people?

Yes, we people do tend to be in sync. Everyone probably at least once in their lifetime experienced being a part of a clapping audience at a concert. It starts with random “splashes” of clapping and eventually everyone claps exactly in the same rhythm. No one manages this. It just happens naturally.

Synchronization is a pleasant state, it helps us to be safe and sound, and gives us a feeling of belonging to something bigger, it gives us trust in each other.

How to synchronize your organization

• Communication flows should be bi-directional: top-down, bottom-up, and just between people. Organization leadership can forget to clue in their people, or share information that is valuable to be on the same page. It’s not only about your people reporting you, it’s you informing and caring for your people.
• People are alive. They don’t really want only to work, they want to grow, interact, be useful, productive, successful, achieve, and just to have a community to be in, to belong. Create a community, a sense, a belonging, not a workplace. Let your people translate your mission and co-create it.
• Do not micromanage. While micromanaging situations and people, you’re the source of control, it prevents synchronization.
• Create a safe environment where people are able to create and feel trusted by using trust-based leadership principles. Avoid a shame and blame culture.
• Hear peoples’ stories, help them to be included, and be useful. Neglect can drastically influence employee turnover and this cause is usually less noticeable, as it is silent.
• Create connections between sub-tribes, with those interconnections people are able to identify themselves not only with a sub-tribe but also with a bigger unit — the whole organization, thus moving to a common goal, easier cooperation, and working towards a single goal.
• Pay attention to the dynamics of your organization; what the mood is, what people are concerned about, what the tenor of interactions are. Listen to what’s going on in your company, give it a voice, communicate and adjust to changes, help people to solve problems, and grow together with them.
• Prioritize people over profits. At the end of the day, in every organization — the greatest product you ever build is your team. A great, cohesive team can build anything.

If people are united and synchronized, they create products, they translate and co-create your mission, they help to grow any organization, and at the end of the day, happy people are willing to give the best they have: their talent.

If you’re curious about this topic or you’d like to know more — drop me a line.