The buzzword “synergy” which was previously a derogatory term used to describe corporations, is now returning to the forefront of conversation as businesses look for ways to collaborate across departments – in remote or hybrid environments for example. It’s not being employed as a negative corporate term, but rather to describe an extremely collaborative process that is highly sought-after.

Synergy refers to the notion that a group is more than its parts. The positive synergy that results from this is what enables teams to accomplish more than they could by themselves, and it also gives a chance for team members to be their full selves at work, with their unique life experiences, perspectives, talents, and styles of communication.

Negative synergy, on contrary, can bring down teams and lead to lower quality outputs irrespective of the individual competence of each person. This is typically due to conflicts and miscommunications that arise between roles, responsibilities, as well as schedules.

To avoid these issues to avoid these issues, it is essential that teams build an enduring foundation of trust and cooperation by clearly defining the goals for the project and defining each team member’s role in this. This can be done easily using a collaborative map process. Each team member will work together with their coworkers to create a clear documentation of what each member is responsible for and what they are accountable for when. This eliminates confusion and helps save time, energy and tension for virtual data rooms teams. It makes it easier for managers, if needed they can step in and coach.