Services
Provide your business, managers and employees with innovative tools for better collaboration and synergy.
- The book: a vital tool for assisting managers on their way to improving interactions and work interfaces and for consultants who can apply its diagnostic abilities towards making management changes with emphasis on interactions and creating organizational synergy.
- Lectures & workshops: to improve managerial abilities, teamwork, and productivity among employees in your organization.
- Facilitating processes of change.
- Guiding mergers and acquisitions.
- Training consultants for organizations.
- Qualifying internal and external consultants to independently implement the synergy tools and perception.
Schools & Educational Systems.
Education Driven By Synergy & Respect.
How can we improve functioning and achievement in the scholastic atmosphere by improving interactions?
As in every organization, school management teams are made up of teachers and people holding specific and different functions. They all come from different places, have different personal backgrounds, different abilities, skills and experience.
The leadership role, generally filled by the school principal, sets the vision that will direct the school’s resources towards a specific direction as well as drawing on community resources. Sometimes, though, there may be so many issues to deal with that certain aspects go unattended, leaving teachers feeling that their personal voice is lost or that the organization is trampling on their uniqueness. This gives rise to bitterness, interpersonal conflict, and lowered outputs.
The Synergy Center can help you improve the situation. We have vast experience in handling education systems at the national, local or individual level.
ARTICLE: Towards Comprehensive Reform of Israel’s Education System.
This comprehensive article covers four Major Target Areas:
- Teacher absenteeism ⎯ We examine This negative trend: the scope of absenteeism, its distribution, and the professional characteristics related to high rates of absenteeism.
- An Ethical Code for the Profession ⎯ A code of ethics is one of the main goals of professionalization. Israel’s Teachers’ Union has initiated the formulation of such a code, whose progress we review.
- Reciprocity among Partners: Legislation or Agreement? ⎯ Institutionalization of alternative arrangements regarding the status of the partners in the education system are presented and discussed.
- A reform in teachers Career Paths and Compensation by Task, Performance, and Merit proposal presented to the Association of Secondary School Teachers by the authors is summarized. The proposal represents a major part of the reform program adopted by Israel’s Minister of Education in summer 2000.
Small & medium size businesses.
Right Processes Start With The Right Tools.
Economies are driven in no small part by small and medium scale businesses. Even though many excel in their field, they often find difficulty in maximizing their available resources.
Generally, they do not have a Headquarters (HQ) because they do not have the resources necessary to finance a full scale HQ.
This makes it harder to set up and manage the business needs. The situation becomes even more complex for mergers, introduction of new partners or a younger generation, departure of an existing partner, or changes in technology, size and so on.
The Center for Synergy assists small and medium size businesses, startups, companies, manufacturers and organizations with achieving business growth.
We do this by improving the interactions between partners, managers, employees, and clients so that everyone knows exactly what is expected of her or him. We show you how to manage conflicts, and ensure work processes flow supported by your organizational structure.
In two words – organizational synergy.
We have special tools for helping:
1. FAMILY BUSINESSES
especially in creating synergetic connections between the business, the family and the individual.
Research shows that no more than 25% of family businesses successfully get passed down to the next generation. One of the main reasons is because of a lack of synergy in the triad of individual-family-business. The Center for Synergy will help you with intergenerational transition and conflict, growth, mergers, sales, the introduction of salaried managers, and more. We maintain full confidentiality. Let us assist you with our focused tools and their long-term effect so that you can carry on applying them independently.
2. EXPERT PARTNERSHIP FIRMS
Firms of professionals who share a common field of activity yet might specialize in different areas. This would include lawyers, accountants, tax consultants, engineers, insurance agencies, investment companies, architects and designers, clinics of various kinds, travel agencies, and so on.
Firms such as these tend to bring in additional partners or associates from outside the office, or offer some level of partnership as a form of promotion to senior employees. They may also conduct mergers and acquisitions. We’re here to help move these changes along smoothly. We often hear from our clients sentences such as:
- I feel like a salaried employee in my own firm.
- There are numerous conflicts in partners’ meetings.
- Decisions are not being implemented.
- If I go on vacation and no one was sure how to handle my clients.
- The firm has developed but some of the employees seem to have been left behind, or aren’t really connected to the firm’s goals?
- We often considered bringing in an external manager, but delayed that action because an external employee will upset the internal balance of relationships?
- My partner wants to leave or retire and I feel I can’t manage the firm on my own?
If any of these sentences sets off a warning light in your thoughts, now is the time to think about working on how to improve synergy in your business.
And that’s OUR area of specialization.
The perception of synergy indicates several central factors which can bring about success when working with any SMB.
- Setting your vision and values. Partners must agree about the alliance’s vision and values, including the kinds of clients they serve, and those they do not; the strengths each partner brings to the firm, singly and / or jointly; directions of development suited to the firm.
- Defining clear boundaries and agreeing to them. Creating synergy among partners or associates requires defining the boundaries, from authority to areas of responsibility and strengths; and ensuring that everyone agrees to these definitions as far as possible. Division of roles should preferably be based on each partner’s strengths and / or tendencies. A ‘classic’ division can be described in terms of ‘foreign minister’ and ‘interior minister’: the former deals with marketing, business development, tendering bids, and so on, whereas the latter handles office management issues including human resources, work processes, teams, training and more.
- Synergy is based on diversity. We need to respect the other individual’s diversity, understand it, and learn about its source. This isn’t an issue of agreement but one of familiarization with the other and that person’s motives or drives. An example could be setting up a partnership, where understanding diversity would involve understanding the various considerations each associate for wanting to join the partnership; the expanded areas that can be accessed by joining forces with a professional in another niche; perhaps a wish to work less hours and share the load more; seeking to improve the client portfolio prior to retirement, and so on. Considerations during a firm’s life span can also change: such as understanding (not necessarily agreeing with) why a partner may want to bring her or his spouse into the business even though the spouse lacks any skills needed for the business. Understanding does not imply agreement but it creates the basis for new synergistic solutions when establishing and / or maintaining partnerships.
- Developing quality communication and shaping a productive work team.
- Synergy isn’t necessarily “chemistry.” But it is easier to reach synergy when there is good chemistry among the people involved. Our experience shows that good chemistry usually exists among founding partners. As the firm grows and new partners are brought in, the chemistry doesn’t always hold and conflicts can rise among founding partners. This is where our expertise and experience help you solve these issues.
- Training, team development, management skills. We can help you assimilate synergistic language and tools.
- The synergy rewards approach. Some firms operate on a system where the income of each partner is identical, whereas others link performance and success to income. Finding the best option for your firm is where our experience can really help you.
Our experience shows that while this aspect is taken into account when setting up a partnership, it isn’t always revisited when circumstances alter, which can create the feeling of unfairness among some of your firm’s partners.
- Setting clear transparent criteria for transitioning to the status of partner.
Mergers & Acquisitions.
In a Sticky Situation? We Can Help.
Creating synergy by managing diversity in mergers and acquisitions
mergers and acquisitions may well be the outcomes of economic growth but interactions among the employees involved, and the organizational – managerial cultures, are the primary reason behind failure or success.
So you’ve completed the merger. Congratulations!
Are you now encountering any of the situations below?
- Clients and projects fall between the cracks?
- Work processes aren’t synchronized?
- You feel you could achieve more if only there was better cooperation.
- There is an opposition to the merger among employees.
- Are the sales staffs coming from the pre-merger businesses used to different remuneration methods?
Managing diversity in mergers and acquisitions is critical. The situations listed above come from real life examples of problems faced by our clients. We helped them find synergistic solutions, and we’ll help you too.
MERGER AND ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT — A CHANCE TO SUCCEED INSTEAD OF BEING PART OF THE OVER 80% FAILURE RATE.
Mergers and acquisitions are ripe situations for creating synergy as the power of the merged organizations integrates. And yet, most mergers fail. Organizations tend to consider mergers as economic solutions and place their bulk of emphasis on the legal and financial issues involved.
The Synergy Center claims that mergers and acquisitions must place greatest importance on the interactions between the cultures, managers and employees before, during and after the merger process.
The Synergy Approach facilitates mergers by reducing destructive interactions and reinforcing synergistic ones. This means that we help you mothering the diversity between the merging companies.
One of the tools for managing diversity in mergers and acquisitions relates to the Paradox of Synergy which you can read about in this post.
Please note it’s important to decide who you’re merging with and whether the merger is even needed. In several cases I investigated managers in the earliest stages of a merger or acquisition and was able to suggest solutions that the client hadn’t thought of; in one extreme instance relating to 2 insurance agencies, I actually suggested not merging. Although the economic potential was vast, the managerial and cultural diversity was so oppositional as to make the overall action not worthwhile. In another case involving an accounting firm, a large part of my consulting processes went into understanding the scope of diversity at the managerial / organizational / cultural levels of various merger options in order to choose the one that would bring the most benefit to the firm.
Merger and acquisition management: coping with the unexpected
Clearly mergers and acquisitions are complex processes requiring professionalism and a range of skills that manifest in different stages of the procedure.
Here are some tips to help you safely manage a merger or acquisition:
- Remember that first and foremost, you need to initiate. Don’t wait for opportunities to suddenly turn up. Create them.
- Share information with other managers in the organization. This helps to ensure they take active roles in the merger later.
- Share information with your employees, particularly those who will be directly affected (which is usually all of them!).
- No less importantly: structure a risk management system that will allow coping with unexpected challenges and costs.
- Do not hesitate to make good use of external sources which can guide you through the entire process and provide you with the tools to make coping simpler and smoother.
Correct management processes and, especially, diversity management in mergers and acquisitions will help you get through the process easily as you achieve your business goals. The quality of this process will strongly impact your degree of success.
Client recommendation:
Ziv Carsenti, CPA, managing partner in Ziv, Shiffer & Co. Accountants “We were aware that a change of norms and work processes was needed following the merger. Dr. Rami Ben-Yshai showed us how to correctly realize the necessary adaptations.”
Large Organizations.
Connecting With Higher Cause.
The importance of creating synergy in large organizations can never be stressed enough, since large organizations have fewer direct intimate interactions.
Large organizations in current times must be closely linked to the client (decentralization & specializations) yet efficient (centralization & unity) as a result of global competition. The Synergy Center assists large organizations finding the exact balance and implement it. This can be done with management development and training processes, and with focused programs for improving interfaces with clients, suppliers, and between organizational departments whose interactions are critical for the organization’s existence, such as HQ to field staff, sales with marketing, sales with production, marketing with development, and so on.
Dr. Rami Ben-Yshai developed a unique model as part of his doctoral studies called the
“Triple-M” Model. It offers a graphical tool to analyze complex organizations. The “Midro”, a middle level between the Macro and Micro levels, is a new term especially developed for the purpose at hand to express, in both an autonomous and integrative way, the middle level in complex organizations. The proposed model can be used, in an integrative-conceptual way, as a nonlinear hierarchical tool for organization structure mapping, procedures, and people. The model offers organizational researchers, consultants, and managers an improved way to map, describe, understand, and manage organizations. It helps to explain and locate conflicts and power struggles between the different levels and units. In locating behavior within the model, the concept of hierarchy moves beyond the simplistic notion of linearity and unity of command and attempts to address non-linear aspects of the organization. Finally, an implementation of the model is presented using a detailed case study.
Since developing the model 35 years ago, Dr. Ben-Yshai has made it the cornerstone of his Synergy Center which works with large organizations such as A power station in Scotland, Bank Hapoalim, Discount Bank, the Argaman Group, the Tel Aviv Municipality Corporations Bureau, the IDF, Ministry of Defense, Clalit Health Services, A health insurance company in Scotland, HWZOA Women’s Organization, Maman Customs System, educational systems, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, Ministry of Tourism, and many others.
The following article represents the “Triple-M” Model & includes 3 case studies.
Volunteer Organizations.
Use These Tools to Manage Your Own Finances
Volunteer organizations operate under a constant state of resource insufficiency and must balance between fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and project development.
The synergy center has vast experience in working with national and international volunteers’ organizations. See for example the article below about the process we did at HWZOA.
This article relates to questions on how to get more out of your existing resources and provides a case history and its solution.
Synergy & Conflict Zones
Bringing Synergy To All Areas Of Business.
The synergy model is a powerful tool to work in conflict zones. Since it is based on diversity and on the simple rule – understand the other does not mean accepting his behavior.
Indeed we have a vast experience working on Arab-Jewish joint projects.
According to the synergy approached, on the first stage, work is being carried out separately with each partner, with 2 purposes:
Creating understanding to this party strengths and weaknesses and the other party’s.
Creating a vision, which later can be perceived as a joint vision by the two parties.
Case Study
Some times it takes a fantasy to create a new reality. This project is about such a case.
In 2006, A group of Arabs and Jewish students, had the idea of including an Arab employment Zone into an excising Jewish industrial zone. The group managed to fight prejudice and hostility, first amongst themselves, then with the different partners on local and national levels.
Dr. Rami Ben-Yshai, Head of Synergy Center supervised the project as part of his work for the Haifa University using the synergy approach and The 7 forms of Interaction Model. The goals of the project were:
- Narrowing gaps between Israel’s center & periphery.
- Relieving tensions & building trust between Jewish and Arabs neighboring communities.
- Empowering communities to shape their environment & create an atmosphere of reconciliation.
- Create 10,000 + jobs.
Shimon Peres, Israel’s former president, has announced it a state model project for many more to come.
See presentation about the project.
Ziv Carsenti, CPA, managing partner in Ziv, Shiffer & Co. Accountants
Dr. Rami Ben-Yshai provides a clear presentation of the tools and process for creating effective synergy among your organization’s departments, and between organizations wishing to cooperate for improved outcomes. I greatly appreciated his approach, which emphasizes growth derived from interpersonal differences, foregoing the negative elements of ego, and integrating forces on the way to business success.
“Gil Peretz, author of “WOW” and international lecturer on leadership, influence and peak performance.
Rami was with us every step of the way, advising throughout the merger which eventuated in the “Ziv, Shifer & Co.” accountancy firm. The cooperation Rami made possible between the two offices improved organizational culture and profits. The synergy Rami created produced what synergy should: the whole was greater than the parts.
Yoram Shiffer, CPA, managing partner in Ziv, Shifer & Co. Accountancy
Contact Us
We can provide most of our services via video conference, skype, your in-house consultants or human resource experts.