Smith’s Development Meeting and Synergy
Hi, it’s Derek from Smith’s School of English Tsukaguchi. Recently the new Smith’s development team gathered for a Smith’s franchise development meeting in Osaka. Its sole purpose was to investigate what we are doing now with our exterior face with the aim to better promote and manage our English schools. A key topic of discussion was synergy. But what exactly is it?
Synergy Defined
Synergy is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But how is that possible? Let me explain. All entities have the power of some sort or another. However, this power is limited as there is only so much one entity can accomplish by itself. When two or more entities are combined or work together, something truly magical happens. Their power is magnified! And if we measure the total power created by this interaction (the whole), we find that it is greater than the sum of the power the entities had individually before (the sum of its parts). Amazing, isn’t it? Let’s look at some examples.
Aesop’s Fable of the Bundle of Sticks
This is a great tale to understand synergy. An old man about to die summons his sons who are always fighting with each other. He tells each son to break a bundle of sticks wrapped together. They take turns, trying hard to break it but can’t. Then he asks them to untie the bundle, take one stick each and try to break it. They easily break their sticks. He then tells them that they see the meaning, the meaning being that individually, they can easily be conquered, but together, they are invincible!
Smith’s Development Meeting Result
Smith’s School of English franchise owner group, possesses an enormous amount of skill and experience and each individual owner brings their own set of skills to the group. Our development meetings bring together skills sets to undertake specific projects. At our recent development meeting, Mark Smith pointed out that Smith’s English school franchise owners do achieve so much more by working together and using the power of synergy to better promote and manage our English schools. Mr. Smith stated we are already collaborating, but we could do so much more. We agreed!
Short-Term Achievable Goals
Once we agreed that we needed to collaborate more, we agreed to take action by completing some short-term achievable goals Mark Smith had prepared for us (sorry, top secret!). Some of us have already begun completing the goals and I am already seeing promising results since the development meeting was held. Given the development team members see positive results then we transmit our findings to the rest of our franchise owner group. And this is just the beginning!
Together Everybody Achieves More (T.E.A.M.)
By working together, we can all achieve better results in less time and have time to spend with our families, friends and English students. So let’s harness the power of synergy and create something special that all Smith’s English teachers and English students can benefit from, now!
Derek
Smith’s School of English Tsukaguchi
https://smithweb.co.jp/tsukaguchi/
P.S. Fellow Smith’s franchise owner Edward wrote a blog about the elements of synergy and how they apply to franchise teams. You can read his blog by clicking here. Enjoy!

Yes, Derek! Team spirit, that’s the way to go. Nice read.