Making Cooperative Agreements

This is usually the who, what, when and how of the process. What’s the plan?

Once everyone is feeling heard and understood there is a natural energy to come to an agreement – to start putting in place strategies that meet needs.  It is tempting at this stage to rush through the agreement phase because everyone is so relieved to be finally at a place where it feels ok to be coming to an agreement. The agreement is a positive confirmation of each person’s willingness to do their part and the more explicit and clear the agreement the more likely it is to succeed.

Don’t rush. Take your time. Be in favour of slow agreements. Allow them to soak into you. Get a feel of how they sit in your body.

Agreements are clear, doable requests that include the specifics of:

1. who
2. what
3. when
4. where &
5. how

The final factor for success is accountability. Without accountability you cannot be sure that the agreement is working. What if it is not? What then? If you wait too long to find out whether the agreement is working (or not) you may experience:

• dangerous levels of frustration, resentment or resignation
• begin to doubt the intentions of the parties in the agreement
• begin to question the Cooperative Conflict process which led to your agreement

Accountability is not about making sure someone is doing what they no longer want to do. Accountability is about finding ways to ensure our mutual needs continue to be met. 

You can create accountability by setting specific times to review how well your agreements are working and schedule discussions to see what needs to be changed, if anything.

It might be that the agreement is less manageable in real life than anticipated. Sometimes you can’t know what want until you get it – so you make an agreement and it doesn’t work for you or the other person – and all that means is that something is missing and so you go back to find the missing ingredient or the need that is not yet being met.

A wonderful question that supports your process of staying connected if agreements are not being kept is:

“What’s preventing you from keeping this agreement and what agreement can we come up with that might work better? What needs will be met for both of us by renegotiating our agreement?”

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