The relationship contract

Establishing a contract

Communication between human beings is full of implicit assumptions. We resent the other for not behaving as we'd like or for not taking our needs into account, but we don't know how to express our expectations in a sufficiently precise, concrete and explicit way, and we don't know how to listen to each other with kindness.

We assume that we all have the same frame of reference, that respect, for example, is the same for everyone. When several people have to work together over a period of time, defining a relational contract together, which specifies the way in which we are going to communicate and collaborate, helps to limit these biases and facilitate dialogue, so that we can be more effective together.

A relationship between two adults means 50% responsibility for each and no more.

According to Jacques Salomé and other essayists such as psychiatrist Gérald Apfeldorfer, every human relationship is an implicit contract with equally shared responsibilities. Within their 50% of the relationship, everyone is fully responsible for everything they say, do, think and feel. Everyone manages their emotions, thoughts and feelings, and takes actions that commit them as human beings. We can't take charge of the other's emotional reactions, thoughts or feelings, but we can try to welcome them with kindness, within the limits of our own availability.

The need for regulation

A balanced (i.e. healthy) relationship presupposes that this division of responsibilities is constantly regulated by each of the parties involved. If you take on more than your "50%", you're taking charge of the other person, and thus robbing them of power over their own lives. If you don't take on your full "50%", you're letting the other person carry the load.

We can't all see the world in the same way, because our perceptions limit our ability to apprehend it.

"More generally, it is our perceptions of reality, necessarily limited by our senses and the way we feel about things, that lead to difficulties in our relationships with others and our ways of communicating". Paul Watzlawick.

If, as Palo Alto School psychosociologist Paul Watzlawick says, our condition as human beings necessarily limits our individual capacity to apprehend the world, it's a mistake to believe that we can all see the world in the same way, and it's this different vision of the world that is at the root of conflict. It is therefore essential to be very humble in our communication, if we are not to enter into permanent tension with others.

Humility in communication means, among other things

• being aware of the parameters of human communication, which means, for example:
  
  
• being aware that it's impossible for a human being to be purely rational. Emotions will always come into play, because emotions are life,
  
  
• being aware of one's own ever-present subjectivity (the more involved I am, the more difficult it is),
  
  
• limit your tendency to judge and interpret everything you hear,
  
  
• check your inner readiness to listen to and accept points of view that differ from your own,
  
  
• seek a common frame of reference as a starting point for any discussion,
  
  
• limit the expression of personal opinions and instead express yourself based on facts,
  
  
• evoke feelings without generalizing them (prefer "I" to "We"),
  
  
• keep in mind that the most important thing is the intention, not the sometimes clumsy way in which it is expressed.

The implicit and explicit in human communication

"All human communication has a content level and a relationship level (meta-communication)".
Paul Watzlawick

"The most important thing in communication is to hear what has not been said".
Peter DRUCKER

"Between what I think, what I want to say, what I think I'm saying, what I'm really saying, what you want to hear, what you hear, what you think you understand, what you want to understand, what you understand, what you retain and what you do with that message, there are ultimately a great many possibilities for not understanding each other."
Bernard WERBER.

All human communication operates on two levels:

• the level of the information exchanged and
• the level of the relationship between the two interlocutors.

Consciously or not, if a priority is to be given, it's always the level of the relationship (the level of needs and affects) that will take precedence over the other. In other words, if I'm interested in what I'm exchanging with someone, but I can't stand that person, it'll be very difficult for me to maintain the dialogue, unless I find some other personal interest in it. On the other hand, I may not be very passionate about my exchange but like someone very much, and in that case I'll do my best to keep the dialogue going. This is what the vast majority of human beings do when they interact on a daily basis.

In his theory of the human element, American psychologist Will Schutz identified 3 interpersonal needs that manifest themselves in every relationship. According to him, the satisfaction or non-satisfaction of these needs helps to explain and predict the way an individual acts, feels and thinks in relation to himself or others. These three needs are:

• inclusion in human groups (human beings have a gregarious instinct),
• control over the course of one's life,
• the need for affection.

The level of the relationship, however, remains mostly implicit. We pretend to be able to communicate and collaborate without clarifying the expectations on the relational level, and in fact this doesn't work, or causes problems over the long term. We don't clarify these expectations for a variety of reasons.

• We may simply not be aware of them.
• We may consider them secondary or of no real importance.
• We may be afraid to express them so as not to disturb, appear weak or too demanding, and so on.

And yet, as we all know, these expectations, which correspond to our needs in terms of relational comfort, have a powerful influence on our ability and willingness to communicate and collaborate.

For example, I may have to work over a period of time with a group of people I know to a greater or lesser extent. In this context, I may know for myself, if I have a little experience of this type of collaboration, that in order to work and collaborate well, I need to feel confident with others, to be able to count on their reliability and for things to be done rigorously.

If I don't express this clearly, in terms that are clear enough for others, I'm doomed to constantly come up against what I consider to be breaches of my security and/or shortcomings in reliability and rigor. I take my expectations for granted, whereas there's no such thing as self-evident in human communication. So I'm making demands of the other person, but I'm not giving them the means to meet those demands (let alone the possibility that they might refuse). What often happens in this case is to protest after the fact, when the damage has been done, which leads others to react badly because they feel guilty without having been warned of what was expected of them.

Examples

I consider it respectful/rigorous/courteous/efficient/other to be defined (tick box) to arrive on time for meetings. I have to work with people who often arrive late. I'm going to accuse them of being disrespectful/rigorous... etc. At best, they won't understand, because respecting schedules isn't part of their frame of reference, or doesn't seem to take priority over other constraints they may have. At worst, they'll feel they've been placed in the dock, and trust will take a hit for the rest of the collaboration.

Another example, on a more private level: I think it's normal/respectful/well-mannered/otherwise to specify (tick the box) for teenagers to help clear the table, at my place or at others. So I'm going to react badly every time teenagers stay seated when it's time to clear the table, or leave the table without taking their plate with them. If I say it after the fact, I'll be met with the same reactions of surprise, disappointment, aggression and avoidance. If, on the other hand, I say it before we sit down to eat, for example, I give everyone a chance to express their point of view and negotiate terms.

Effective communication is all about eliminating implicit expectations. As Will Schutz points out, being honest in the way you communicate depends on your degree of self-awareness (i.e. your ability to identify and accept your own needs). Chasing the implicit means clarifying these expectations (i.e., what is the right way to satisfy one's needs?) upstream of the relationship, by asking the right questions: what do I need to feel confident and effective in my collaboration with others? We'll develop this question a little further on in this article.

Listening levels

There are different ways of listening. They range from "pretending" to "making yourself fully available". We can thus identify at least 5 levels of listening:

1. Hearing the sound/voice but not paying attention;
2. Pretending to listen, but keeping your attention elsewhere;
3. Listening selectively, taking an interest in only part of what is said;
4. Listening attentively for a specific purpose, e.g. to place something you want to say, or to confirm your own point of view;
5. Listen to understand, without preconceived ideas.

Only level 5 is true listening. In this case, we place ourselves in a non-judgmental position and make ourselves fully available to the other person. This is what we call active listening (cf. the work of Carl Rogers). Needless to say, in today's multi-distracted society, this kind of listening is rare, to the point where you sometimes have to go to a professional to benefit from it. It requires a genuine interest in the other person, kindness, patience and the ability to devote a little time to it without doing anything else at the same time. It's not surprising, then, that human beings often find it hard to understand each other.

Identify your needs and expectations so you can work together

As we've seen, trusting and effective communication requires clarity about each other's expectations. Here, we define expectations as the desire to have one's needs met. Human needs are many and varied, and are ranked differently from one individual to another.

Many authors have examined the dynamics of human needs, from Abraham Maslow and his famous pyramid to contemporary neuroscientists. A need cannot be discussed, because it is vital to the individual who feels it.

As Marshall Rosenberg, creator of Non-Violent Communication (NVC), points out, needs are universal, which means that all human beings can experience them at one time or another, and therefore understand them. When these needs pose a problem, it's not the need itself that's problematic, but the strategy the individual employs to satisfy it.

Examples

• It's common to demand respect from others. I may have this need, but is it legitimate to satisfy it by, for example, demanding that others greet me in a certain way or not sit down in my presence?
  
  
• I may need freedom, but is it legitimate to satisfy it, for example, by imposing on others my systematic lateness or failure to meet deadlines?
  
  
• I may have a need for self-expression, but is it legitimate to satisfy it by, for example, speaking loudly when I feel like it, and saying whatever I feel like saying without taking into account the context or discretion that certain private subjects may require?
  
  
• I may need to rest, but is it legitimate to satisfy this need, for example, to leave all my work to others without asking their opinion?

To communicate effectively and benevolently, we need to identify our needs and, if we ask others for their support in satisfying them, devise a suitable strategy (concrete, acceptable, easy to implement) that they can apply to please or help us.

As NVC also emphasizes, we alone are responsible for satisfying our needs, and others are free to support us or not in this quest. Fortunately, human beings are such that helping someone to satisfy their needs, if asked nicely and feasibly, is likely to be welcomed as a gift, by most people at least.

Examples

• If I need respect at work, I can identify that for me, this means meeting deadlines. I can then ask the people I work with to take these deadlines into account and to let me know within a specified timeframe if, for one reason or another, they can't meet them.
  
  
• if I need to be efficient in my work, I can identify that for me this means ensuring a good match between the objectives set and the results obtained, or making good use of the resources allocated. I will then concretely define, with the people I work with, criteria for matching objectives (indicators) or optimizing the use of resources.
  
  
• if I need security in my relations with others, I can identify that for me this means being able to express myself without being interrupted. I will then concretely ask others not to interrupt me or to wait until I have finished speaking before reacting.

Note that the word "concretely" is essential in these attempts to clarify expectations.

Establish a relational contract that frames the relationship

The relationship contract sets out the behavioral compromises that each party agrees to respect for the duration of the relationship. It transforms what is generally implicit and often a source of tension into something explicit. It can be used to regulate collaboration, for example, at work or on a project involving different players who don't yet know each other.

For this contract to be relevant, it must:

• be proposed at the outset of the collaboration, whether it lasts for a meeting lasting a few hours, a training session lasting a few days, a project lasting a few months, or a long-term team collaboration,
  
  
• must be co-constructed. It's a contract that commits all the collaborators involved in the action to be carried out together: project participants, team members, trainers and trainees, etc. It must therefore be consensual for all parties involved. It must therefore be consensual if it is to be validated by all,
  
  
• be short (comprising only a few major principles) so that it can be remembered without reference to a document,
  
  
• be amendable if necessary. If the collaboration lasts over time, it's important to adjust behavioral expectations during the process,
  
  
• be extremely concrete, i.e. describe observable expected behaviors and not a philosophy that can be interpreted differently by each person.

One of the great advantages of drawing up such a collective contract is that it commits everyone. As a result, any deviations in behavior are also subject to everyone's scrutiny and control. In other words, it's not just up to the manager, project leader or trainer to "police" behavior. The group takes charge of them, and anyone who deviates from the rules established by all will quickly be called to order by the rest of the group, without the need for the manager, facilitator or coordinator to interfere.

What's more, given the gregarious instincts of human beings, a person whose behavior deviates from the contract has every chance of getting back into line quickly, so as not to find themselves isolated.

As part of a training program, for example:

• the trainer will initiate proposals based on what he or she feels is relevant to making the training effective from all points of view,
  
  
• This may involve questions of organization and timetabling, relational atmosphere, support between participants, exchange methods, etc...
  
  
• we make sure that each proposal is clearly expressed in terms of observable behavior that everyone can understand. Precision, detailed if necessary, is essential,
  
  
• these proposals are submitted to the group, amended or clarified if necessary, then validated by all,
  
  
• until the contract has been duly established and validated, collaboration (training) cannot begin.

Example of a relational contract for professional training:

The needs given here as an example are those of a specific trainer, with his or her own philosophy of what a training course should be. These needs may therefore vary according to the trainer, if his or her priorities are different.

Resources

Apfeldorfer, Gérard - Les relations durables, ed. Odile Jacob, 2004.
https://www.odilejacob.fr/catalogue/psychologie/psychologie-generale/relations-durables_9782738113726.php

Bodart, Yves - Group phenomena
https://shs.cairn.info/revue-les-cahiers-internationaux-de-psychologie-sociale-2018-1-page-119?lang=fr

Good Planet - Collective intelligence tools
https://capecodelegues.goodplanet.org/ressources/les-outils-de-dintelligence-collective-le-cadre/

Kerdraon, Emmanuel. Improve your communication: identify and avoid the main obstacles!
On www.gordon -crossings.com, March 2021 - https://www.gordon-crossings.com/ameliorer-sa-communication/

Rosenberg, Marshall - words are windows (or they are walls).
https://www.amazon.fr/mots-sont-fen%C3%AAtres-bien-murs/dp/2707188794

Salomé, Jacques - What if we learned to communicate differently?
https://www.j-salome.com/espere/themes/societe

Schutz, Will - The human element
https://www.dunod.com/sciences-humaines-et-sociales/element-humain-comprendre-lien-entre-estime-soi-confiance-et-1

Watzlawick,Paul - Faites-vous même votre malheur, Ed. du Seuil.