On Fri, 9 Feb 1996 ws2@student.open.ac.uk wrote:
> If things that were promised to you become not true, or if they
> were completely wrong, it is very likely that you will become frustrated
> and will dismiss.
I'm not sure if I quoted the most appropriate part of your letter in
relation to my thoughts on this so....
I think that written or psychological contracts presuppose something - x
party needs y party to meet and provide something x parties values. What x
party sometimes forgets is that they can select who they deal with from
the universe of people or entities that can meet or provide things that x
party values.
This is one reason why I think it is very important that x party knows
exactly what is important to them - their values - in pre-determined
contexts before they go into any written or psychological contract. At
least if x party knows their values beforehand, if things don't work out
as planned and both parties have to get creative, they can negotiate.
The alternative to not being able to negotiate and planning out values
beforehand is to experience "frustration" when things don't go according
to plan. Instead of "frustration" wouldn't it be great if people had the
attitude "hey, this is a pristine opportunity for us to "get down and
dirty" and really make this deal win/win."
BTW One of the most important parts of the "psychological" contract is
indebtedness or obligation. Even if no contracts are signed, when there is
agreement in principle, there is usuallly some sort of indebtedness or
obligation incurred from party to party.
Sometimes it's necessary to step back and refuse to make agreements that
parties can't, won't, shouldn't or don't want to keep.
Andrew Moreno
-- Andrew Moreno <amoreno@broken.ranch.org>Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>