What's So Funny 'Bout? Agreements, Cooperation, and Understanding.

Moving past the Elvis Costello reference; I could not resist adding it to this blog title.

I’ve been having some thoughts about the words agreements, understanding, and cooperation. Those three things do not have to be together in the same life framework to be effective. Yet, when all three are in a symbiotic relationship, the results are beautiful.

Agreement, understanding, and cooperation are three separate traits that, when needed, can work together, but they can also be separated. The preferred relationship is unity but it's not always possible or even the most realistic expectation to set up. The following are meanderings about those three things.

There are times when people need to cooperate. There are moments when understanding certainly helps with agreements. We can work on understanding and agreement after we earn perspective because there’s been some experience based on cooperation. There also are times when, because there’s a sense of urgency, we ask people or a team or colleagues or even someone in an interpersonal relationship for cooperation.

There are times when we ask ourselves to cooperate with ourselves. More boldly, setting aside your understanding and agreements for the purpose of getting things done will lead to personal power and self-advocacy. Practicing with ourselves and then transferring this idea to other relationships will have a profound and positive effect in your life.

I’m not suggesting that people blindly agree to cooperate and not offer counsel about decision-making. I am definitely not promoting silent consent. Simply put, there are times when you need people to cooperate because it is the first step toward growth and development.

Later, we can look at agreements. For now, we agree that we can gain an understanding after we cooperate. In this way, agreements, cooperation, and understanding will be in a more harmonious relationship resulting in a more productive, positive, and sustainable outcome.

Most people know that when you try to cultivate an understanding or an agreement with the intention that people will cooperate, you are managing a long pathway and too often a painful journey that involves trailblazing. Growth may be in a stuck state.

Process paralysis impedes cooperation; especially for a decision or action that needs to take place. In this case, the focus then becomes unraveling understanding and or threading together agreements.

I am sure you can count the numerous times you left a meeting or a talk with someone when the issue remains unresolved. This is because you all become focussed on agreements and understanding and less on the action of cooperation. As a result, the action plan or goal is left tangling in the room after everyone leaves.

For cooperation to be timely and effective, agreements and or understanding are not always required or desirable. Make sure that before you leave a meeting or a discussion with anyone, you have, at minimum, agreed to cooperate on at least one thing. No need to suggest that you all agree that not cooperating is the end result.

Remember that for this framework to be effective, the cooperation must be urgent, pending, or soonest - so to speak. This applies to all types of relationships, including the one you have with yourself.

Do we truly have to understand cooperating before we’re going to take action? Must an agreement be made before we are willing to cooperate? In either scenario, we are called to make a choice. The voice within us wants to be corporate. Yet, we seem to believe that we cannot not agree because we do have an understanding, or visa-versa. And that without those two coming together, cooperation feels wrong. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The amount of energy and resources put toward agreements and understanding drains life from forward momentum. Understanding is conceptual and an agreement is debatable; cooperation has its roots in an action followed by intentional reflection and then recalibration.

If we insist that agreements and understanding must be in place before we cooperate, it’s likely that the stuck state will be a long-winded debate filled with disagreements and misunderstandings. The result is a tarnished luster that lacks the shine of progress.

There are moments in your relationships (professional, interpersonal, or intimate relationships or with your team or your boss, the authorities, or the government) that you just need to nod and say, “I’ll do that”. And then you can sort out the rest later.

I want to emphasize that I’m not suggesting we don’t debate. Sometimes there is a need to stop and think and we must disagree. Sometimes resistance, and perhaps revolution, is the trigger for progress. How long will debating last, and for what purpose or intention is that resistance serving? Those ideas need to be part of the cause for letting go of insisting on agreements and understanding and for cooperation to be the priority.

Most leaders will agree that sometimes you need people to cooperate first. Then you can sort things out a little bit later once you’ve had the learning experience. I actually said to someone…”John, I am not asking you to understand or to agree. I am asking you to…I need you to cooperate, for now. We can debate the issues later.”

At that point, John understood that what I needed was cooperation and so he agreed. John did not agree with or understand the decision or the policy. He still doesn’t to this day. However, we made progress with an important initiative and no harm was done. In this case, cooperation, in the moment, was the essential ingredient for action not agreements and understanding.

A more personal example of this might be when your family is debating a holiday. Some of the family members might want to go to one place while others want to go elsewhere. The goal is to be together and go to the same place. Sometimes we know families do different things in different locations. But sometimes the goal is to have a holiday together in the same place.

One group wants to go to the mountain while another wishes to go on a beach holiday. One group will not agree nor understand why anyone would want to go to the mountains or a beach for a family holiday. A mountain hike is not relaxing while others believe that a beach holiday is boring and tedious.

Does this sound like a compromise? In a way, yes, but not exactly. A compromise usually implies reluctance for doing something you do not want to do or like doing. Sure, it's the give and take of most relationships. [I never ask my colleagues or team members to compromise]. If we look at this scenario from the agreement, understanding, and cooperation model, it helps to reshape a more productive and less resentful outcome.

The beach group cooperates with the mountain group or visa-versa without agreeing or understanding the decision for that trip location. They all go to the mountain together because the goal is to stay together and to be able to achieve that goal, there must be cooperation.

Drawing from my own experience when I was married, if my wife would’ve cooperated with me and just gone along with things we might have been more harmonious. I too could've done a better job with cooperation. I didn’t necessarily have to agree or understand her plans.

Reflecting on those difficult times today, I can definitely say that I was more focused on agreement and understanding and less on cooperating, in part because that’s what we were raised to do but also I was quite immature - even for a married man in his mid 40’s.

I think life would’ve been more harmonious once we made a plan together accepting that we do not agree or understand but that cooperation was needed. We can look back and say okay that didn’t quite work. I did not agree with this, but you know, I did my best to cooperate and I didn't sabotage.

We can think about agreements, understanding, and cooperation and see that they all have a distinctive impact on our life. And it truly does measure out clearly that those three things are key factors in the landscape of our life.

They are a deep connection to our inner architecture. They are the foundation of being an adult. They provide an essential underpinning for what is needed for growth and development.

When examining agreements, understanding, and cooperation it is wise to suggest that a safe, healthy, and happy life is possible when they are consciously practiced. And, there's nothing funny ‘bout that.