From Contract to Compact to Covenant

I wrote last week about the sort of teacher we are looking for; one for whom the profession is so much more than a job, a way of paying the bills.  Since then I’ve been thinking that this creates a high bar not just not for teachers and students, but also for the institutions of the school. If we are asking that people bring their full humanity to work, not just a watered-down version of their weekend self, then we need to meet them half-way, and to be more than ‘just’ employers, but also to value them as the rich and complex human beings they are.  That means being as committed to their growth and wellbeing as we expect them to be with our students; it means trying to make school a source of joy and pride, as well as a place to work.  It means trying to be as flexible with them as we try to be with our own children.
 
Many modern organisations are trying to do the same thing.  Systems scientist Peter Senge quotes educator Ed Simon as asking Why can't work be one of those wonderful things in life? Why can't we cherish and praise it, versus seeing work as a necessity? Why can't it be a cornerstone in people's lifelong process of developing ethics, values, and in expressing the humanities and the arts? Why can't people learn through the process that there's something about the beauties of design, of building something to last, something of value?   As a society, we seem to have bought into the ancient Greek myth that leisure is good and that work is bad; we are working for the weekend, or even worse, for retirement (it’s right there, isn’t it, in the revealing work-life balance phrase, as if somehow real life can only happen away from work). 
 

Source

As I look at the contracts and policies by which we run the school, I see how over the years they have sought to be more and more specific, to cover every eventuality. There are good legal reasons for that, but I am struck by how impoverished we would be if we stuck strictly to the written words – worked to rule as they say, and how none of the contracts capture the spirit of care, of hope and of ambition for students and colleagues; that is, the really important things.  And as I thought about contracts, I also came across the idea of compacts which are defined in Harvard Business Review as reciprocal obligations and mutual commitments, both stated and implied, that define their relationship. By defining a legal relationship, a contract is by definition concerned with the impersonal, specific, defining measurable and objective elements of a business relationship.  A compact, on the other hand, rests on a relationship and as such relates to intangible, subjective, emotional aspects of humans at work.  It’s the difference between an obligation and commitment; between responsibility and loyalty.  Perhaps we want a bit more of the compact over the contract.
 
Daniel Yankelovich takes this one step further and calls for a move from an instrumental (i.e. wage-driven) to a sacred approach (by which he means the sociological, not the religious, sense that sacred things are the ones on which we should not put a price).   Businessman Max de Pree build still more on this when he speaks of a covenant between organization and individual, in contrast to the traditional contract. Contracts says De Pree, are a small part of a relationship. A complete relationship needs a covenant . . . a covenantal relationship rests on a shared commitment to ideas, to issues, to values, to goals, and to management processes . . . Covenantal relationships reflect unity and grace and poise. They are expressions of the sacred nature of relationships.

It strikes me that just as we seek to do more for our students than to satisfactorily fulfil our contractual obligations, so too we should be doing the same for our teachers. That doesn't mean being infinitely flexible, of course, but it does mean doing more than is required.   For me, the idea of a covenant captures something important.
 
Related Articles

• Jobs, Careers and Callings      
• Are schools more like factories, prisons, gardens or fairgrounds? 
• The Economies of Education       
• Schools, Universities, Profit

 
References

• Senge, P (1990) The Fifth Discipline.  DoubleDay
• Strebal, P (1996) Why Do Employees Resist Change? Harvard Business Review
• Whelchel, H (2020) He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins…Or Does He? The Institute for Faith, Work and Economics
• Yankelovich, D. (1993). How Changes in the Economy are reshaping American American Values In H. J. Aaron, T. E. Mann and T. Taylor (eds.). Values and Public Policy. Washington, DC : Brookings Institution, pp. 16-53.