Cooperation in teams: Contracting Level 3: Psychological Contract

The thing we're talking about today is contracting. We've already talked about level one of contracting, "How do you make good administrative contract, which structures your relationship?" The second level is, "How do you make a good professional contract, which has to do with what problem definition, what goals are we going for and how are we going to work together to achieve those goals?"

Contracting Level 3: Psychological Contract The third level of contracting is called the psychological level of the contract. And that's a little bit trickier because it's actually the unconscious part of the contracting process. At this level, we look at, "Yeah, okay, so we've got a structure for the contract and we've got a method, how are we going to work together?" But at this level, we really are thinking about, "Why me and why now? So what implicit needs are you trying to get met through this contract and what implicit needs do I have?"