Sunday Mālama: Three Authors on Agreements: Stephen Covey, David Allen, and Don Miguel Ruiz

Over the past week we started our discussions of Lōkahi with some thoughts as to the agreements we make, and how they can be those which become mana‘o lōkahi for us; agreements we feel very good about, feeling they do not betray those things we believe most deeply.

When I think of the word ‘agreement’ there are three different authors who come immediately to mind for me in what they have taught. They are;

1. Stephen Covey, best known as the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, specifically within his description of synergy as a creative process. In my own mana‘o lōkahi agreement with his teaching, I have captured his description in MWA within the chapter on Kākou, in regard to the “Language of We.”

2. Second and most recently productivity guru David Allen, author of Getting Things Done. Allen speaks of three different options we have with our agreements, under the premise that no agreement is set in stone, and we always have the option of renegotiating them. The problem is that we often neglect to take advantage of the possibility, and we live with the “grief” of disappointing others, and disappointing ourselves, creating the ‘stuff’ of unnecessary stress we carry around with us.

3. Third is Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements, a book which resulted from what he came to learn within his fascinating personal story. Today he is a nagual (one who guides an individual to personal freedom) dedicated to sharing his knowledge of the teachings of the ancient Toltec; thousands of years ago, the Toltec were known throughout southern Mexico as women and men of knowledge. 

In today’s Sunday Mālama I would like to capture these three teachings for the pages of Managing with Aloha Coaching, for I suspect we may return to them often in the future as convenient reference points. If you have not read them before, I hope you will find them as meaningful as I have, especially when viewed from the desire to learn more about Lōkahi, and the harmony which well-made agreements can bring.
If you are a newly arriving reader, I recommend you start your reading with the following link, and then return to this article: Ho‘olōkahi and Rethinking our Agreements (there will be a trackback there so you can return easily).

Let’s read the words of these authors individually. First, I offer you the definition of synergy as I first learned it from the 7 Habits guru Stephen Covey: Synergy is the concept that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The easy definition is when 1 + 1 equals not 2, but 3.  Synergize is Covey’s Habit No.6, and he calls it the “habit of creation.”

From Author Stephen Covey: This excerpt is from a paperback he released as a companion to his first 7 Habits, called Living the 7 Habits : The Courage to Change. Whereas the 7 Habits presented theory, this book presented stories of practical application. “Synergy is about producing a third alternative—not my way, not your way, but a third way that is better than either of us would come up with individually. It’s the fruit of mutual respect—of understanding and even celebrating one another’s differences in solving problems and seizing opportunities … Synergistic teams and families thrive on individual strengths so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. Such relationships and teams renounce defensive adversarialism (1+1=1/2). They don’t settle on compromise (1+1=1½) or merely cooperation (1+1=2). They go for creative cooperation (1+1=3 or more).”

As you can see, Covey doesn't explicitly mention the word ‘agreement.’ However what he did so well here for me, was articulate why the notion of bargaining for agreement and coming to a compromise is seldom good enough. No wonder compromise always feels so unsatisfying.

I love his choice of words, “producing a third alternative.” My dad used to teach this concept of creative and collaborative agreement to us when he’d say, “There are actually three things to consider in everything: Your way, my way, and the best way.” When he refereed an argument between us kids, the words were slightly different, but gave the same suggestion, “There are three sides to every story: your side, his side and the truth.”

From Author David Allen: I do wish to point out that what follows was not taken directly from his book, but is a paraphrased transcript I had written down when listening to a CD set Allen recorded called GTD Fast. In this section, he was talking about how we de-clutter both internally and externally: “You can get rid of grief and negative feelings when you know where they come from. So where? What’s the source? It’s not the amount of stuff, and that there’s so much to do; There’s always a lot of stuff, and there will always be a lot of stuff. The source of the grief is in your broken agreements … broken agreements with yourself. It’s inherent in the disintegration of self-trust. You got into would-could-should territory with yourself.” Here are your options: Option 1: Don’t make the agreement. Lighten up. Learn to say NO from a place of integrity: you can’t say NO with integrity when you don’t exactly know what you’ve got (back to collection again). You can’t admit you don’t know what’s going on, until you know exactly how much you’ve got going on. Option 2: Keep your agreement. However understand that there will always be the next thing coming down the pike. The better you get, the better you gotta get because you’re gonna get assigned more. Once all your open loops are defined, especially for all those dorky things, you’ll structure your time better - one Saturday run to the hardware store will take care of years of undone action items. Option 3: Renegotiate the agreement. The world changes: new data, new variable … its okay: a renegotiated agreement is not a broken agreement. However, it’s impossible to renegotiate agreements with someone else or with yourself, that you don’t remember you made.

You have to love how clear and direct Allen is about telling us we are the ones in the driver’s seat! He is right on point: No matter what they might be about, we have these same three options with every single agreement we make.

Last, Don Miguel Ruiz. I mentioned he had a fascinating personal story; as a preface, this is taken directly from his book end-flap:

“Don Miguel Ruiz was born into a family of healers, and raised in rural Mexico by a curandera (healer) mother and nagual (shaman) grandfather. The family anticipated that Miguel would embrace their centuries-old legacy of healing and teaching, and carry forward the esoteric Toltec knowledge. Instead, distracted by modern life, don Miguel chose to attend medical school and later teach and practice as a surgeon.”

“A near-death experience changed his life. Late one night in the early 1970s, he awoke suddenly, having fallen asleep at the wheel of his car. At that instant the car careened into a wall of concrete. Don Miguel remembers that he was not in his physical body as he pulled his two friends to safety.”

“Stunned by this experience, he began an intensive practice of self-inquiry. He devoted himself to the mastery of the ancient ancestral wisdom, studying earnestly with his mother, and completing an apprenticeship with a powerful shaman in the Mexican desert. His grandfather, who had since passed on, continued to teach him in his dreams.”

From Author Don Miguel Ruiz: As explained on his website, “In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible.” 1. Be Impeccable With Your Word Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. 2. Don't Take Anything Personally Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. 3. Don't Make Assumptions Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. 4. Always Do Your Best Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Ruiz claims that the first agreement is the most important one, and he also offers that it is the most difficult one to honor. He seems to agree with Covey, saying “Your word is the power you have to create.” To that final thought I agree and would encourage you: Let’s create the human harmony of Lōkahi.

‘Ike loa kākou; we learn best together! I would love to hear of any thoughts you might have. Do these readings cause you to think any differently about your own agreements?

Footnotes:

1. Here are the websites for all three authors:
   
   • Stephen R. Covey
   • David Allen and his philosophy; What is GTD?
   • Don Miguel Ruiz
2. For more book suggestions, visit my bookshelf: Mana‘o on a Virtual Bookshelf.
3. If this is your first visit to Managing with Aloha Coaching, you can read of our intention with Sunday Mālama here: Sunday Mālama: A Beginning. A trackback there will easily help you return here.

Comments

[Joanna Young]

Rosa, thanks for your thoughts on this topic. I found myself wondering if Don Miguel Ruiz's point #1 wasn't the key to them all - because if you are true to your word, if you know where where your words come from (your values, your source) you will know when it's time to reach a new or different agreement, when it's time to let go and move on, when it's time to say no - by this I stand.

Food for thought always here - laid on the table on Sunday but chewed over throughout the week...

Joanna

[Rosa Say]

Aloha Joanna. Ruiz would agree with you! From his book:

"It sounds very simple, but it is very, very powerful ... The word is not just a sound or written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life."

And Joanna, I think you wrote a beautiful essay on this very subject as well! We seemed to be in the same streams of thought with our writing, publishing our articles on the same morning - quite wonderful!

Dear readers, I encourage you to read Joanna's article at Joyful Jubilant Learning, written for our Make A Difference forum there: It is called "Realising the power of our words" - here is the link,
http://www.joyfuljubilantlearning.com/joyful_jubilant_learning/2007/09/realising-the-p.html

Here is the excerpt I felt compelled to comment on, and you can see what I said there. Joanna wrote,

"I’m intrigued by the notion of the power of our words. It was Kipling who said that “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” I think we need to be reminded of the powerful effect of the words that we’re surrounded with and bombarded by – and learn how to hold on to our own words, our own truth, our own power. I think we could do with being more aware of the impact of our own words – and take responsibility for what we write. I think an understanding of the power of words calls for greater respect in their use: respect for other people, respect for the environment we’re writing in (working in, living in), respect for ourselves."

[Joanna Young]

Rosa, I must go and check out the work of Don Miguel Ruiz!

I was intrigued too to see that we were writing on similar lines over the weekend - that's the power of connection indeed.

Thank you for highlighting my piece. You and your readers might be interested to make the connection with the value of ho'okipa, because it was in writing the piece (for talking story) on writing with ho'okipa that I came to understand the importance of respect - for reader, for writer, and for the space in between :-)

Joanna