The Gears Concept

In formalizing a transaction between parties, a contract acts the way a cog or gear interacts with other cogs or gears. This concept may seem somewhat removed from that of a contract, but consider for a moment a definition of the word “cog” from the Oxford Dictionary: “A wheel or bar with a series of projections on its edge that transfers motion by engaging with projections on another wheel or bar.”

In other words, a cog transfers motion to another cog in a predictable way. This is the essence of what a contract is intended to accomplish. One party to a contract (one cog) wants to interact with another party to the contract (the other cog) to achieve results that are desired by and predictable to each party.

The legal system has created the law of contracts to make these cog-like arrangements between parties—promises, if you will—legally enforceable to enhance the predictability of the contracted results.

My visualization of a successful contractual arrangement as interacting gears came from a toy I had when I was just a toddler. I would play with that toy for hours; little did I know then that I was creating “toddler contracts,” to my way of thinking.

The toy consisted of a flat wooden board of about twelve by eighteen inches with evenly spaced holes, a number of short wooden pegs of equal length and a number of flat wooden cogs with diameters that varied between one inch and three inches. One of the cogs had a small handle that stood upright from the flat cog. The objective of the toy was to try to arrange all of the pegs and cogs on the board so that if placed properly, the turning of the one cog with the handle would smoothly engage and rotate all of the cogs at the same time.

To my enjoyment, I could turn the whole world (of the board) with one handle! If the cogs were not arranged properly, however, the gears would lock up and not turn and I would have to engage in a series of trial and error rearrangements to get it right. Trial and error and patience were rewarded by making all of cogs turn together smoothly, a very satisfying result. The cogs could be rearranged over and over again in many different ways and figuring out how to get the whole world of the board to turn at once would keep me busy for hours (much to my parents delight, no doubt!).

(I do not believe the toy I remember is available anymore, but it is similar in concept to this one: Turn & Learn Magnetic Gears, although the toy I had was horizontal, not vertical.)

The interacting gears concept is a useful analogy for contracts because the gears, like contracts, are Creative Thought Structures™. That is, a contract is a structure of thought that has been created by the parties to achieve certain results or purposes in the physical world. For example, a partner agreement starts as a concept of “who is responsible for what,” and is enhanced by the concept of “arranging the gears” of obligations and benefits into a structure of hoped-for outcomes to the benefit of the respective parties.  This is analogous to the way the frame of an automobile is first a Creative Thought Structure™ to achieve the transport of whatever rests on that frame before ever becoming a physical structure.

It has been said many times that play is a child’s work. For many years I have been intrigued by the why’s and how’s of forming agreements: Why do some work well, while others don’t; how are successful ones constructed? Little did I know then that my investigation into successful agreements began with a child’s toy of cogs and gears.