​Wq2    SDX§§P)_- this is what our 4-month-old kitten typed running over the keyboard while I was writing this – some kind of feline code? All large organisations have hierarchies and authority delegation for decision making. And some of them, particularly in global organisations can seem as dense and impenetrable as our cat’s contribution. Many can run to 20 or 30 pages and typically have different levels of country management sign off followed by regional and then head office sign off. Some are initially drafted in a language other than English – and translated badly if at all. They reserve decisions on specific topics like standard contract terms or parent company guarantees or settlement of significant disputes to the ultimate parent company. Try changing the software or cloud terms for a US corporation in the UK. I have and you can’t without the buy-in of head office – who generally won’t amend their conditions without very good reason. Don’t get me wrong this is not a criticism of large corporates. Rather the need to recognise that authorisation processes are often complex. It follows that on any deal for say an IT outsourcing contract internal governance approval at the right time and level in the UK and globally is not a nice to have but absolutely essential.
 
Governance in this sense can be looked at from the perspective of the individual negotiation team seeking stakeholder buy in – or from a corporate perspective where contractual governance will or should be a part of this overall corporate governance which is “the structure of policies and processes that steer a company’s direction, management, and compliance efforts.” See this article Corporate Governance: Definition, Principles, Models, and Examples. Senior stakeholders at an appropriate designated level should also sign off on any significant contract once it has been fully negotiated and prior to signature. This ensures the buy in of the whole organisation not just the negotiating team to the project and its delivery. This incidentally assist the other side in the negotiation. There is nothing more soul destroying than working hard to reach a viable and fair contract, only to then find out that the other side won’t proceed to finalise the deal because its management is not on board.
 
I have often been asked to bring the full panoply of internal legal review to a complex service contract bid, only to find that it is a figment of some salespersons individual agenda, which has not been sanctioned even in principle by senior management. If this approach is followed for all review functions – commercial, technical, finance and project delivery – it can be a gross waste of valuable professional time and resource. It is also incredibly helpful in a contract negotiation if the key parameters have already been understood and at least provisionally signed off at an executive level. You then know when you have to go back for further senior authorisation to say a higher-than-expected limit of liability. It also prevents the other side from going behind the back of the negotiating team to exploit contacts with say the chief executive of your client. This actually happened to me and because we were all aligned when I forewarned the CEO by email of such an approach by a customer, he emailed back almost instantly reiterating his support and telling us we could circumvent this tactic by saying we had his full backing.
 
AI quite sensibly suggests that “Stakeholder buy-in in contract negotiation is critical because it ensures organizational alignment, facilitates smooth execution, and is essential for achieving long-term success. It transforms a mere formal approval into active support and commitment from all parties involved.” A “stakeholder” is someone involved as an individual or a group such as a contract approval board with significant influence, power and a vested interest in the success of a project. They should have the organisation’s wider interests in mind. See this Project Management article Understanding Different Types of Stakeholders and Their Roles which observes more generally in the context of projects that “stakeholders are indispensable in shaping outcomes, influencing priorities, and determining overall project success.” It proposes there are two types:
 
Internal stakeholders - individuals or groups within the organization who are involved in the project or directly affected by its results.
 
External stakeholders - entities outside the immediate organizational structure that have an interest in the project’s execution or success.
 
It then recommends an organised approach to managing such stakeholders: “Effective stakeholder engagement begins with a disciplined approach to stakeholder analysis and mapping.”
 
See also this article Securing Buy-In from Stakeholders: An Overview which discusses who a stakeholder buy-in is and identifies different types including: 
 

• Emotional Buy-In - Stakeholders support the project because they feel comfortable, they trust and respect those involved, and they feel connected to the work through their participation or relationships.

 

• Intellectual buy-in – Stakeholders are aware of and understand the project, and are convinced that it has merit based on a logical consideration of the facts.

 
It also recognises the importance of effective and timely stakeholder involvement.  “Every project comes with risks — but many of these can be identified ahead of time and managed by working closely with stakeholders and gaining their support. Plus, if you have good relationships with your stakeholders, this will help to carry you through if/when challenges arise or there are problems with the project.”
 
I thoroughly endorse the timely and effective involvement of stakeholders in service contract reviews. If your manager will be present on a final contract approval board then thoroughly briefing and discussing any challenges and risks with them beforehand will not only inform that process, but also enable it to operate far more smoothly and effectively. If the leaders of your function do have some concerns then these can be addressed before they are asked to make or endorse a final recommendation. Apart from anything else it is extremely embarrassing and potentially career limiting to have some position you have taken in a contract negotiation undermined in a public forum by your department head. 
 
As an example of good contract negotiation governance, while in private practice I acted for a major UK IT supplier bidding for a large public sector communications contract where the purchaser was using a competitive negotiation process that culminated in “locking” the final four bid contenders in a hotel for a week to see who could negotiate the best contract. My client had not only obtained all necessary internal buy in for each stage of the process including this last one, but sent the head of the relevant division to the hotel one evening to join in the discussion, understand what was going on and coincidentally talk to the customer. All of this eased the way for the company to endorse the contract bid process which it eventually duly won.
 
Improving governance processes is probably where AI has the potential to come into its own as a means of managing the involvement of key stakeholders at the right time. The expression and implementation of internal governance processes can be time consuming and sometimes inconsistent. AI could streamline the approval process by “intelligently” routing contracts to the appropriate stakeholders (legal, finance, procurement, etc.) based on predefined rules, such as contract value, risk level, or type. This could help eliminate bottlenecks and promote timely reviews. There is however in my view no substitute for personal involvement in endorsing a major procurement project either as a proponent on the bid team or an approver.
 
As the entrepreneur and speaker Cheryl Sew Hoy observed “The best way to minimize disagreement is to make sure that all the stakeholders are in the room.” 
 

​On Christmas Eve in the late afternoon, I drove my son and his girlfriend back to the house they were living in a few miles away (they had walked to see us). It was 3.45 pm and on the way back I decided to hurry into the local village and do some last-minute shopping. Big mistake. As I rushed into the car park avoiding a vehicle coming out, I touched a concrete pillar at the entrance - causing some minor but no doubt expensive damage to the paintwork of my car. And both shops I planned to visit were closed anyway for the holidays!  As I look back on 2025 and forward to the new year 2026, I was struck by one thing I could do better. I, like I suspect many of my fellow professionals, always attempt (like my shopping example) to cram one more task into an already busy day – when we really don’t need to. Inevitably as I found out to my cost this is invariably when things go wrong. 
 
To put this in a work context if, for example, while you are in a critical contract negotiation you get asked on Teams for urgent advice on another matter. It is so tempting either in the meeting or in the next breakout to try and deal with this and respond online – juggling priorities but by doing so not giving your full attention to either your response or a crucial discussion amongst your team on say limits of liability or some other critical issue in the meeting. The inevitable result is that both clients suffer because, however capable we think we are, it is very hard to do justice to two potentially complex tasks at the same time. It could also be that the new ask is not in fact as time critical as the originator thinks. I recognise that ignoring the request would be irresponsible, but why not delegate a response to a colleague - or put it off for a day? Or speak to your manager and see if they have any other ideas or resource. They won’t think the worse of you and will probably appreciate your seeking help rather than potentially providing a poor service or even making a mistake.
 
AI suggests “Trying to do too much in a workday leads to stress and burnout, so the key is to prioritize tasks, set boundaries, communicate with your manager about workload, and take regular breaks to maintain focus and well-being. Break down big tasks, focus on one thing at a time (avoid multitasking), and create daily/weekly plans to manage expectations and prevent overwhelm”.
 
While this article 10 Simple Tips to Help When You Have Too Much Work comments that “While it may seem admirable to take on additional work and support your team when the workload increases, recognising that there are limits to your productivity is essential.” It proposes some simple but effective ways to manage too much work which include:
 

• Ask for advice from an experienced colleague. Speaking to experienced co-workers is a great way to gauge if the entire department is overwhelmed or if your colleagues have the capacity to support you.

 

• Ask if you can share your workload. A positive way to ensure you complete your tasks while fostering a sense of teamwork is to ask your team for help.

 

• Create a prioritised task list. Writing a task list and prioritising items by urgency and importance helps you establish what projects need immediate attention.

 
This is where investment in creating and being part of a great team at work really helps. Then you have others to call on in your hour of need, whether a colleague or manager, who will recognise your request for help and readily pitch in – knowing that you would do the same if the roles were reversed. They also will respect your ask and won’t judge you and think you are somehow shirking taking on your full workload.
 
Rather than feeling guilty about not achieving all of the items on our “to do” list by the end of the business day maybe, as the author and business consultant Jim Collins advised in his book Good to Great, we should have a “stop doing” list. “Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding ‘to do’ lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing—and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists as ‘to do’ lists.”
 
See this Forbes article Stop Trying To Cram So Much Work Into A Single Day which comments “Multitasking isn’t just a productivity-killer, it’s a recipe for unfocused and fragmented work. Focusing on a single project for an extended period is a skill that requires cultivation”. It proposes creating key themes for your working life which helps planning and can free up time to manage crises.
 
Technology including AI can and will increasingly be used to enable professionals to work more efficiently and effectively and perhaps help to avoid or at least mitigate this sort of workload dilemma. See, for example, this article Let AI Handle The Busywork So Humans Can Drive Strategy which discusses how agentic AI can help procurement teams focus on adding strategic value. “This is where agentic AI helps. Unlike traditional generative AI, agentic systems serve a specific purpose; various specialized AI agents combine across a workflow, where they will reason, learn and collaborate alongside humans to complete a task.” It concludes “Ultimately, the hybrid human-agent model allows procurement to regain its human side, combining AI’s speed with human judgment to create a smarter, more resilient and trusted function.”
 
However, the use of more effective processes to prioritise our workloads will only work if we first of all recognise when we have too much on out professional plates and that we need to manage our workload better. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to look out for those times when I am adding yet another task to my daily rota, perhaps unnecessarily, and, having recognised this, do something about it.
  
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities”. Stephen Covey.
 
"It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials." Bruce Lee.
 
“The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough.” Rabindranath Tagore – the Bengali polymath (poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter).
 
A happy productive, and efficient, New Year to all.