A couple of years ago I posted a blog Executive Presence in Meetings. Today I want to discuss a related topic. I facilitated two intensive training sessions last year where I and some colleagues were taking on the potentially challenging task of teaching contract issues to project and delivery executives over a day. I was concerned about how to engage the audience effectively but also entertainingly because I am convinced we learn more from an event we enjoy. The converse is also true. The first and obvious step was to divide the room up into 4 different tables. Pretty basic but it encourages interaction. But then I took more of a risk and allocated the tables into the four Hogwarts houses from the Harry Potter books. I asked how many people had read the books - surprisingly a significant minority had not. Then I gave each table the chance to choose its house and gave them a small banner with their house insignia.
 
So what you may ask. Well without even approaching potentially dry and (to some) boring legal and contractual topics I had established a rapport with the audience and gained their attention. At least most shut their work laptops down!  I also had the room divided up into teams for the interactive exercises we had planned. Then I introduced my piece de resistance - a plastic but quite realistic brown Harry Potter wand I had purchased on Amazon for a few pounds. It flashes and makes a sound when I press a button. Every time the room seemed to be going off piste, I simply marched into the middle of the tables and waved the wand. The effect was, well magical; everybody shut up and paid attention to me. Looking back on it, I took a bit of a chance, but succeeded in creating a way to entertain and to be in control of the training session when I needed to be.
 
This ability to command a room is equally applicable in negotiations. I recall as a junior lawyer having great difficulty agreeing a contract provision with a more senior lawyer who had an Eastern European name I struggled to pronounce. My boss who was working on a much larger matter turned up to help. He marched in with another assistant in tow, sat down, pronounced the lawyers name completely wrong, ignored his attempts to speak and told him to stop messing about and agree a way forward. Then he stormed out saying he was too busy to spend any more time on this agreement as he had far more important matters to attend to. The crestfallen and rather shaken lawyer was much more conciliatory and soon agreed a reasonable compromise. I am not advocating being rude, but it was clear my boss at the time had far more ability to command the room, and it was effective. 
 
AI suggests “Commanding a room requires exuding calm confidence through purposeful, open body language, steady eye contact, and deliberate, slower speech.” Well maybe, but if you are not careful you will come across as an automaton – like those speakers who won’t ever leave the sanctity of the lectern, and indeed hang onto it as if it was a life raft.  This Yale University post Command the Room: Strategies for Engaging Presentations is more on point saying “Mastering the art of presentation isn’t just about delivering information; it’s about making an unforgettable impact”. In addition to sensible practical advice like knowing your audience it suggests having a Compelling Narrative – “Storytelling is not just a tool for entertainers; it’s a powerful weapon in the arsenal of effective communicators”. It advocates: 
 

• effective use of visuals and slides – High-quality images can evoke emotions and add context to your content, while graphs and charts can help illustrate data trends and comparisons. 

 

• embracing technology - Incorporate dynamic transitions, animations, and multimedia elements to add visual interest and keep your audience’s attention.

 
This advice is highly relevant to the challenging task of commanding online rooms when it is so much harder to interact with your audience and even tell if they are listening. There is a lot of rather banal advice about how to face the screen, adjusting your camera correctly, which matters but is not very innovative. I found some much more to the point and imaginative tips and advice in this article Virtual Presentation Tips: How To Command Attention Through A Screen which comments “Most virtual presentation advice focuses on technology — lighting, microphones, backgrounds. That’s like telling someone to buy a better suit before fixing their terrible content. The real problem is attention economics.” It says “Research from Stanford shows that video calls drain mental energy 15% faster than in-person meetings. Your audience is literally exhausted before you start.” This means you have to completely rebuild your approach. It then provides some sound advice including:
 

• The 10 Minute Rule. In person, you might hold attention for 20-30 minutes before needing an interaction. Virtually, that window shrinks to 10 minutes — maximum.

 

• Camera Presence. The 3 Things That Actually Matter - You don’t need to stare at the camera constantly (that’s actually creepy). Use camera eye contact strategically.

 

• The Screen Real Estate Problem. When you share your screen, your slides appear in a fraction of your audience’s display. They’re also viewing on everything from 27-inch monitors to phone screens.

 
It concludes the biggest mistake with virtual presentations is “Treating them like in-person presentations. The attention dynamics are completely different. You need shorter segments, more interaction, higher energy, and simpler visuals. Adapt your entire approach, don’t just turn on your webcam.”
 
Before anyone coined the expression “death by PowerPoint” for those awful over detailed slides which kill your presentation before you even open your mouth, there was another overused presentation aid – overhead projectors. Everyone came with their set of overhead slides in their briefcase and spoke religiously to them. In his excellent book about transforming IBM Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance  Louis Gerstner, Jr. tells how he challenged the company's reliance on, and abuse of, slide presentations (overhead transparencies or "foils") saying they were being used as a substitute for thought, clarity, and genuine communication. And yet – I once saw an inspirational talk by Edward de Bono, who originated the term lateral thinking, at the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London. My heart fell as he sat down next to an overhead projector and took out some acetates. But they were blank. He then proceeded to illustrate his talk very effectively by drawing cartoons and caricatures on the slides!
 
As the American scholar and author Maya Angelou once observed "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel".
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​I have been reading a book recommended by my Tai Chi teacher called The Chimp Paradox by Professor Steve Peters who amongst other qualifications is a sports psychologist. His essential theme is that our minds have several different characteristics that operate at the same time and drive our behaviour. He refers to the “Psychological Mind” proposing that there are three parts of our brains that can be characterised as the Human, the Chimp and the Computer. The Chimp is a basic emotional part which represents instincts such as survival in the jungle. The Human is you, the rational and logical person. Your Computer is a storage area for information. “The Chimp is an emotional machine that will hijack you, if you allow it to. It is not good or bad: it is a Chimp. It can be your best friend or your worst enemy. This is The Chimp Paradox.” The Chimp aspect is why we sometimes react instinctively and not necessarily in a good way towards others, our colleagues and friends.  “By far, the biggest challenge for the individual Human is to live with an animal within that is determined to live by the laws of the jungle and to use extremely powerful drives and instincts to fulfil its own agenda.”
 
If you want to test this approach, try applying it the next time you are driving. Watch how you react when somebody cuts you up or pulls out in front of you at a junction making you break sharply. What I find is that before I consciously react my “chimp” does this for me. I am hooting the horn and waving 2 fingers at the culprit who has “invaded” my space without much conscious thought. None of this (except perhaps reacting by breaking) achieves anything except satisfying my chimp. I try now to anticipate how I will react and “manage” my chimp brain by pre-programming it to understand as a human that such situations are sadly fairly normal on our roads and it is not a personal affront. It does work but it is not easy.
 
This for me is something I wish I had known more about before in professional legal activities like negotiating contracts and more generally in the interactions of day-to-day professional life. It explains an awful lot about our behaviour patterns and the things which drive us, some of which we cannot necessarily control though we can understand and manage. I recall negotiations where the lawyers on the other side were unnecessarily obstructive or aggressive to the point where they damaged not just the relationship with our side, but also the interests of their own clients. The chances of a contract being agreed which led to the successful delivery of information technology services were not in any way enhanced by this behaviour which led inevitably to an antagonistic atmosphere which it was very easy to emulate. I thought at the time this was just how they were trained to behave, what their law firm or client expected, or sheer bloody mindedness. Now I suspect their “chimp” emotional side was out of the control of their rational “human” and simply behaving badly. Why – maybe they felt threatened or out of their depth and went into some kind of survival or attack mode.
 
The theme of the Chimp Paradox is understanding and managing these instinctive emotional reactions. You cannot ignore your Chimp as it is a very powerful aspect of your mental construct and responsible for basic survival instincts. But you can manage and control its input and turn this into a positive trait. As Professor Peters advises “Think of ways to appropriately deal with negative emotions rather than engaging with them.” Using his mental model “Ask the question “Do I want these feelings”.  Then exercise the chimp (if necessary) then box it in.” See this BBC interview with the professor How to manage your inner chimp which explains his model succinctly with some advice on how to manage your chimp including interestingly smiling to show the chimp who is boss – “There are some simple habits we can develop which actively help us to control our emotions and keep the chimp in check. One of these is smiling. We know that “our facial expressions are intricately linked to our mood state,” says Steve. If we’re happy we grin.”
 
AI suggests that “Hidden emotions in negotiations are unexpressed feelings—such as fear, anxiety, anger, pride, or a desire to be liked—that subconsciously influence decisions and behavior, often diverging from the logical, rational, "cold" negotiation stereotype.” Other sources develop this theme. See this short but to the point Harvard Law School blog Emotional Triggers: How Emotions Affect Your Negotiating Ability which observes that “What’s become increasingly clear, however, is that incidental emotions—feelings unrelated to the negotiation—can also significantly influence bargaining behavior and outcomes.” Its practical takeaway is “Emotional triggers don’t stay outside the conference room door. They follow us in—often unnoticed—and quietly shape our choices. By learning to recognize and label incidental emotions in ourselves and others, negotiators can reduce their disruptive effects and keep discussions focused on substance rather than mood.”
 
See also this article How to Stay Calm & Control Emotions in Negotiation which observes that “Negotiation is as much an emotional experience as it is a rational one. High stakes, pressure, and opposing interests can trigger stress and strong emotions that undermine clear decision-making. Learning how to stay emotionally composed during difficult negotiations allows professionals to maintain perspective, read subtle signals from others, and turn emotions into a strategic advantage rather than a liability.” Echoing the “chimp” theme it says “Negotiation can trigger powerful psychological responses because it touches on survival instincts, fairness, and status. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline prepare the body for fight or flight, which can make it harder to think clearly.”
 
Understanding this also enables us to use emotions as a tool in a negotiation – by knowing what is happening in the minds of the other side and not over-reacting, but rather finding ways to turn it to your advantage. At the very least this can avoid engaging in mutually destructive behaviour in response which can wreck the atmosphere and possibly the negotiation in its entirety.
 
As Buddha observed “The mind is everything. What you think you become.”
 
While the US sports agent Mark McCormack once said “Anger can be an effective negotiating tool, but only as a calculated act, never as a reaction.” 
 
Ultimately, we are much more in our professional lives than just instinctive creatures. “Chimps like to survive; humans like to have a purpose.”  A last word from Professor Steve Peters.

I attended an excellent SCL seminar this week on quantum computing. It’s intriguing how once again IT law is starting to adapt to another new development even one based on science so obscure that even the experts do not claim to fully understand it. In the 19th century science was deeply driven by certainty convinced nature followed fixed, discoverable laws. This has all changed and relativity and quantum mechanics suggest a much more provisional understanding. Quantum physics doesn’t describe what things are — it describes probabilities. Instead of saying “this will happen,” it says, “this is the chance it will happen.” Nature, at its deepest level, seems to run on probability, not certainty. 
 
As professionals we are I suggest trained and to a degree expected to operate so as to seek absolute certainty as much as possible in our advice and assistance to our clients. We are a bit like 19th century scientists most at home when we can state “the law says this” or “accounting rules demand” we behave in a particular way. In my experience this is in fact a bit of a myth. Even laws set out with care and precision in statutes or codes in codified legal systems can be and are open to interpretation by practitioners and ultimately the courts. Clauses in complex contracts drafted with care and precision by skilled legal practitioners can be subject to surprising and unexpected interpretations in courts of law. This is especially true in the common law systems where contracts and statutes can be subject to some alternative elucidation not anticipated by the original authors. Sometimes this can be because the judge is seeking to apply an overall approach or principle which would not have been in the minds of commercial negotiators.
 
I recall working in private practice on a contract negotiation for IT services that was subsequently the subject of a dispute. I was grilled by a litigation partner who asked why we had agreed and documented a particular limit of liability provision which might be disadvantageous to our client if we went to court. It was quite hard to explain that the clause was the best we could achieve after intense discussions – and was far better than where we had started. It had also been carefully explained to our client who understood the compromise we had reached. The litigator expected perfection and certainty, but contract negotiations just aren’t like that however hard we may try as negotiators.
 
Given all of this I think we need as professionals to take a leaf out of the quantum scientist’s book and recognise that absolute certainty in professional work, be it in negotiation, advice or contract drafting, is just not possible. Perhaps the most we can hope and expect is to get somewhere near the truth or create an effective and workable contract that will probably achieve the reasonable expectations of the parties. AI suggests that “Absolute certainty in professional advice is generally considered an illusion or a dangerous overconfidence rather than an achievable, practical standard.” It proposes that “the most valuable advice is not that which claims to know the future, but that which is based on rigorous, data-driven analysis of probabilities, allowing for flexibility and adaptability.” 


In fact, embracing “uncertainty”, questioning the facts and status quo, is whilst potentially unsettling I suggest an essential approach for us to embrace as professionals. See this article Reframing uncertainty as a positive thing proposing, for example, that uncertainty:
 

• Drives growth and learning – [it] pushes you out of your comfort zone, encouraging you to face challenges and develop new skills.

 

• Encourages creativity and innovation – [it] can break down rigid thinking patterns and open up new possibilities.

 

• Builds resilience - when you embrace uncertainty, you strengthen your ability to cope with difficult or unpredictable situations.

 
Dealing with a lack of certainty is also a key attribute these days for leaders of professional practices. See, for example, this Harvard Business Review article Our Favorite Management Tips on Leading Through Uncertainty whose recommendations include:
 

• Become a More Courageous Leader. When uncertainty strikes, the default reaction is often to retreat. But courageous leaders don’t wait for clarity—they create it

 

• Communicating with Your Team When Times Are Tough. When business challenges mount, your team doesn’t need spin—they need clarity.

 

• Steady Your Team in Anxious Times. In times of uncertainty, your team looks to you not just for strategy, but for reassurance and direction.

 
As a partner recruiting trainees into a law firm many years ago one of the key qualities we looked for was flexibility and the ability to deal with uncertainty. This is as true today as it was then and if anything with the advances of technology like AI and quantum computing is an even more important and valued attribute. In fact, it seems there is a concept called “AI Anxiety”. See this article AI Anxiety: Strategies for Coping with Change and Uncertainty which suggests that “For some, the growing presence of AI creates a sense of uncertainty, pressure, or fear about what the future might hold. This feeling is often described as AI anxiety—a response to rapid technological change and the unknowns that come with it.” It advocates recognising and managing the emotions that come with change and building practical confidence.
 
For me as a technology lawyer this is something that, like many of my professional colleagues in this field, we have just had to accept and indeed embrace as an opportunity. Time and again advances like quantum computing have challenged the way we work and demanded change. But as a profession we have risen to the occasion every time and found ways to merge these changes into our practice. It is also perhaps worth remembering how absolute certainty is generally not a way to encourage progress.  After all until Copernicus in the 16th century science was convinced the sun revolved around the earth. Questioning conventional scientific or professional wisdom is a healthy trait. 
 
As Abraham Lincoln said “Courage is not the absence of fear. It is going forward with the face of fear.”
 
While the American theoretical physicist Richard P. Fenyman observed “What is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.”
 
And to conclude an apt comment by Albert Einstein: “If it is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science.”
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