UK referendum or no referendum life goes on. I wonder how many people voted, either way, not because of a deep understanding of the issues or even a strongly held personal conviction but because that's what they thought others wanted them to - newspapers, colleagues, politicians etc.

Peer pressure is an issue in a working (and personal) environment that stops us thinking for ourselves. I remember being told a story about the consultants who worked for McKinsey some time ago now. All the men wore long socks because that was what they were expected to. The reason was I think so that they did not show any part of their legs if they were with a client. But did that really matter? And if you follow a sartorial habit what else might you also be mimicking without independent thought.

And in the days when workers smoked if the boss smoked cigars or a particular brand of cigarette then everybody else did. And if the CEO was a man and grew a beard then everybody else did, at least among his male colleagues. Even more worrying if the managing director, man or woman, decides to come into the office at 6am and leave at 10pm then all of their direct reports follow suit whatever the consequences.

I am not here commenting on the behaviour of the bosses, although excessive working hours may not be good for their business judgement, but on those who follow them. Whatever our role as professionals we are paid and valued for our independent views or at least should be. If we are not actually saying what we think but blindly following some other persons opinion then I suggest we are not doing our job.

It's not of course easy to avoid being influence by others but perhaps being aware of this tendency can help to address it and form individual views and perform our jobs better whatever the peer pressure may be.

In a contract negotiation whatever side you may act for there are many things that can be changed through open minded frank discussion and creative solutions.

Mostly a position can be found that accommodates the interests and objectives of both parties. Issues that seemed insurmountable on price or service levels or ownership of intellectual property can be resolved once the concerns the protagonists may have are recognised, articulated and understood.

Sometimes this may mean taking an issue away from the main negotiating table, where there are, as a very sage mediator once said in a complex mediation, sometimes "too many egos in the room". Talking direct to the lawyers on the other side openly and without any clients present often opens up a route to resolving intricate and delicate points of disagreement. Neither side has to "showboat" to their clients and there is less chance of being side tracked by a lack of understanding of a technical legal issue.

However there is a limit to this flexibility and it pays to recognise it. Each party to a negotiation will have some issues or points that for whatever reason, cultural or business, they will not change come hell or high water. It maybe to do with their brand or market position, or just an immutable policy. I recall one company which was party to a negotiation of a complex contractual joint venture that set a certain limit of liability and would not budge. They would walk away from the deal rather than concede this issue, though on any other points they would compromise.

So working out as soon as possible during the negotiation what these "walk away" issues are is essential. There are often very few such absolutely critical points, but once recognised there is little point wasting time trying to change them.

These issues, like brick walls, will not move or go away, or be watered down. Like the wolf in the fairy tale of the three little pigs you can huff and you can puff but you won't blow them down. So work out if you are able to accept them, and if you can don't waste energy on them and focus on things that can be changed.

  

Brevity in drafting is a blessing and far less open to misinterpretation. I was once asked why use “in the event that” when “if” sufficed. Good point. Long sentences tend to lead to confusion.

Thomas Jefferson said "The most valuable of all talent is that of never using two words when one will do".

I saw a memorandum from Winston Churchill to his War Cabinet this week. He said most papers were “far too long” which means “energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points”.

He advocated the main points being set out in “short, crisp paragraphs” with detailed analysis in appendices and removing woolly phrases like “consideration should be given to the possibility of”. He did after all have a country to run and a world war to win.

Churchill’s books like his works on the history of the Second World War illustrate his approach to clarity of drafting.

All of this holds true today. An analysis of  legal cases on IT law related subjects in the English courts shows the judges having a field day on imprecise and overly complex clauses, often coming to a conclusion that may well not have been intended by either of the parties to the contract concerned.

The same is true of reports and notes of advice. If they are long and complex not only is there a good chance they will be misunderstood by the recipients, but it is also an indication of unclear thinking.

I will keep this week’s post short and to the point and encourage an economic and succinct approach to the drafting of documents by lawyers and other professionals.

​I was planning to go on holiday recently and working hard to get those precious few days off. Then I took the dog for a walk/run - and fell over a tree root in the local woods. I was running quite quickly and was attached to the dog by an extendable lead that accelerated my progress towards the hard forest floor.

As I fell I had visions of hospitals and cancelled vacations. Fortunately I managed to rollover and escape with minor cuts and bruises. I was probably instinctively helped by years of martial arts training when I was younger where you learnt to fall without hurting yourself almost before you learnt how to take down an opponent.

It occurred to me afterwards that "learning to fall" or "learning to fail" is a necessary part of professional working life. It is inevitable that not everything will always go right. It is not the falling or the failure that is the issue. To some extent it is inevitable. It is how we react and recover, avoid being damaged by the fall and also learn from the experience that really matters.

Many very successful people failed first, often a number of times, before achieving great things. At Fred Astaire's first screen test the casting director concluded "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Not Handsome. Can dance a little." Steven Spielberg was rejected by the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts multiple times. After Harrison Ford's first small movie role, an executive took him into his office and told him he'd never succeed in the movie business!
I found this great quote in an article by Michael Michalko, an expert on creative thinking: "Failure is only a word that human beings use to judge a given situation. Instead of fearing failure, we should learn that failures, mistakes and errors are the way we learn and the way we grow. Many of the world's greatest successes have learned how to fail their way to success." 

Admittedly not all of this passed through my mind as I tumbled to the ground, but it did make me think and eventually to write this blog. The dog by the way hardly seemed to be bothered or even to notice my fall from grace - the faithless creature! 

I was sitting in an office late one evening this week checking contract documents for a bid, as tends to be our lot as professionals, when my legal colleague commented that here we were again as well trained legal experts formatting documents late at night.

I was very sympathetic as I had just spent a frustrating half hour using Format Painter to persuade a reluctant Word to do consistent numbering. By the way this is a great "cheat" to use which avoids getting stuck in intricate numbering commands.

However my colleague was right. Why were highly trained professionals whose task is to draft and manage risk instead doing complex word processing tasks? We were in fact fortunate to be assisted by a technical professional document author who had uncovered (and fixed) a document which bizarrely altered text when you put the document in print mode. 

Do you remember how there used to be secretaries, even in in house legal practices who could do this sort of thing? It is years since I had access to a secretary, and then she was shared with three other fee earners. These women and men earned their money by taking the organisational burden off lawyers and other professionals and were experts in typing and in Word processing and the other administrative tasks of an office. The stereotype of making tea and primly taking dictation was far from the real truth and value of these support staff.

I am not suggesting  a return to this world which for many of us has gone for ever. What I am advocating, as we all look at how roles can be broken down into their constituent tasks to re-engineer professional work, using technology and lean thinking, is that maybe just maybe we should recognise the value of professional support services more than we do.

This would allow the professionals to concentrate on the added value tasks that we seek to carry out in order to preserve our role in our online world. Richard Susskind argues persuasively in his book "The Future of the Professions" that "there will be an "incremental transformation" in the way that we produce and disseminate expertise in society" which will eventually result in the "dismantling of the traditional professions".

I agree, but as expertise floats up the value chain and becomes more rarified, somebody or some technology still has to make document formatting work, and it should not be the legal or financial experts on a transaction. And (just to be controversial) somebody or perhaps some computer programme or app, or maybe even a robot, has to make the tea and order the pizzas!