I recall being in an intense contract negotiation of a critical outsourcing contract which as a result was heavily lawyered when a lawyer on the opposite side suddenly stopped and said:

"My goodness, we are actually discussing a real legal issue."

He had a point. Much of the time in these situations the law, or another relevant professional discipline like finance, is just a background panoply to clear expression of technical and operational content. The law is very important but its application dependent on accurate expression in a contract schedule and then agreement round the negotiation table.

This in turn means that much of the professional lawyer or contract manager's time is taken up with organisation and management of documents ensuring the correct input, review and dissemination for comments and then discussion. This can be complex and time consuming with large teams on each side and literally hundreds of pages of documents.

And it is this role which requires a skill set not always recognised or valued by professionals other than project managers. A major negotiation needs to be project managed so the legal, financial, technical, operational and other input can be properly articulated, incorporated and agreed.

Whilst supplementary to legal knowledge and negotiation skill, without organisation and working to a basic plan much of the "pure" technical input may not be very effective.

And whilst lawyers and other professionals are often quite good at this project management we perhaps do not make enough of this skill set and either develop or sell it enough. I suggest that all professionals should have some project management training and use the many planning tools that are out there to build on the ability we have often developed in practice to provide a better more valued service to our clients.

I came home one day this week to discover the dog had been left outside which he doesn't like and tends to show his displeasure by barking which annoys the neighbours.

I was just sending a text to our dog walker asking her, politely but firmly, not to do this again when I discovered that somebody else had locked him out with some justification (he had been barking inside for some reason). Don't get me wrong  - he is normally quite well behaved!

However I was really glad I had not sent the text. Our dog walker is excellent, very reliable and the dog really likes her. It made me think how easy it is to blame others when things go wrong. "Why didn't you check that document that went out with errors in it." "Who forgot to book a room and invited the wrong people to this meeting." "We should all have known about that aspect of the client's business before we gave the wrong advice."

As the 2016 Olympics finish in Rio today I found this really apt quote from the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho "It's always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own fault." 

By contrast praise is so much harder to give or come by. As professionals we are, if we are honest, always prone to a little self doubt - it sort of goes with the territory - and we really appreciate and benefit from praise. However it isn't given very often in my experience.

Mark Twain said "I can live two months on a good compliment."

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia from 1762 until 1796 said "I praise loudly. I blame softly".

What a great approach.

I have just watched the Olympic rowing final and seen Great Britain win a silver and a gold in the eights finals. The effort, dedication, commitment and sheer (as the women's eight said) "sassiness" of those performances is outstanding.

It is all about attitude. I once played a tennis final many years ago and in the warm up broke a string in my racket. In those days amazingly I didn't have a spare. As any tennis player will tell you this is a calamity because the ball just does not come off the racket in the same way. I was also playing the club champion who was a very good and elegant player.

In theory that should have been that. But I had just returned for the summer from University where I rowed in the first eight which meant fitness and hard work were second nature. Nothing of course like the Olympic rowers but it gave me a tougher attitude.

Amazingly I went on to win not only the singles but the doubles, all with my broken racket. My point here is not really about my fairly average tennis talent, but that even if you are dealt a poor hand or suffered some bad luck in your job, on a business transaction or contract negotiation, it's not the end of the world.

With the sort of hard work and dedication our Olympic rowers showed today you can still turn this into a success with the right approach and a never give up attitude.

Technology sometimes outstrips practice and yet still we cling to the old ways. In the early days of one of the law firms I worked for the partners would gather in the post room and read all the mail coming in. Every outgoing letter was reviewed by a partner.

Imagine trying to do that with emails and instant messages. The law firm or other professional practice would grind to a halt and lose all of its clients.

Yet there is one area where the past holds obstinately to the present. As we negotiate ever longer contracts running to 700 or 800 pages we all use Word and email exchanges with attachments to develop all of the documents. Track changes and comparison copies allow us to keep track of amendments as the negotiation proceeds.

And it's easy to check what changes are being made to the agreement, do word searches for particular terms and be sure not to miss anything. The terms and conditions and schedules can be kept on a portal such as SharePoint to manage and control versions.

But at the end of the marathon discussions when contract signature approaches what do we all have to do? We go back in technology terms and print all 800 pages, twice for each party! This takes time and even worse on occasions documents can change when put into a print version.

I recall sitting in a boardroom with the champagne on ice and several senior representatives of both sides waiting for a couple of hours while the law firms printed out the contract and brought it over by taxi. Then, at least in theory, the lawyers have to check that the signature copies correspond with the 800 pages of electronic versions - an impossible and thankless task.

Instead surely, surely we should use some form of electronic signature process - Google this phrase and you will see many possible systems that can be used. Then everyone can be sure the documents which are agreed represent the ones negotiated, and the final version can signed and then be maintained electronically.

And by the way this helps save the planet by reducing the amount of trees used!