​I was talking to a new contact last week, also in the business consultancy world, about the different ways of effectively resolving commercial disagreements. These should take into account the nature of the issue and even the culture of the parties concerned in order to arrive at a true meeting of minds and hence an effective resolution. It reminded me of the absolute (in my view) need to reach a proper in depth understanding of the expectations and requirements of the parties to a commercial IT outsourcing service contract when the agreement is negotiated and formed. This can greatly enhance successful delivery and help avoid any dispute in the first place. Many years ago, I attended an IT law conference in London where a very experienced technology lawyer explained during a panel discussion the approach he and his firm had taken to a very large and significant UK government IT outsourcing negotiation involving multiple parties. He said that acting for the customer they presented a “polite brick wall” to all suppliers listening carefully to their concerns and as it turned out legitimate issues, but not changing anything in the contract in response. Guess what happened? The contract delivery was something of a disaster resulting in numerous disputes and failing to achieve the intended benefit for the public sector.
 
And this attitude is not confined to government customers. I once acted for a supplier in the negotiation of a major outsourcing contract in the private sector with a major player in the pharmaceutical industry. We raised a number of comments intended to enable our client supplier to better understand the ask, and also negotiate a more reasonable deal. We all travelled hopefully to the Midlands for a discussion with the customer and their American legal firm. We were put firmly in our place mainly by the lawyers - all our comments were rejected as were our attempts to gain a greater understanding of the requirements. The contract was eventually awarded to a large Indian supplier, presumably the cheapest bidder. Through some strange coincidence I subsequently spoke to a consultant who told me how the project had gone badly wrong. It had been reallocated to a different supplier to sort the problems out at great expense and with resulting significant delay. Whilst I don’t know the details, I doubt this was due to the competency or otherwise of the original supplier, but rather to a lack of clarity as to what was required mapped onto the capabilities and offerings of the contractor. This was probably coupled to its inability to make the anticipated profit margin.
 
AI suggests that “a "polite brick wall" refers to a respectful yet firm resistance to unreasonable requests or expectations, often encountered in UK construction projects.” All well and good but what if those “requests” are to understand or even dare one say it improve the contracting model, and the “expectations” are merely to make a reasonable commercial return? There are of course many reasons why there are so many failed outsourcing contracts. See this SCL article Whose fault is it anyway? Why complex IT and outsourcing projects fail which provides a balanced view of the customer and the supplier causes and who might be to blame. Interestingly they include on the customer side “The customer does not know what it wants or how the IT system will meet its objectives” and on the supplier side “The supplier overpromises”. However, a reason why both parties may be at fault is that “The requirements of the new system are generally not specified to a level of detail to allow development until after the supplier has been selected”. 
 
And it is not as if guidance, knowledge and experience is not now available in this more mature IT outsourcing market. See, for example, this thorough and well thought through, Deloitte document The Outsourcing Handbook A Guide to Outsourcing. This sagely observes that outsourcing is a challenging relationship – “”Outsourcing Failure Stories” is its own Google keyword. The potential to achieve significant savings through outsourcing is well known. However, there are a number of examples where companies hit obstacles, get entangled in complexities and simply get it wrong.”  It comments on the negotiation phase that “Throughout all of this activity the client should remember that the objective is not a deal with the smallest possible initial price but a deal which provides optimal long term benefit to both parties.”  It also points out the importance of a “Contract for Outputs” where from the customer’s perspective service descriptions “should be described in terms of the end outputs that the client requires …which allows the vendors to develop the most appropriate solution.” Too often customers in my experience fail to recognise the skills and ability of suppliers and try to tell them not just what they want but exactly how to deliver it.
 
What amazes me is that despite all these war stories, guidance and advice nobody seems to have learnt the lessons of history. Customers still look for the lowest price during procurement processes and hardball suppliers, forcing them to “cost scrub” and reduce their final bid price, whilst refusing to “open their kimono” and tell them what they really, really want. Suppliers still sign up to deals knowing they don’t have a true understanding of the requirements and hence the solution and cannot deliver on time, sometimes if at all. They optimistically hope they will somehow be able to sort it out “in the wash” and at some stage return to profitability for the project because of the new work opportunities the customer must eventually provide them.
 
The solution in my view is to abandon traditional vendor/supplier relationships and seek instead to establish a strategic outsourcing partnership between the customer and supplier, recognising that their mutual success is a common goal. See, for example, this article 13 steps to building and maintaining a successful outsourcing partnership which discusses “how to build and maintain a durable outsourcing partnership” observing “Finding an effective way of working when the fundamental principles of the sector, organisation and even the individuals you’ll be collaborating with, may be significantly different from your own, so it can be challenging and may well be a constant juggling act throughout the relationship.”
 
See also this Forbes article How To Create A Successful Outsourcing Partnership which proposes that for successful outsourcing “the essential concept here is that of a partnership. If you consider your outsourcing choice as a service provider, everything can go wrong. I believe you want to choose someone who has a similar philosophy to yours so you can trust them to fulfill your vision”. It then proposes what to consider in this context including:
 

• Cultural Proximity - how like-minded you and your partner are. Do they share your worldview?
• Trust and Communication - choose the best-fitting partner you can find — and then trust them.
• Flexibility - You’re likely going to have to evolve from your initial concept.

 
Ultimately and perhaps ironically in my view outsourcing success comes down to relationships and people, not AI driven technology. We should be the opposite of “polite brick walls”. As professional legal and commercial advisers on outsourcing deals our roles should be to enhance and promote understanding, rather than be pleasant but unmovable. We should listen, engage, construct, be creative and adapt, and advise our clients to do the same, rather than just deflect nicely. Above all outsourcing contracts should be seen as constructive and evolving partnerships, not rigid vendor/purchaser relationships.
 
As Mother Teresa said "I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things". 

In my Tai Chi classes we start off with standing meditation and then do some quite serious stretching to develop greater flexibility. It works – whilst I can’t quite emulate the man in the picture (yet), I can now touch my toes for the first time in years! In July of this year I wrote a blog Time Management and Beyond where I proposed that working life is not just about organising the time given to us in the home or work office, but rather  what we pay attention to in our busy days. I have been thinking more about this as I balance the various aspects of my working and leisure life and am coming to the conclusion that in addition to focusing on the right things, the modern professional and business leader needs to be truly flexible in dealing with the inevitable flow of events coming at you from all directions during an average working day. 
 
Gone many many aeons ago are the times when you commuted to an office building in the City every day, got a coffee, chatted to fellow workers, retreated to your private office to read the newspaper and then the post – called in your secretary (remember those) to dictate some pressing letters, chatted to a few colleagues – then went off to a boozy business lunch. The afternoon involved some telephone calls and a team discussion followed by a partners meeting; then off to Waterloo to take the 18.30 train back to Surrey. I am exaggerating to prove a point, but working life then was more structured and to an extent predictable.
 
Picture the equivalent scene now. You arrive as the leader of a professional team at the London office clutching your Costa Coffee cappuccino for one of your two or three days a week there. The company policy is bookable hotdesking, but you have not bothered to book one because your team usually find workspaces together. However, now that annoying PA (the last vestige of the secretary but now reserved for senior management) from the US head office has booked out all of your normal desks for the visiting American sales team and is guarding them zealously – even though they will not arrive until after midday. You finally find a vacant space on the other side of the office and have just opened up your laptop when one of your team appears and asks if they can have just 5 minutes of your time on a thorny and urgent contract issue. Your coffee is now getting cold. 30 minutes later you just have time to log in for your monthly department meeting. During that you note your 100 unread emails for the day, 10 Teams meeting invites, and a rather annoying IM from the cost-conscious finance director claiming to have found an AI programme that will replace your team at a fraction of the cost.
 
What I suggest that this means in our present-day volatile business world is that a key skill set for managers and indeed for employees is flexibility and adaptability. See this interesting McKinsey article Developing a resilient, adaptable workforce for an uncertain future which suggests that “A key task for 21st-century leaders is to develop their own capacity for change while also fostering resilience and adaptability in others across the organization.” This is not easy as “Human beings have a natural affinity for order, predictability, and control. They will do everything they can to avoid chaos, uncertainty, and volatility.” However, leaders and employees need to be resilient and adaptable – “the ability to view change as a challenge or an opportunity to bounce forward.” It then proposes four actions leaders can take “so they and their workforces can successfully weather even the most extreme periods of volatility”.
 

• Set a compass or North Star to help people move in a common direction.
• Build a psychologically safe community, not just a workforce.
• Ensure that they, themselves, are demonstrating resilience and adaptability and serving as role models for others.
• Encourage employees to learn and build these skills in groups.

 
It concludes we need to be resilient and adaptable to avoid the fate of historical factories. “When electricity was invented and replaced steam machines in factories, it took 30 years before that innovation led to improved efficiency and productivity.”
 
While this Indeed article proposes How to demonstrate adaptability and flexibility at work explaining how they are two different if related skills. When someone is:
 

• adaptable, they have a willingness to change to match different conditions;
• flexible, they can easily adapt to various situations and respond well to new environments

 
It proposes that there are key skills to be: 
 

• adaptable including communication, problem solving and teamwork;​
• flexible including the mentality to embrace change, taking on new responsibilities and  working with new people.

 
For me the key here is not to see yourself in the second example above as overwhelmed or driven by the events which occur. Instead embrace the opportunity for variety, continuous learning and open communication. Cultivate a growth mindset in yourself and your team – see Carol Dweck’s great book Mindset. Foster continuous learning and promote experimentation making yourself available to your team. Imagine in the example if the manager had told their colleague with a problem to go away and come back later while he or she caught up with their emails and drank their coffee.
 
To some extent being flexible and adaptable is a little bit scary because it inevitably involves some measure of loss of control. See this Harvard Business Review article written just after the pandemic The Secret of Adaptable Organizations Is Trust which postulates “a “less is more” approach to adaptability, where management loosens their hold and gives the organization the freedom it needs to work effectively.” To some extent this mirrors a crisis mode. “With the company in a sink-or-swim situation, the employees pull together and develop the ability to surf.” It proposes that “The problem is, tightening controls often stifles the organization. In fact, what management should do is loosen their hold and give the organization the freedom it needs to work effectively. The idea is that management should stick to defining what they want to achieve and let the organization focus on how to achieve it.”
 
This relaxation and resulting flexibility would be anathema to the office worker in the more traditional example I first set out above. However nowadays this sort of flexibility and adaptability is I suggest a professional imperative.
 
“The best leaders don't know just one style of leadership - they're skilled at several, and have the flexibility to switch between styles as the circumstance dictates.” Daniel Goleman the American psychologist and author.
 
“To maintain balance while constantly shifting body weight is an art few ever acquire.” Bruce Lee.
 
“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.” Albert Camus.