In the Brothers Grimm fairy tale the evil queen asks: Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is fairest of all?
 
I have had a busy and varied week of meetings - workshops, internal meetings and customer negotiations. All have been different and my role has varied, sometimes leading and sometimes supporting. Some were easy others quite difficult.
 
One thing that struck me thinking back on the week is how hard it is to know how I came across to others in those meetings. To see yourself as it were in the mirror. It may be as a good and constructive contributor or an awkward and difficult person.
 
And especially in England, where we are rather reserved, nobody tells you - good or bad - and you can't always keep asking for feedback - people will think you a bit narcissistic. Many years ago, I was made a fire officer and had to make a short presentation to the rest of the European legal department of the global oil company I worked for. Afterwards a senior American lawyer thanked me and said I had a talent for presenting, which I had never realised and was then able to use and improve.
 
So how can we all be more aware of how we come across in meetings? I remember sitting at the head of a long table in the dining room of a Scottish hunting lodge, which did have a mirror at the other end of the table so you could see yourself as the host of a formal dinner and what was going on. But that is not really possible in business meetings.
 
Here is an article with some practical advice including: Self-awareness is really about seeing yourself for all of the gifts you might not know you have, as well as the parts of you that aren’t perfect. And here is a second article that suggests: Self-awareness helps us discover our talents. It points us in a direction for growth, encourages us to learn, and aids us in assessing difficult situations.
 
I think that perhaps self-awareness is another of those attributes that can be developed, but only once its existence is recognised and acknowledged. I suspect we can all think of people who appear to be supremely unconscious of the effect they are having – by, for example, talking too much and not letting others get a word in edgeways.
 
And maybe this is a clue – look at others behaviour in meetings, good and bad, and consciously try to reflect the good and avoid the bad. As Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, says: Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

​I remember writing a history essay at school on the difference between the French Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin who in the seventeenth century were senior figures in the church and state, both becoming chief minister in the French Government with Mazarin succeeding Richelieu. Cardinal Richelieu has also been made famous in fiction in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
 
Richelieu as I recall it had a very different approach to diplomacy, preferring a direct route to solving a diplomatic problem, whereas Mazarin was much more cunning and devious in seeking a solution - His modest manner contrasted with the imperiousness of Richelieu.
 
I was reminded of this different approach recently. I was asked to attend a meeting of four people set up to determine who should be allocated a particular task on a team. I was very clear who I thought this should be for various reasons, but was not the final decision maker. By accident I met one of the other attendees in a coffee bar – again not the decision maker, but somebody who could be called a key influencer. I explained my views, making it very clear I totally recognised I was only an adviser.
 
He obviously listened and spoke to the actual decision maker because the meeting was cancelled and the person I had supported given the task. I realised that I had achieved what I thought was the correct approach – but indirectly without the need for a meeting and without any possible confrontation.
 
A Harvard Business School article suggests that: When direct methods of communication and management don't work, you may have better luck with a more subtle approach. Advocates of indirect influence assert that it's often better to let people figure things out for themselves, come to their own conclusions, and take initiative on their own. This article offers six alternate techniques for getting your message across. Among them: spend more time listening than talking, play up any similarities with your audience to increase rapport, and use stories and metaphors to put things in context.
 
This is also a cultural difference, with Western Anglo-Saxon business methods being more direct than say those in Japan where working out by whom and how a decision is going to be made can be a quite complex and subtle challenge. The same is true of other cultural differences in the business world. The French and the Americans have always to my mind had different approaches to business. I have a former colleague who runs a consultancy focused on explaining to French business people how to deal with Americans.
 
As Cardinal Mazarin said The French are nice people. I allow them to sing and to write, and they allow me to do whatever I like.

I changed my car a couple of weeks ago – same brand but updated and different model, so I was generally used to most of the controls. This card though has a sim card in it which allows you to connect to the Internet and to use Google maps for navigation on the car’s systems, which is very useful.
 
However, that’s not all. There is a new green lit button in the controls on the roof. When you press it, a small panel opens and reveals a red lit button. If you press this you call the manufacturers call centre directly. They speak to you, but if there is no answer because, for example, you have driven off the road and are sitting unconscious in a ditch – or even are being car jacked – they send all of the emergency services to your location.
 
This all works using a second “secret” sim card hidden somewhere in the car. And it seems a really great safety feature which I welcome.
 
It did however make me think more about big data and the internet of things where we are all connected by these sorts of devices. The downside is that our privacy is once again under potential attack. I may not care but somebody can know where I and my car are at any given time. I am in effect giving up some of my privacy in return for an acknowledged benefit –not that I have much control over the sweeping force that is the internet of things.
 
PricewaterhouseCoopers in a report Sensing the Future of the Internet of Things comment that:
 
"IoT is transforming the everyday physical objects that surround us into an ecosystem of information that will enrich our lives. From refrigerators to parking spaces to houses, the IoT is bringing more and more things into the digital fold every day, which will likely make the IoT a multi-trillion dollar industry in the near future."
 
The other challenge is the more that cars are computerised and connected and communicating the more vulnerable they become. Reportedly the theft of cars went down when electronic immobilisers were introduced – and then increased again as hackers found ways to turn them off. I know my new car has all of these security systems but have also bought a stoplock steering wheel lock to act as a physical deterrent.
 
And even more sinisterly hackers may be able to take over “connected cars”.
 
This article discusses the vulnerability of cars nowadays with all of their various IT systems. Teams at various universities bought cars and then plugged their computers into the cars and managed to decode and ultimately hijack the car’s software by listening as the computer systems talked to each other.
 
Still I am going to enjoy and drive my new car regardless because as Bill Gates said: The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don't really even notice it, so it's part of everyday life.
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​Some in house and private practice commercial lawyers see sales departments as a threat and a risk – all they want to do is sell products or services, get their commission and move on to the next opportunity, leaving behind risk and problems for everybody else.
 
I think this is completely wrong. I am a great admirer of the sales people in large IT companies. They have to work very hard to develop relationships with customers, and then when an opportunity comes along, to manage a bid for it and then (for the most professional) guide the contract negotiation process. Without them there would be no business and no IT companies.
 
I thought that law firms and other professional practices would by now match this professionalism in their marketing and sales. They do to some extent, and many if not most large firms now have dedicated and professional marketing teams.
 
However, a few weeks ago I attended a presentation which suggested that professional practices still have some way to go. When partners were asked to comply with a specific assessment and procurement process for a major organisation, some amazingly declined to participate and didn’t “get it”. When told that their relationship partner was the wrong person for this particular client - they refused to change them.
 
This is crazy and so unprofessional – almost arrogant. There is so much they could learn from a sales organisation in a large IT services company. They have a proper sales pipeline using CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems such as salesforce to manage and help develop sales opportunities.
 
They also use another really useful technique or practice which is the development of a relationship matrix showing all of the contacts with the customer categorising them in some way as to develop the sales process. Here is a definition I found that sums up the concept.
 
The relationship matrix diagram is a convenient method of visualizing relationships quickly and definitively. The relationship matrix diagram graphically shows relationships and allows a team or individual to systematically identify, analyze, and rate the presence and strength of relationships within a set of items or between two or more sets of information.
 
 
This could typically identify different categories of people in the potential customer – such as:

• Senior executive
• Decision maker
• Influencers
• Contributor
• Adviser
• Use
• Enabler
• Buyer

 
The individuals in each category can then be matched to a contact person in the professional firm, if there are any.
 
This article gives a more detailed view of account and sales management processes.
 
I suggest that these sorts of processes used in industry can offer lessons to professional practices that will help their marketing and sales process. It’s not just about buying somebody lunch (if their compliance policies permit this!) or holding breakfast seminars. Sales is or should be a professional process.
 
As William Edwards Deming the American engineer, described as the father of quality management, said: “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing”.