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Sign Here: The Enterprise Guide to Closing Contracts Quickly: Difference between revisions

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Sign Here: The Enterprise Guide to Closing Contracts Quickly (view source)

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Worse; indemnities and default terms are all catastrophic fire-breaks; last-ditch tools for when everything has gone Pete Tong. But should we focus on life-rafts — or making sure there is enough gas in the tanks and the wings are properly attached to the fuselage? You only need life-rafts once you crash. If the legal service delivery providers do their jobs properly, the plane shouldn’t crash.
Worse; indemnities and default terms are all catastrophic fire-breaks; last-ditch tools for when everything has gone Pete Tong. But should we focus on life-rafts — or making sure there is enough gas in the tanks and the wings are properly attached to the fuselage? You only need life-rafts once you crash. If the legal service delivery providers do their jobs properly, the plane shouldn’t crash.


To obsessing about disaster scenarios in negotiation is like war-gaming divorce outcomes on your wedding day. It may, curiously, make divorce more likely.  
To obsess about disaster scenarios in negotiation is like war-gaming divorce outcomes on your wedding day. It may, curiously, make divorce more likely.  


“I’m talking about a twenty year deal here and you’re stuck on [[Process agent|''process agents'']]? Today? What, are you ''expecting'' to sue me?”
“I’m talking about a twenty year deal here and you’re stuck on [[Process agent|''process agents'']]? Today? What, are you ''expecting'' to sue me?”


Of course, commercial harmony it is not all down to the lawyers — indeed, it’s barely anything to ''do'' with the lawyers: like bad parents, they can only screw it up. Once a contract is inked, sensible business people will not cast it a backward glance.<ref>I have a theory, that I haven’t quite nutted out yet, that a ''draft'' contract plays a totally different role in commercial life to an ''executed'' contract. A draft contract is all about ''signalling'' to your counterparty: commitment, thoroughness, dominance: it is intended primarily to ''persuade''. An executed contract is like a will and testament; instructions on what to do should one or other party unexpectedly die or become incapacitated. In any other case of doubt, the parties should speak to each other.</ref> Well-managed relationships do not descend into acrimony; if you prudently manage the portfolio while the relationship is ongoing, you can distribute the risk of loss should that unwanted eventuality arrive. The way to manage risk is through your ongoing behaviour, not legal documentation, that is to say. Don’t [[Over-engineering|over-engineer]] your contracts. Don’t design your plane to be waterproof in case it falls into the sea. ''Design it so it doesn’t crash.''
Of course, commercial harmony it is not all down to the lawyers — indeed, it’s barely anything to ''do'' with the lawyers: like parents, they can only screw their (brain)children up. Once a contract is inked, sensible business people will not cast it a backward glance.<ref>I have a theory, that I haven’t quite nutted out yet, that a ''draft'' contract plays a totally different role in commercial life to an ''executed'' contract. A draft contract is all about ''signalling'' to your counterparty: commitment, thoroughness, dominance: it is intended primarily to ''persuade''. An executed contract is like a will and testament; instructions on what to do should one or other party unexpectedly die or become incapacitated. In any other case of doubt, the parties should speak to each other.</ref>  
 
Well-managed relationships do not descend into acrimony; if you prudently manage the portfolio while the relationship is ongoing, you can distribute the risk of loss should that unwanted eventuality arrive.  
 
The way to manage risk is through your ongoing behaviour, not legal documentation, that is to say. Don’t [[Over-engineering|over-engineer]] your contracts. Don’t design your plane to be waterproof in case it falls into the sea. ''[[Over-engineering|Design it so it doesn’t crash]].''


===The [[agency problem]] looms large===
===The [[agency problem]] looms large===
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The problem runs deep. Ask those who build and manage legal process: “''do you think there is a problem''?” and “if so, ''what'' do you think is the problem?”  
The problem runs deep. Ask those who build and manage legal process: “''do you think there is a problem''?” and “if so, ''what'' do you think is the problem?”  


Many are so siloed by their own organisations and contrained by their own mandates that they literally ''cannot see the problem at all''. If your remit is “manage credit risk at all costs” then the cost/benefit of the tools you bring to bear is not your problem.
Many are so siloed by their own organisations and constrained by their own mandates that they literally ''cannot see the problem at all''. If your remit is “manage credit risk at all costs” then the cost/benefit of the tools you bring to bear is not your problem.


===Contracts and [[Scale|scalability]]===
===Contracts and [[Scale|scalability]]===
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===Iterative, not revolutionary, change===
===Iterative, not revolutionary, change===
{{Quote|Let go of your inner perfectionist for the first version! Try to adopt an approach of getting something — anything — going and improving it from there. Until you use something in practice, it is adding no value. Only when you use it will you understand what works and what doesn’t.}}
{{Quote|Let go of your inner perfectionist for the first version! Try to adopt an approach of getting something — anything — going and improving it from there. Until you use something in practice, it is adding no value. Only when you use it will you understand what works and what doesn’t.}}
This paragraph — which I’ve just spoiled for you — is worth the cover price alone. Among all the thinkpieces about radical overhaul this is the still small voice of calm. Revolutions don’t stick. They get bastardised, perverted — they turn into grim parodies of what they were trying to fix. But the instinct to reframe your processes to systematically make small tweaks and constant improvements; to invert the usual systemantics that usually complicate a process by engineering a system that by operation makes itself simpler — ''that'' is the revolutionary insight here.  
This paragraph — which I’ve just spoiled for you — is worth the cover price alone. Among all the think-pieces about radical overhaul this is the still small voice of calm. ''Revolutions don’t stick''. They get bastardised, perverted — they turn into grim parodies of what they were trying to fix. But the instinct to reframe your processes to systematically make small tweaks and constant improvements; to invert the usual [[Systemantics: The Systems Bible|systemantics]] that usually complicate a process by engineering a system that by operation makes itself simpler — ''that'' is the revolutionary insight here.  


Its implications should be unsettling: it argues against banner IT implementations, and bleeding edge [[legaltech]], which are not only Hail-Mary bids for revolution, they positively make subsequent iterative adjustment harder. A rigid & immoveable contacting process is a ball and chain, no matter how whizzy the contract tech that ossifies it.  
Its implications should be unsettling: it argues against banner IT implementations, and bleeding edge [[legaltech]], which are not only Hail-Mary bids for revolution, they positively make subsequent iterative adjustment harder. A rigid & immoveable contacting process is a ball and chain, no matter how whizzy the contract tech that ossifies it.  
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