• Start Here
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Careers
  • Services
    • Overview
    • Managed Legal Services
    • Contract Projects
    • RemarkableX
  • Improving Contracting
    • Scorecard
    • WORKSHOPS
    • Resources
  • Contact Us
    • Get in Touch
About
Login

Arrange a discussion

First name:*
Surname:*
Company:
Telephone:
Email:*
Enquiry:
Please check the required fields.

Thank you for your enquiry, we will be in touch shortly.

Login | Register

 

blog

Login | Register
Cancel search
  • Start Here
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Careers
  • Services
    • Overview
    • Managed Legal Services
    • Contract Projects
    • RemarkableX
  • Improving Contracting
    • Scorecard
    • WORKSHOPS
    • Resources
  • Contact Us
    • Get in Touch

Contracting Mistakes #7

Posted by Alex Hamilton

Every week we talk to in-house legal teams who are being run ragged meeting business demands, finding change to be hard, while facing cost and headcount pressures. 

We also know other teams that are spending their time on what matters, with a contracting process that flies and with a business happy to pay. 

Often what’s stopping teams from getting to this promised land are some simple, understandable, and fixable mistakes. This is the last of a series covering seven common mistakes that we keep seeing; you can see links to all of the posts in the series at the end of this article below.

_________________

#7: Bad incentives

“Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.” - Charlie Munger

Throughout this series of mistakes, I’ve touched on incentives driving suboptimal outcomes. I believe the impact is so profound, I’m dedicating the final mistake to bad incentives. 

Calling out these incentives makes some uncomfortable. This is understandable - no one wants to feel susceptible to outside influences. But even if you are not affected, are you sure that no one else is? 

So what impact can bad incentives have on contracting?

  • If people are afraid of later finger pointing, they will try to ensure that the contract covers every possible issue as strongly as possible and will not send out reasonable terms.
  • If people are rewarded for taking more time, they will not focus on getting rid of obstacles that drag out the contracting process. 
  • If people are valued for their knowledge or fear they will be redundant without it, they will not proactively share their knowledge with others.
  • If people are incentivised to just get the deal done, they will be prone to signing anything and try to sidestep stages in the process.
  • If people are incentivised to protect against risks in their specialist area at all cost, they will impose ridiculous long-winded requirements on the negotiation team. 
  • If people are worried that a change will remove the need for their role, they will fight that change. 
  • If people are rewarded based on measurements, they will game the metrics.

The problem is not just that people respond to incentives, but that different people in your organisation have conflicting incentives and that individual incentives can undermine desirable outcomes for the business as a whole.

Reality is complicated. Your organisation needs contracts to be signed quickly, but it also mustn’t give the farm away. Your organisation needs to comply with laws, but there are other issues that are more fundamental to the deal working. Your organisation needs to have confidence that the agreement will be followed, but the risk balance must work for the other side too.

We need “and” thinking, not “or” thinking; we need to find a way of balancing competing issues; and we need to reflect the balance in how individuals are incentivised.

For starters, perhaps stop giving final decision-making powers to people who can't see the whole picture?

_________________

We are running regular free webinars to discuss the key principles that underpin transforming contracting processes (along with the mistakes to be avoided).

You can also read all the posts in this series:

#1: Accepting no time for the "important, not urgent"

#2: Assuming change requires big bangs  

#3: Legal should stick to the legals

#4: One more lawyer

#5: "Robust" terms 

#6: Deals are different 

#7: Bad incentives 

Online Workshops

Get ready to accelerate your contracting.

Contracts are the lifeblood of your company. They’re also a headache for many in-house teams. Join one of our regular 90-minute workshops to uncover the roadblocks, and start solving this business-critical challenge.

Find out more

The Radiant Scorecard

Measure where you are on your contracting journey and receive a free scorecard report.

See where your company is on the journey to optimal performance and discuss how to improve your commercial contracting capability.

Take a look

Stay Up To Date

The fast tech solution for improving contracts

Add-in tools for Word to speed up working on contracts

More about RemarkableX

Featured Article

Our latest In-House Guide looks at improving contract templates – from why they matter and how to structure contracts, to why your terms should be more reasonable.

Read more

Follow Radiant Law

We use cookies to monitor the performance of our website and to improve user experience. By continuing to browse our site, you agree to our use of cookies.

Learn more

Radiant Law is a UK law firm that supports large companies and banks on their major outsourcing and technology contracts, day-to-day commercial contracts and contract review projects.

sign up to our newsletter

QUICK LINKS

  • Start Here
  • About Us
  • Services
  • Improving Contracting
  • Scorecard
  • Workshops
  • Let's Talk

get closer

RECENT TWEETS

Tweets by radiantlaw

RECENT POSTS

  • Fail fast to learn fast
  • Contracting Mistakes #1
  • Contracting Mistakes #5
  • Contracting Mistakes #6
  • Contracting Mistakes #7
Copyright © 2022 Radiant Law. All Rights Reserved. Privacy | Terms