One of the most interesting things I got from the recent World Commerce & Contracting Summit in Sydney was the report and session run by Dr Sara Cullen of Cullen Group on my Contract Management Style profile. If you haven't done one before, I recommend it.

My results are above, showing how I compare to the average person.

I wasn't particularly surprised that I scored highly for my focus on the relationship development, problem-solving, entrepreneur and scanner categories. They are all things that we have had to focus on when looking to build and grow a new business that intersects complex legal and compliance workflows with fast-moving technological advances. The need to talk to people, understand their problems, and match them to technologies that can solve them is constant – and what I enjoy.

I did pause to think about my relatively low scores for Organizer and Protector and whether those are things that I need to score more highly on.

Where I landed is that I don't, for two reasons.

Firstly, I actually am, by nature, an organised person. I like to have systems that do things automatically and make it easy to find things when needed. I don't worry about these things because we have good systems.

With help from The SharePoint Agency, our SharePoint site is really comprehensive and well structured. We've overlaid OnePlace Solutions on top, meaning it is really easy to save our emails and documents into SharePoint and find them again. I file nearly all my emails, which is getting easier and easier. I'm also finding that Microsoft CoPilot is making things even more straightforward. Recently, CoPilot has been able to find me things instantly without the need to navigate through our SharePoint structure to find something. It's often also been able to find the piece of information within that document that I wanted too.

Protector is somewhat similar. I've been a lawyer for over 27 years. Compared to many entrepreneurs, I'm likely to be much more aware of where many of our contract risks will be and how to cover them off. Again, in large part, we do this by systematising things. We create templates that we can reuse and that reflect how we work and what we can and can't do so it is clear to both parties in advance. We improve and automate processes where we can. I recently went through our insurance renewal and used it as an opportunity to make some further improvements in a few places so I can worry less about issues arising or how to deal with them.

So, how does this apply to you and your larger organisations?

What about you and your larger organisations? Perhaps you have much higher scores in the organiser and protector categories, and perhaps these reflect that your systems in these areas are not as strong, so you need to think more about them?

I’m lucky that in our small company, my co-founder is also exceptionally well organised and an excellent lawyer. But when you have many more people, you'll also have a broader range of capabilities. Some people will be very organised and good at considering risks and implementing safeguards. Others will be terrible.

We know those people. They don't like to write things down, they could save things anywhere (most likely just leaving it in their inbox), and who knows how they name their files?!

The thing is that automation will have an outsized positive impact for these people and those they work with. They'll be able to maintain all their strengths in relationship development and problem-solving, for example, while the system cleans up around them automatically. For example (referring to tools that the organisation already has or could easily afford):

• They can record their meetings with Teams Premium, which can prepare a transcript and even summarise what is needed.
• A company like The SharePoint Agency could automate the creation of templated SharePoint sites, which is a game changer. With a few clicks, a site can be set up automatically with all the right folders in the right place. You don't have to rely on someone to do this themselves wherever they feel like, and the inevitable Teams sprawl that will result.
• OnePlace Solutions makes it much easier for people to file their emails and attachments into SharePoint as they send and receive them.
• Even better, if you have the OnePlace Solutions email tracking add-on, people in the team who receive the same emails can see when emails have been filed and when they haven't. People who are good at filing can happily do that, and others will see that it's been done. People who are not keen on filing might be encouraged to do the ones that are left. Those with a CRM like Hubspot will also benefit from the auto-filing of emails it provides.
• Using an automation tool like Cognito Forms, people can quickly prepare contracts from a form inside SharePoint. It will take them much less time to enter the information (particularly if integrated with other systems), and the assembled document will ALWAYS be the latest and most up-to-date template.
• Even better, the assembled document can be automatically named in a consistent way and saved to a consistent location using Microsoft's PowerAutomate.
• The organisation's delegated authorities, which few may read and understand, can be built into an automated workflow (Cognito Forms or PowerAutomate) so that the right things happen automatically. Simple contracts won't need approval and can go straight out (speeding up business for sales – who doesn't love that?), while those that do will be automatically sent to the right people.
• If you use a digital signing tool, such as AdobeSign, agreements can be sent automatically to the right people using PowerAutomate, who can be guided to sign in all the right places without being able to make changes or lose pages. The tardy people get reminders until they sign, and then everyone gets a copy automatically. A signed copy can also be returned directly to a contract library using PowerAutomate so that it won't get stuck in someone's Outlook.
• At the same time, the document is saved, any of the data that was used to generate or approve it can also be stored in SharePoint columns (again, Microsoft's PowerAutomate), so as well as having the benefit of full-text search, you can also do more structured reporting and analytics using PowerBI.
• Microsoft CoPilot is getting better and better, and it will increasingly do more of this itself and fill in the gaps.

Notice how much of the above can all be done automatically, in the background, without the user having to do anything extra to learn any new system or to think or worry about it particularly…

Relationship Development, Problem-Solving, Entrepreneurship and Scanning are the things that technology isn't going to replace

Given that technology is really filling in the gaps that organisations have in organising and risk mitigation, organisations will be able to (and will need to) focus on the more human aspects of contracting. These are areas where a lot of contract value is currently lost and can be gained.

With good systems in place, you can likely reduce the amount of mental energy you burn worrying about organising things and the risks of things going wrong while focusing on the things that will create greater long-term value.

If you're interested in help with getting your own systems set up to help organise and protect your organisation and free your team up for the more valuable activities, get in touch. We can help you do most of this with your existing systems, like Microsoft 365 and a few add-ons.

If you've got gaps in scanning – knowing what is out there and what is coming, problem-solving and finding new ways to get better outcomes, that's our strength, and we'd love to help you with that too.