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Look. Saying “Now is not the right time” can be perfectly reasonable. Sometimes… Although not many times. When I hear it from clients, I wonder… What exactly are you waiting for? A dispute? A claim? To have given away rights costing millions “by accident”? I don’t know… Not my personal money, so no comment. But… Of course… At one moment they come asking for help. I know that they’ll come. With some contracts, with some projects, I even have a calendar bid on when the bomb will explode… because the chaos is inevitable by design… You see it miles aways… I mean… months and years away. it’s not any special ability… I can’t predict the future. I just deduct the inevitable. Anyway. What I don’t understand is the very late moments. The last minute. The rush. It’s simple poor planning. Look. If the project is operating. The CEO and team are competent. And nothing appears to be on fire… Adding costs is considered a waste. Nobody calls a Board meeting to announce: “Good news. In six months, we are going to send a letter that will seriously damage our contractual position… the CJV is going to scr*w us. We should probably prepare now.” So, what’s the right moment? Easy. The moment before you need it will always feel too early. The moment after you need it will always be too late. That is the idea behind Before You Send. A simple retainer giving your SPV access to someone who has run these projects, sat in the CEO’s chair and seen how apparently reasonable decisions become very expensive problems. Not another consultant sitting in meetings. In fact, prevention is a terrible consultancy business… you make more money when they call you in a rush… but my mojitos in Fiji become less predictable. So, if you wish an experienced second pair of eyes before an important letter, notice, strategy or response goes out. The right moment is now. What exactly are you waiting for? A disaster? Click below to discuss Before You Send.
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Look. The phrase “It’s only a letter” can be the most dangerous in PPP language. Sometimes, it genuinely is only a letter. An update. A clarification. Something routine. But sometimes, that letter gives away a position worth millions. Or… It accepts a risk nobody intended to accept. Or… It creates a precedent that will be quoted back to you two years later by someone charging $900 an hour. Or it says something perfectly reasonable… In precisely the wrong way. The problem is that you normally...
Yeah. This is what I was told recently at a networking event. “Too expensive for a poor contractor like me.” I reckon. I can be very expensive… and, on top of that… invisible. For someone managing a multibillion-dollar project, spending $500k, $1 million or $2 million to prevent problems can feel very expensive. Yeah. Until they have a $100–500 million problem. A problem that could have been prevented, or at least minimised, with the right strategies in place. Suddenly, that “expensive...
Don’t write me anymore about it. Of course, it was not mine. Such a good email could only be written by a genius copy-writer. My genius is in infrastructure. Still, very criticised, by the way... That text, with the few modern touches was written more than 110 years ago. And still absolutely valid. And still creates emotions impossible to ignore. I hope that you learnt something and that generated in you the will to become that leader. If you do want it. If you want to success in your...