Deal World Rule #7 - Simplicity

The Simplicity Principle. One of the maxims we live by in the WieseLaw Contract Studio is – “Simple, But Not Easy.” In the world of deal making, there are far too many people who have an unfortunate talent for making things overly complex.

You should do the opposite – bring refreshing simplicity to your deals by doing the following:

  • Have Courage. Reduce to what is needed. People, especially lawyers, often feel the need to overcomplicate deals. Have the courage to include only what is needed.
  • Shorter is better. Although it is harder to craft short, tight and concise deals, we know they are more effective. As Blaise Pascal* once famously said:
“I'm sorry this letter is so long, I did not have time to make it shorter.”

*This quote, in one form or another, has also been variously attributed to Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, Voltaire, Winston Churchill, Marcel Proust, Rudyard Kipling, Henry David Thoreau, Abe Lincoln, Ben Franklin, and Larry Thomas, among others.
  • Patience. Go Slow to Go Fast – Take time on the front end to get all the needed understanding and information to determine what is important and what is unimportant. This is the step most often ignored.
  • Design. Create a deal structure and process that is designed to support the clearest deal making.
  • Experience. Leverage your lessons of the past and apply them forward toward creating a deal that focuses on what is important and not on what is unimportant.
  • Deal Maps. Map out the deal with a picture. Work through the actual deal from start to finish with a deal map.
  • Listen. Understand and factor in the interests of the other parties.
  • Capture all interests.

Some of these ideas are discussed by John Maeda in The Laws of Simplicity.

Do you embrace the power of simplicity in your deal making? If so, congratulations. If not, start today.

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