Not the Thumbs Up Again!
As it turns out, not only can the “thumbs up” serve as a hostile, passive-aggressive dig, but it can also be a legally binding form of agreement! That, at least, is what Canadian farmer Chris Achter discovered after inadvertently selling his flax seed harvest for far too low a price by thumbs-upping a contract that was texted to him when he believed (if you believe him) that his thumbs up was merely acknowledging the delivery of that contract for him to review.
There is a lot to unpack here…
If you rewind 50 years, contracts were prepared by lawyers, probably sent by certified mail, carefully reviewed, and then signed and countersigned in ink. In fact, it was probably worse than that, but I wasn’t around 50 years ago (thank God).
Fast forward to 20 or so years ago, when our CLO Taylor was getting his start in the legal profession, people were using computers, but everything was still printed out, signed in ink, and kept in binders that were then stored in fireproof datarooms with filing cabinets. Yes, physical datarooms. For example, a storage shed off of I-275 in Tampa where a lawyer getting his start in the legal profession, in full suit and tie, in 90-degree heat and infinite humidity, would sift through boxes of unorganized documents trying to make sense of the chaos, drenched in sweat and fueled by black coffee. Not that Taylor would know anything about this.
And as for closings? Those didn’t happen over phone calls or email. They took place in person, in actual closing rooms, where rows of accordion file collators lined long tables, each stuffed with original, hand–signed documents, with associates tracking every signature, version, and exhibit, subsisting on chewing tobacco and black coffee, while the partners and executives waited for the all clear.
Today, however, we can close a deal without ever touching a pen or paper thanks to email and Docusign and apparently even with a simple emoji (and also without the coffee, but what fun would that be?). Convenient, sure, but at what cost?
While technology removes friction from the world, enabling us to run faster, when you run faster, you are also more likely to make a mistake. Further, that it’s in pursuit of speed and efficiency that we revert to shorthand like emojis, but a consequence of shorthand is ambiguity. And moving quickly amid ambiguity is what sets the stage for disaster.
At the risk of revealing too much, one thing that we do at our office is not respond to a proposal or counterproposal from someone for at least 24 hours even if we know immediately what we think our response is going to be. Part of the reason for that is that we want the other side to think we’re really thinking about it, but no matter what you think about something, you should also always take the time to think about it again. Just because technology has given you the power to respond immediately, it doesn’t mean you should.
– Tim
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