Putting the 'Intellectual' back in 'Professional'
Getting paid just for thinking is going to be what it sounds like.
Several years ago late on a monsoon evening like this one, I sat by myself in office long after my team had left.
It wasn’t for the reason of, say, an investment banker and 3 funds coming together to decide tomorrow is when everything needs to finish.
6 years into starting, growing and running a boutique law firm, I was getting uncomfortable with one of the long running paradoxes in the business of consulting.
How we create value does not match how we make money.
We are charging for our time, but getting paid for our expertise.
Even with a clear understanding of what the “value” of your work is, the way to ensure you make that money is by ensuring you (and your team) give enough time to the matter. Your clients know this too.
Nobody like to say it out loud, but that’s how it works.
In fact, clients are too cognisant of the the “value versus charging” paradox, which is why they live with it, at least to a point.
How do you make people spend more time on things?
Simple. You make them read more, write more, communicate more often, format documents perfectly, run reviews through multiple layers of heirarchy, and ask everyone to be available 24 x 7 or else.
You build an ecosystem of “busy work” around your premium charging model.
Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash
Nobody’s fooled though.
All the suits, champagne glasses, plush conference rooms, armies of associates, bouquets of analysts, all-hands calls and multiple iterations of documents, aren’t what clients pay for.
They pay for insurance. For expertise, for the brains behind the operation. Being able to sleep at night.
Knowing the best minds in the subject have put their minds to their problem.
Why does the edifice stand?
As a proud builder of this paradoxical edifice, my thoughts go like this:
Things ancillary to the main objectives have acquired a life of their own.
Our charging model means that we write more, write unnecessarily, have more to read, read less efficiently, and then have little time left for what actually creates value, the thinking that goes into work. The real shit.
Thinking that lead to things like: solving actual problems, intervening in correct ways, and optimising for client’s interests.
While the best minds at the top of the hierarchy are forced to take on more of the thinking work than they should, those at the bottom and middle are doing less thinking work than they should.
Since everyone is charging for time irrespective of what work they do, matters that are more high stakes or high expertise have to be staffed with bigger teams irrespective of how much thinking work is actually involved. And no matter the quality of that thinking.
What if we could all spend more of our time thinking, and less on everything else?
Photo by Bethany Legg on Unsplash
We would beat competition, and deliver excellence in a highly efficient manner.
Our teams would be trained to think from day one, and rise quickly in efficacy, allowing us to take on more customers faster.
Specialisation would take less time to seed, and young professionals would live highly fulfilling lives.
Isn’t brain-work what we got into this for in the first place?
Looking at the all the hours we bill versus value we create, in an ideal world we would:
Spend less time reading and writing.
Read and write more effectively.
Spend more time talking, mentoring, meeting, negotiating, appearing, but most of all:
Spend more time thinking.
Its easy to put it this way, and but back when we started, it was easier said than done.
Now, with developments in language processing, we are closer to going back to doing what we should, and being able to charge for value.
This is cause for celebration, not worry.
This new world will be more fulfilling, because it will change the way we work.
There will be no conflicts between the value we add, and what we charge for our work.
Young professionals will be trained to excel in the things that matter early, instead of slaving away to justify value created elsewhere.
Less drudgery, more satisfaction means more creativity, motivation, innovation and commitment to quality.
This is why I believe that we are now entering a golden age for professionals.
Some updates on Tipsy Tom:
While we are putting finishing touches on v3 of Tipsy Tom, it is now open for you to access and use.
If v1 was a tent, and v2 a room, v3 feels more like home.
The possibilities continue to be endless.
v1 and v2 had 150+ of you who tried, tested, thought about and encouraged us to build the features that you see in v3.
Before I go, I must credit our team, especially the non-lawyers.
They have taught me that lawyers like to speak, while builders let their work speak.
I try now not to be the worst of both.