I was in my teens when I first watched the film Shine, which tells the story of David Helfgott, the virtuoso pianist and child prodigy.

A chunk of the film follows Helfgott as he works to master Rachmaninov’s 3rd piano concerto for a competition while studying at the Royal College of Music in London. (Here’s the clip on YouTube.)

During this period, he was taught by the elderly and inspirational Cecil Parkes, who constantly challenged him, not just to play the piece, but to perform it. This quote has stuck with me ever since:

“Your hands must form the unbreakable habit of playing the notes so that you can forget all about them.” Cecil Parkes in Shine

What has this got to do with contracts?

The path that led me to optimising contracts was one littered with frustrations. Frustration with negotiating the same old points. Frustration with dealing with verbose and one-sided contracts. A general sense that, collectively, we were spending a disproportionate amount of time on the seemingly unimportant.

All of which left me with a dose of cognitive dissonance. Because it wasn’t that the contracts were unimportant. No-one was arguing that we should be running everything on a handshake. But, somehow, it could sometimes feel like we were all working frantically to serve the needs of the contract, rather than creating contracts to serve the wider purpose of the parties.

This led me (via a roundabout route) to my current role helping clients to simplify and optimise their standard contracts. And if I’m honest, it can feel a little ironic at times. There I am preaching the importance of purpose, not sweating the small stuff and so on. Yet, my day-to-day work involves a fair amount of navigating and discussing the same routine points in contracts that I used to get so frustrated negotiating.

The big difference? Nowadays, a lot of this effort is focussed on standardising and resolving these issues with clients to avoid them needing to relitigate them all the time – and also to free them up to deal with the more important deal-specific issues.

So – and here comes the clunky connection to that quote – optimising contracts is like learning the notes. It’s about honing the basic building blocks and mastering the techniques you need to rise above them.

And like Cecil Parkes says, if (and only if) you do that, can you start to forget about the notes.

In the context of contracts, performing like a virtuoso can mean different things. It might look like automating processes, cutting down on negotiation, creating better relationships, enabling ‘self-service’, getting the most out of CLM platforms (and AI) and so on. All of these things are made easier if you don’t try and skip the bit where you learn the notes.

Which brings me nicely to another great insight from Shine. Just before Cecil Park says the words I’ve quoted above, there’s this great interaction:

Parkes: The page! For God’s sake, the notes!

Helfgott: I’m sorry sir, I keep forgetting the notes.

Parkes: Would it be asking too much to learn them first?

Helfgott: And then forget them?

Parkes: Precisely!