I can’t remember when I first came across the book, Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff Conniff, but with its bright pink cover and striking title, it’s no surprise it grabbed my attention.
The concept for the book is simple; the author aims to persuade us to learn from the Golden-Age pirates, encouraging us all to “be more pirate” – I thought perhaps it would lean towards the disruptive personal branding notions but was surprised to find it was a far more comprehensive and world-view shifting book.
I came to realize that piracy is not just a metaphor for mission-led businesses and social enterprises, it’s a bloodline. (p223)
Sam Conniff Alende wants to change the world for the better, and he wants us to all change the world for the better too – this is a rallying call for us to all take responsibility and lead change.
It’s no longer enough to resist; it’s time to rebel. (p60)
He draws parallels between the social injustices of their time, and what is happening in our world; then cleverly points out all the ways that the pirates had already provided a solution. We simply need to follow their footsteps.
Along the way they came up with a new social code built on purposeful principles such as fair pay, fair say, social equality, freedom and justice. And rum. (p3)
This book spoke to me on 2 levels. The ways I could apply it to my own brand, and how I could pass on these lessons to my clients.
Rebellion is a core value, both personally and of my business and not just because I have bright pink hair!
In the years that I have been specialising in Leadership, working professionally with clients, doing my own research and reading every book, blog and paper I can get my hands on, I have noticed a common theme.
It is not that our Leadership skills are not keeping up with the modern world, it’s that they are being held back by an old-fashioned workplace culture.
John Maynard Keynes in his essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” suggested that by 2030 society would be working “three hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week”, an assumption based on the fact that as technology improved, and standards of living rose, we would be so productive in such little time that we would use our time outside of work.
Yet that is not the case, nor will it be by 2030.
I will write a separate blog on Keynes’ essay, however the point I am making here is that the workplace, its culture and societies definition of “work ethic” have created a system of “we have always done it this way”.
In this sense, I am in total agreement with the pirates;
Being unconstrained by the way things should be allowed the pirates to experiment with the way things could be. (p33)
Be More Pirate goes on to look at various initiatives brought in by Pirates that echo now in our workplaces, yet somehow in their simplicity and absolute dedication were far more effective than their modern repetitions.
Conniff wants us to do more than just notice and call out the problems we see however, he wants rebellion to truly make a change in the world and he uses the Pirates as that example.
You can’t get stuff done on a big scale by breaking rules alone. You have to provide an alternative. (p80)
Not only, does Conniff suggest, do we need to provide an alternative, we also need to collaborate with like-minded people around us. It is in collaboration, not scale, that we are most likely to succeed.
The Golden-Age pirates knew that in order to take on far greater odds, build an alternative society and turn their mutiny into a success the answer lay in outperforming their rivals, not outgrowing them. (p109)
If you want to grow the effectiveness of your mutiny, you need to know how to collaborate within your own small team and then network with other groups of like-minded people, without falling prey to the outdated idea that bigger is better. (p109)
Within each chapter, Conniff offers a workshop-style exercise for the reader to go through. He intended this book to be more of a practical guide than a paradigm shift and with his final chapters which help you to write your very own Pirate Code, he achieves this.
