Alex Barker and Sam Conniff on what we can learn from being more pirate

Lisa: So thank you both first of all for coming on the Leadermorphosis podcast. Really excited to have this conversation and talk about the brilliant books that we’ve both read and the work that you’re doing, so thanks for making time.

Sam: You’re very welcome, it’s a pleasure.

Alex: Very much for the invitation.

Lisa: So I thought maybe we could start—there’s lots of places to go, I think—but one of the reasons that I thought you would make great guests on the podcast is because we’re often talking on the show about kind of practices and principles for ways of working that are more decentralized, more human, more collaborative. And when I read “Be More Pirate,” I realized wow, like pirates in the kind of golden age of pirates like 300 years ago, these guys were doing this long before it was cool. And a lot of the same ideas that I’m talking about with people now under this banner of like new ways of working are actually not that new, and the pirates were kind of pioneering a lot of these ideas all that time ago. So maybe to open it up, could you share some examples of some of the things that make pirates interesting in this kind of context of looking at reinventing how we work together and that kind of stuff? Paint a bit of a picture for us.

Alex: There’s two things that I think are—well, first of all, I think being human and decentralizing aren’t always the same thing. I think the two things out of all the things that pirates did and pioneered, I think there’s two things that are striking to me. The one is that maybe more human cultural piece that pirates had, things like same-sex marriage, that they allowed a certain level of honesty and appreciation of what human nature is about, and the kind of things that cause conflict and that you know exists perhaps beneath the surface that were not permitted in general society at the time.

They kind of—and that was just a—that’s huge that there was this entirely different cultural paradigm going on at sea, you know, when the rest of the world or at least the rest of the Western world was very closed off to certain people, that you know, women, ethnic minorities were enslaved, and the pirates allowed that. Considering that we’re not even really there with some of that stuff now strikes me as just incredible.

And I think the other thing that comes up a lot in conversations and is always remarkable to people when I talk about pirates is the sharing of power and I think particularly the sharing of leadership power. So the dual governance aspect where the quartermaster and the captain were seen as these sort of equal leaders—the quartermaster would look after the crew and the captain would sort of take charge of the strategy—in the way that there was a need to have this check and balance on power that you don’t see in organizations very much.

The idea that you could vote out a leader, vote out a manager would be unheard of. You know, even talking to people involved in like local councils or politics, the idea that you could have that kind of check on a newly elected leader, and that pirates did that. And that you know fundamentally, most pirate crews would have been a group of burly, uneducated men, I hate to say, and that they worked out that they had to find a way to harmoniously work together. And then you’re in an organization and people really struggle with creating that same harmony, and there’s all this resentment simmering beneath the surface. So you know, I say it would say it over and over again how pirates provide a model and we shouldn’t—yeah, they should not be laughed off as a sort of stereotypes.

Sam: And I think there is a pattern that plays out in these moments of like great interregnum, which is a word I’ve only learned recently, but like when we’re between these kind of large moments and the pirates emerged at this point when one organizing method effectively was coming to an end, you know, and there was the dawning of democracy. These ideas had begun, and there’s this really—I mean possible link that didn’t make it into the original book, but I still—I was thinking about it just recently.

So at the end of the Civil Wars that are taking place in England, there’s this sudden moment when the king is being held and for the first time in anyone’s living memory, there’s a discussion about a republic. And everyone is invited to this debate, and that doesn’t ever normally happen. So these lay people are invited to the debates, like teachers, all sorts of people, and they take place in this church and for 19 days or something, everyone thinks and wonders what the world looks like in this new paradigm where perhaps they don’t let the king out and when we move from this monarchistic, you know, autocratic system.

And that’s, you know, it’s now seen as this legendary formation of democracy and the implications of that because this is happening the world over. You know, there’s the—every major power is quite terrified of the rebellion that is going to come. And then the century that follows, you know, is filled with overthrows and the fight for democracy in the beginning of, you know, the age that we’re in really.

And I like this idea because lots of the Roundheads were attending these debates. Before then, the Roundheads got their lots of emissaries and lovely placements around the world and gratitude for the role they played in the wars. And the Morgan Family—Henry Morgan being one of the founding fathers of the whole pirate movement—there were lots of Roundheads in his family. So the idea—and then he became the governor of the Jamaica Station. So the idea that someone in his immediate circle could have been at this debate is not unlikely.

And what had then happens is perhaps that’s the link that inspires the pirate democracy that Alex is talking about. And so then what I really like about this is that it’s about a story, and in these moments and times what we really need are the stories that would inspire us to think that people can do things differently. And then the pirates become so good and their story becomes so strong and so powerful.

So it takes this like kernel of an idea of democracy, takes it away from England and the other major powers where democracy was being flattened and crushed and you’d be imprisoned, and creates a little petri dish for it on the other side of the world where the ideas can become more fully formed. The story gets strengthened and then it can be brought back. And I’d like to think that’s where we’re at now because we have got these very large scale problems—you know, we can list them all off—and we don’t have very many large-scale solutions.

So my hope is that the stories that individuals and the innovation, the things that are taking place in some of those where the ideas will catch fire again, a new organizing system can begin to rise up. And that feels like the kind of, to me, the thread or what I mean—my most optimistic self with the thread would be.

Lisa: Yeah, so maybe on that note, tell us a little bit about the “Be More Pirate” movement because the first book, and then now the kind of “How to Be More Pirate” book. I think the second one talks a little bit more about this growing movement and some examples of how organizations have really been inspired by this story, as you say, of you know, these are some of the things that the pirates were experimenting with all that time ago that feel very relevant now as we’re, you know, in a paradigm of, you know, reinventing and rebelling against some of these things. So what does the movement look like at the moment, and what’s exciting to you about that?

Alex: Yeah, to pick up on that thread of storytelling actually, it’s so much about that, the need for a uniting story around what those—how to tackle those big challenges. It’s not to say that pirates is the answer, the only answer, but the most—I suppose if one of the first things that I heard when I’d listen to people talk about why this resonated was the story, the stepping into the role of pirate, that the word, the language gave them something different.

And you know, having come from a background of working in social changes—a blanket term—but charities and just the dire nature of communications in the sector, you know, the lack of focus on the need to move people and find something compelling that allows people to like be in touch with their sense of courage and their conviction and everything that makes them feel great. That’s so lacking. It’s like, “Here’s some structure, here’s a framework, here’s some challenges and blah blah blah” in my experience.

This does something different, and I—the term that I come across recently that I really like is that there’s a kind of emotional alchemy where the rage and frustration that a lot of people feel around the system and the problems gets transformed through the idea of pirate into something positive and powerful and gives you permission.

And you know, just on Friday I had this amazing meeting with—you know when you can see the moment of a newly forming pirate, where they’re like—they can see, they hear the word and it resonates, and they can see what it could mean for them if they just take a leap. And that’s really the story of the movement of all these individuals kind of taking that leap. And obviously it’s been organizations too kind of recognizing that they could also seize upon that spirit—somehow harder as a group, but but still can be achieved.

So the movement here is just the coming together of lots of people who really believe in it. And what’s fascinating is that I’ve—and I’ve realized recently—is that it kind of can’t be killed in the way that when I’ve been doing social change or community building before, you’re so worried about how do we create the emotional connection, how do we ensure people stay engaged with this. But I don’t need to do that here because people are like pirate for life. You know, that’s like—put that badge up and I—it doesn’t need to be everybody, it doesn’t need to be masses and masses necessarily, because if the ones that are committed really take those risks and do something that becomes the story, then that yeah, inspires somebody else and it’s like a chain reaction.

Sam: The thing that excites me is—what Alex has done—well, Alex really like the—this for me at first it was very difficult to come to terms with people getting in touch and saying they’d read the book and taken action on it. And I think it was partly because I didn’t expect that, partly I was going through an awful lot of turbulence in my personal life. I wasn’t quite ready to meet it head on. I was doubting myself, so I doubted it.

And part of where Alex and I came together was to harness that. You know, I’d been rude, I was ignoring them. I kind of put them into a fold, didn’t really know what to do with it, mainly through lack of belief, I think, ultimately. And then so to watch Alex begin to turn it into a community and then to watch Alex turn into a pirate, and then once we started embarking in the book, it became so clear that Alex needed to take over this whole show.

And then you go from my own kind of ego and ideal of where I think things should go, and you know, I do have a very strong sense that I’m, you know, right and stuff. And then to—and yet know deep down that the principles of the book, the way that we talked about what we were inspired by is one of democracy and of self-organization. And so to actually do what you said you’re going to do, right?

And then to see it work, you know, then to see now that this amazing democracy, collaboration, this openness, the respect and admiration that the crew have of Alex, how much she’s facilitated the kind of the big topics and themes that they work on to be entirely inspired by the community, and for them to be so interesting and it feels so robust.

And you can see, you know, when I dip in and out or I just see the conversations taking place, the level of support for one another. And I know, because Alex and I catch up, you know, the dedication she’s got. That’s amazing. I pinched myself like it—it really is that the principles and the things that we talked about in the first book.

And then you know, how often do people say stuff and then actually you know do a slightly version of it, or which I undoubtedly would have done. You know, would have been much more of a facade of “Here’s how I—” you know, would have been way more marketing. And now it’s just so much meaning in there, and that I think gives it such a strong platform for where it’s going to go and grow to next. I find that really deeply exciting.

Alex: You should be so self-deprecating, Sam. And it would been good too, but I think—but you know what I mean.

Sam: Yeah, I think I would have tripped over myself several more times, and I think you’ve done this with real integrity. And I think that that—it might be if it was on the other—if the foot was on the other book, what the—yeah, whatever—I think it would be hard to separate oneself, whomever that might be, from the original text and then be able to have the objectivity and the kind of authenticity you’ve got around it now. I think that and and so it’s not just me being that hard on myself. I think that would be difficult for anybody.

Alex: I’d agree, and I think it’s been easier for me to do that because of the distance to an extent. But it’s remarkable like even in the last week or so, you just get these new pirates freeing up you’ve never heard of before. So I’m always a bit like, “I wish that had been in the book and that then and this—”

There was that amazing woman who has set up her plastic comp, recycling plastics from landfill directly inspired by it, and that gave her some kind of permission to leave her corporate job. And even last night I did a—I’ve joined this sort of coaching community, mainly in the US, and we did this workshop on what the community code would be for them because they all very much see themselves as pirates and they read the books as part of the course.

And yeah, afterwards a woman gets in touch and she’s like, “Pirates has given me the thing that I’ve needed to create my own brand and community of coach in my coaching method.” And so it’s just a constant like real connection with people through it, and it allows that and I’m just really grateful for it.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s nice. And it also strikes me that the two of you are sort of role modeling in a way, or walking the talk of what you were talking about, Alex, about sharing leadership power. And I I really liked—I think it’s in your forward, Sam, of the “How to Be More Pirate” book that you quite humbly share, I think, some of your early conversations where Alex was challenging you in a really healthy way about some of the ideas.

So I think that’s a nice exemplification of like, you know, how you can share leadership and sort of allow for leadership to to flow and to move to different places and to different people’s strengths and have these kind of conversations. I think that’s one of the principles that I picked up around like constantly challenging ideas and kind of reinventing things. Like that’s the nature of being a pirate, I think, is kind of rebelling against things and kind of—yeah, there’s—it’s not ever in stasis, it’s always like a process of becoming, right? That was something that really resonated with me.

Sam: It goes both ways with us though, and it has been there since the beginning, because like the very first meeting we had, I think, you know, Alex was quite critical of me. She came with a good degree of cynicism. She kind of—she wanted to know whether or not it was—it was—oh, I can’t even remember what is home—whether it was all gloss or whether there was, you know, substance behind it. And it’s, you know, it was a really good and fair criticism and she called me out on on some of the metrics I’d said in the job. Is this is really important? Why have you even got numbers of the size of the community? It should just be about what we do.

And these were great challenges and they set a tone. And then, you know, partly the process of being pirate and all the things that I believe in, you know, is a level of honesty which can catch other people off guard. And we found ourselves in that place very well. So, you know, one of the terms in the job—couldn’t job thing that I wrote was to stop me disappearing up my own ass as I as I kind of went on this journey and like found this new kind of platform.

But vice versa, you know, the challenge to Alex was to step into her pirate self, and she didn’t—she didn’t necessarily believe that early on. And and we found in one another people who respond really well to that challenge. Like we can both take it intellectually, it doesn’t, you know, deflate us emotionally, and we’re good at picking each other up if we need to in that sense as well.

And it does—yeah, it creates—it creates the best relationships. I was going to say the best professional relations—it just takes, creates the best relationships, doesn’t it, when you have that flow? And it’s—I think it is a sense of becoming, but it’s also the eternal sense of like taking things apart and putting them back together. That’s how things get better.

Alex: Yeah, there’s this—to reciprocate, the thing that was for—was remarkable for me was that no one had ever put trust in me like that before. I was used to management, ultimately, and that doesn’t usually come with a great degree of trust. And I think I was thinking about this earlier, that you know, allowing someone to take your brand, your idea, and you know, essentially like from the word go, like get up on a stage and talk about it, risking—is what an organization would call risking the reputation of the brand and the idea because if you don’t know quite what you’re doing or what you’re saying, you know, there is a risk in that. And Sam didn’t even—doesn’t really think twice about it.

I don’t know if it’s partly a result of having mentored lots of young people, but you know, that is—that is putting people before organization and saying it’s more important that you develop than whatever kind of happens in terms of, you know, the the organization or the—well, not an organization, but the kind of the brand risk around it. And that’s—and that was really powerful for me to just feel that.

It is a—it absolutely is a—pirate is fluidity, is not being in stasis, and I like the line about becoming. I think when I was writing, I was like, “Shall I put in brackets ‘not to get to Michelle Obama?’” But yeah, it really is like—and I guess that’s what I have experienced and seen in so many of the pirates, that it’s okay to be not pirate to begin with and to feel to like almost like glimpse the feeling of what it could be like but not be there.

And then the everything you gain in the becoming bit, like the courage, the trust in yourself, the permission, you know, and then feeling that you’ve arrived somewhere. Maybe it’s not fully pirate, maybe—and there’s just—it—you never will be because you can keep going, you can keep feeding back layers and layers and keep going. But that’s—that’s the really fun thing. That’s the best thing. That’s—it’s not to get from A to B, you’ve arrived, this is the output, this is the outcome. And that’s why that—again, on an organizational level is where they get stuck. They’re like, “We have to get here and that’s the end goal.”

And I think one of the pirates said together like—it really isn’t the main goal like—it changes, it’s just almost constant. In the back and what humans should always be doing.

Lisa: Yeah, definitely. And I think in in the new ways of working movement, a lot of people listening to this will be familiar with like “Reinventing Organizations” and Frederick Laloux’s work around evolutionary purpose, which I think speaks a little bit to what you’re saying, which is like sensing and responding instead of like command and control.

And I I really like like this area we’re talking to now like there’s a—there is like a pirate way of being and there are some kind of pirate practices, I think. And so you mentioned, for example, with that example you were talking about, Alex, community code. So the pirates had their pirate code. And when I was reading that, I was thinking, “Wow, this is like exactly what I’m talking about with with my colleagues and when I’m working with organizations about the importance of agreements, like team agreements, agreements in the organization of how do we want to be together, and how do we then hold each other account to sort of living up to that, you know, knowing that we might fall short sometimes.”

But but the value of being able to have those conversations, and like you two are doing with each other, being able to challenge each other, I think is really key. So it’s it’s not like—what I pick up from the the inspiration that you’ve taken from from pirates and is now baked into the movement is sort of like that balance of humanness, yes, and kind of caring for each other and and equity and that kind of stuff, but also like tough love and kind of holding each other to account.

And you know, pirates had some of the harshest punishments, but they agreed them together, which meant that they were more meaningful. They weren’t sort of top down or bureaucratic or kind of compliance-based, but really like, “Here’s the agreements that we sign up to together because this is how we want to be together.” I think.

Sam: Yeah, lots and lots in that. And we’re big fans of Frederick Laloux and and it inspired me a great deal with liberty and and certainly into the work around pirates and still. Where I take some of those thoughts at the moment, I think is—the one of the really difficult things, I think, is kind of leadership evolves into this this period that we’re in where impermanence is is is more present than permanence, is probably the the truest thing that anybody, any leadership position can say is “I don’t know.” And and yet it’s the hardest or impossibly impossible thing for anybody to say.

And and Alex and I have stepped into a place of being able to say “I don’t know” and encouraging people say “I don’t know.” And as soon as you do that, then you start asking good, you know, better questions. And if your questions come along with challenge and then trust and you’ve created those bases, then you’re probably going to work something out.

But I think the majority world are still stuck in the 20th century dynamic where leaders have to give a clear vision and then go in that direction. And letting go of that is a really, really tough thing, especially if that’s how you’ve come through the ranks and also if you know you’ve got lots of teams who really want to be shown of clear vision and then believe they’re going in that direction. But it’s simply not true like anymore. The idea that we can predict what’s going to be here, you know, to a degree of certainty tomorrow maybe, but in months and years that’s—that’s not going to be as helpful.

And it’s this metamorphosis, I think, that we’re going through that’s so interesting. And so the way of doing that, where the way we started was how do you navigate when you’re in theater back, and there’s lots of thoughts that we’ve got around that. But something we see emerging, I think, that that’s representative in the way we’re talking about ourselves and the way you’re talking about your clients is is around depth of connection. And again, it’s not contemporary the norm. We’re trying to surf through as many connections as we possibly can with as many sound bites as we can to kind of bring as many followers as we can.

And and actually, if there is depth of connection, if there is honesty, if you feel that you are seen and heard, then you have the ability to do good work. Then you have the ability to hold each other in times of, you know, totally not knowing what’s going on. And I think it’s the—it’s the difficult to fathom but true counterpoint to this period of both paradoxical panic and paralysis is like trust—trust in one another and trust in yourself, knowing we’re not—no one can really be sure what’s going to happen now, but I’d really trust you and I know you trust me, so we can probably work it out.

And that, I think, is, you know, that those dual notions of “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I can trust us to work something out” I think is pretty far away from the traditional leadership lexicon, which still dominates.

Alex: And I also think the pandemic has allowed people to, well, experience that more and also recognize when you talked about punishment and the sense of holding each other account but not necessarily having punishment is that we’ve reevaluated what should be punished and what shouldn’t.

And you know, if it traditionally experienced an organization, if you don’t do your work, you can experience some kind of reprimand. But realizing in this period that you just can’t—like people have children to look after and mental health to look after. But there are things—you know, when we say about pirates having tough love, there are things that you do need to hold people to account for. They’re just not the things we’re used to. There’s things that are like you say, when you don’t—when there is—when someone breaks the trust that you have in them for some reason or another, whatever that might be to you between you, that that’s the thing, not “Oh, I, you know, I forgot an appointment” or like, you know, which, you know, people have so much fear about.

I realize this every time I speak about—you know, we talk about taking some small bold actions and risks and could you do something different. And they go, “I’m going to get some uncomfortable confrontational. There might be a possibility that my job will be at risk.” And and yeah, bringing people on a journey to realize that those maybe aren’t the worst things really. And and yeah, I’m grateful that maybe COVID has allowed for that more.

Lisa: Yeah. I’m wondering if if you could share a couple of examples for listeners of some organizations that are part of the movement or that you’ve come across, or some stories that you’ve heard of how communities or organizations have put into practice or have been inspired by some of these kind of pirate principles, just to give listeners a flavor of like what it can look like or what the catalyst can then, you know, produce perhaps.

Alex: Yeah, I don’t know which one to choose or where to start really. Maybe one example I’ll give because I think it it rolls a few things into one is the story the story of the Climate Pirates, which is in the book. It’s a marine biologist called Francisca Elmer, and she read read the book and it gave her that sense of, “Wow, I need to—I need to step up and sort of find my pirate, and I haven’t really been acting with the urgency that I believe in,” and sort of a reconnection with her her values and purpose, and that recognizing that climate change isn’t—isn’t going away in that as a marine biologist, she has a role to play, and she’s not really—she wasn’t really doing enough.

So aside from starting to change her lectures and be much more—much bolder in what she was talking to their students about, she’s part of this big community of marine scientists who every four years gather at a big conference somewhere in the world. And they’re on this big email list together. And the announcement for the next big conference came up—it was going to be in in Germany.

And she suddenly realized, she’s like, “Why don’t we—we always have this big moment at the end where we kind of call on the world to do more about protecting the coral reefs, and yet we’re not really acting with urgency. Like we’re just casually like getting on board our planes and really looking forward to our big trips and, you know—probably individually we aren’t acting with that.”

And she said, “I’m just going to”—and it’s a small bold action—she’s like, “I’m just gonna post that thought. I’m just going to say what I think on this list to the 5,000 scientists in my community and tell them.” And that was the catalyst, and it’s—it can be these small, powerful actions. And that catalyst—people got in touch with her, they sensed the point of connection of like, “I think that too. What shall we do?”

And so they started instead—she said, “Actually, what I could do is create some local events around doing the same thing, hosting lectures about coral reefs and climate change, and we could use it to educate local students and invite a much more diverse range of people, not just the scientists that you’re going to get at this conference. And we can make it more accessible so people who are in like Jamaica and Venezuela and all parts of the Caribbean that wouldn’t have been able to even maybe fly to Germany could now take part.”

And so it was the decentralization, the distribution of power element, the standing up for what you believe in, posting something, using a small bold action that kind of created momentum and a point of connection. So there’s all these points—yeah, it blended all these points of pirates that we knew worked in one story.

So and she, you know, she’s fantastic. She’s now—she’s part of an Extinction Rebellion scientist group who then—they’re now breaking away and kind of using pirates a bit more of a—a framework for how to think about it because again, you know, huge respect to Extinction Rebellion as a movement, but you know, somehow also gets imbued with some of the problems of trying to do decentralization and power dynamics. So they’re trying to figure out how they do that, and the code is is such an integral, useful foundation for for organizing. So that’s what she’s kind of experimenting with at the moment. So yeah, so that’s one example.

Sam: I can give you a quick one because it’s someone that just reached out to me. I think two weeks ago. And I have a fondness for this because it’s when the first thing that I received from anybody when the book was brand new was somebody who forwarded me their resignation letter, realizing that they were yeah, wasting the hours of their life in their cozy corporate job, and they needed to go and have rebellion.

And I’ve stayed in touch with that one person particularly, and she’s just signed off on publishing her first book, which was the passion that she wanted to go and pursue. So I feel very proud about that. And then for a while I was kind of keeping a tally of resignation letters, which just because it really, you know—I was gonna say it really amusement—it doesn’t amuse me, I—it was—it was one part that I could connect with because I’ve always felt that environment so alien to me. So if I was in any way liberating people from those kind of confines, I could I could get on board with that.

And I received one just the other week of a woman who—again she lives near the sea, she saw so much waste—it would break her heart. And yet, you know, by day she had to get up early and go to this kind of corporate job that she could eventually see was kind of contributing to the problem, was just a big multinational.

And she’d read the book, and then she decided that was it. The thing that she most wanted to do was dedicate her life to doing something about this this waste and that was right in front of her. And she needed a career, so she just—she came up with a business based on that, based on that challenge, right from “I can’t follow these rules anymore, I’ve got to rewrite them.”

And she now makes really beautiful accessories out of the plastic that she recovers from the beach. So it’s like—really lovely little bags and satchels and purses and makeup pouches and things, but made out of beach balls and rubber rings and armbands. So there’s this amazing kind of color and vibrancy, and it’s, you know, it’s a very straightforward idea, but she’s executed beautifully. It’s called Rainbow Revival. And she’s now living her best life. She’s doing exactly what she wants to do, completely aligned.

And so all of that passion then gets—and this is this is the interesting thing of it—pirates at first and rule breaking, everyone gets quite scared and thinks this is going to sound really chaotic, but it’s not at all. Alex has this great line that, you know, rule breaking seems like the risky thing to do, and then eventually you realize it’s the responsible thing to do. And that’s totally what’s happened in this woman’s life.

So all of that power, energy, human spirit, creativity, desire to work, desire to make difference is now all aligned. It’s not like 80% of your day is going to waste and 20% of your day is true to who you are. It’s all aligned, and she’s fully accountable to this thing, fully showing up for who she is and the environment that she believes in, and is making this business fly.

So that’s really the part of this—you get all of the energies that push you forward and push them all into the same place. And that’s why you’ve suddenly got this courageous pirate spirit that believes it can take on the world.

And on her—I think in the email that she she said she did sort of steal the idea as well from another company that had been doing something in UK, which again is like—because I don’t want it to sound holier than thou, because that’s not pirate either. It’s not just, “Oh, it’s so amazing, I’m just—every—you know, doing everything right.” Now she’s like, “Yeah, nicked it,” like—of course, you know, steel—like we need more people to to do more of that kind of stuff and and not worry too much about “Oh, someone else done—it’s not an original idea” and all that kind of crap, so.

Lisa: Yeah, thanks for sharing. And I really do encourage people to to read the book because there’s there’s a number of of really beautiful examples of organizations that have really accessed like a whole other level of thinking just by kind of flipping things or challenging some kind of established norms or ways of seeing things.

And it was something else also that resonated for me in in both of the books. It is because I’m often talking to people about—there’s a lot written about and spoken about in terms of this stuff around structures and processes, and those are important and and there are some examples that we can take inspiration from in the pirate movement as well, like the pirate code, for example.

But I also really like that both of you have written about and and now have been speaking about as well, like the importance of like how we’re being and sort of embodying it and starting with yourself. And in the book you even talk about like the mutiny mindset. And I’m often talking about like, you know, the mindset and the way of being in this being like quite a key piece if we really want to change how we work and are together. Like that’s, you know, a really important part. Can you share some of what you’ve learned about those pieces, the kind of mindset and the way of being and and why that’s important to being pirates?

Alex: Yeah, I think the the main point of the mutiny mindset that that was striking, and it and it stems from the line that Sam wrote in the first book about “No one is coming to save you.” That was the the catalyst that seemed to allow people to recognize that stability is a bit of an illusion and that we spend all of our lives—imagine, you know, clinging to stability, to preventing failure, preventing turbulence. And of course there is a tipping point where turbulence becomes too much.

But invite—you know, allowing or perhaps the moment when there is no choice, when something just happens and you you have to go with it, that for so many people has been the moment of of a lot of of mutiny or of allowing themselves for permission to do something different. And I so I think that that’s a lot to do with it, when the the stability crumbles in some way, that allows for that kind of mindset to emerge. And you can’t do it when you’re still trapped in the sort of the cage to an extent.

Yeah, I think it really probably touches on a lot of the things we’ve said about trust and sitting with the unknown, you know, and I—and a commitment to uncomfortability to an extent. You know, this idea of the edges of the map, this is very tied in with the mutiny mindset of—there was an amazing conversation I had yesterday with a guy who was talking about using the map metaphor and and how—about that commitment to going into the unknown. And but then also recognizing that the trapping is that so if we think of the unknown as the sort of future of like not knowing what’s to come and being okay with that.

That the past is unfortunately very mapped for people, and it’s those nails in the coffin of of norms and cultural ideals and frameworks and whatever that you you’ve been conditioned to accept as normal for you. And what—you know, in the coaching work that he was doing was that he goes what we do need in the past is to identify those those points on the on your map that have existed already and to go into them and to reveal what they are.

So there are almost like the the path that you’ve already walked does need to be explored, but then conversely, the future is the thing that needs to be open. And I just thought it was a really nice—it explained something to me that I hadn’t perhaps understood before. So yeah, I think definitely a commitment to uncomfortability, like, and.

Lisa: I just I just wanted to add something—what came up for me as you’re talking there with the map metaphor was also the idea that the map is not the territory, that the map is the mental model of the of the landscape or the journey, right? So that that is also interesting to me. Like, you know, even if we think—if you visualize now like the the map of the map of the world, it’s Eurocentric, right? So there’s already a paradigm baked into what we understand as a map.

So I think that’s interesting to look at as well in terms of recognizing that the map is not the territory. And yeah, it is—we are meaning-makers, we we make sense of things through stories. So acknowledging that “I have a map, these are the points on the map of my past, and here’s the uncharted territory that perhaps are moving towards,” and also it’s a map. It’s not—it’s not accurate. It’s always going to go through the filter of my experience. So that parallel just kind of popped into my head.

Sam: I think there’s also something we realized for lots of people that goes to your question is that the the most important rule they have to break are the ones they’ve put in place for themselves. And and often those are just the limiting beliefs that you walk around with all the time. And for a lot of people, they’re not even aware what those are, you know.

So we’ve got these narratives that have been part of our life for our entire life, and they stop us doing things. And and they’re the fundamental rules that they’re challenging. And depending on what our level of awareness of them is, that can become pretty problematic. And so if you are—you know, there’s—for lots of people, I think life can be a fairly dehumanizing experience if you don’t—if you have a job that you don’t necessarily believe in, if somehow you’ve got relationships that aren’t entirely healthy and good for you, if you have your—your sense of who you are out of kilter with who you think you are and want to be.

You know, all of those things are neurosis-inducing and that’s really tough and exhausting. And we have this deep sense that maybe this—this—this hope that that’s not what life’s supposed to be about, and the spirit of adventure and and the promise of freedom, like kind of the stories we had as children. We hope like that still is like there for us somehow, right?

And you know, not this grim, whatever few minutes you can eke out for yourself between all the duties and chores of of becoming an adult. And and so that that question of being yourself, I think, is always—we’re always there, aren’t we? But we’re often just outside of our reach because there’s so much other stuff that I’m trying to be. And then there’s moments when you catch a glimpse, “Oh, there I am.”

And there is something of an avatar in the invitation to be a pirate. I always use the example that a fancy dress party is usually more fun than any other party because everyone goes out a bit wilder because they’re just outside of, you know, the the normal masks of the day. And so you kind of get away with being yourself a little bit more by dressing up with someone else. You see what I mean? And so I think in that space, there’s something really powerful in being a pirate.

And it’s kind of the end—the end of the book, the final chapter, I was reading the other day, someone is called “Be More You,” and that’s kind of where I ended up with it, having gone on the whole journey about encouraging people to find—actually, you know, it all comes back—this just comes back down to stripping away some of the that we’re allowed to stick on us because life’s so full of it.

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, I love that the word “invitation” like stood up to me in what you just said as well. Like that that is the magic of this this pirate advertise, you say, that I think it helps people to step out of their normal behaviors and into something that’s perhaps a bit uncomfortable, vulnerable, if you have an invitation which is stepping into something that’s familiar or has like an association with something that’s a bit dangerous, a bit exciting, a bit different. And that can really help, I think, just kind of disrupt, right, the kind of the day-to-day and the—yeah, those limiting beliefs that you’re probably completely blind to.

Alex: I think people worry that the the invitation is is too dangerous sometimes, that’s the—on several levels. Organizations sometimes will worry that it is when actually what you find is that people act with complete integrity when they’re invited to be pirate, too, that that “be more you” isn’t—isn’t a psychopath, it’s usually something inherently really good.

And equally, people then are afraid of it for what it could reveal about the choices that they then have to make. And that, you know, there’s a probably a moment of speaking something out loud that you’ve never said before. And then once it’s out loud, you have to do something about it. So whilst I believe wholeheartedly that that is worth it, it is still—still a moment of faith for people.

So I hope that whatever spaces I take pirates into, I can create some level of courage for people to to own that a bit more.

Sam: I discovered that myself in the process of writing the book, and and now—now I—now I love hearing from people, and now I can embrace it again because I realize that I’ve done exactly the same thing. I didn’t—it was such a difficult time on of exactly the kind of things I’m describing.

And I remember at the time having—finding things difficult and had gone for some counseling and then sought out mentors. And I’d keep hearing people say, “Just be yourself.” And I really didn’t know how to do that because I really had lost touch of what—who that was.

And and now—well, maybe a year or so after the book, as things began to stabilize a little bit, I realized I’d really written the whole thing for myself. And so all these people that were getting in touch with me saying they’d found something in it—that’s why I couldn’t engage with it, because I I hadn’t done the same thing. I hadn’t realized.

And and now I look at it and it’s just like—that’s so clear, like self-conscious message. I have the message to to, you know, radically rewrite the rules of my life and the things that I felt, you know, suppressed by across the board, in lots of areas of of life that have built these responsibilities and this persona and all this kind of stuff up. And so it was quite far out of kilter with who that was.

So now when people tell me they’ve done that—yeah, me too. I read that book, it was really good. Yeah, it changed my life. And I feel much more like one of my own readers than than the creators.

Lisa: Yeah, that’s lovely. Thank you for sharing that.

Sam: Yeah, well, it worked out recently.

Lisa: Well, it strikes me as well that, you know, a lot of people listening, you know, again, many have have read “Reinventing Organizations,” and again, it’s that wholeness piece that he talks about. Bring your whole self to work. And I think it’s—I really want to, you know, build on what you just said is like a as permission for people to to not know what their whole self is and for that to be okay.

Someone to say, “You have permission now to be your whole self at work.” I think for many people, it’s like, “What the hell is my whole self?” Like I don’t know, because I’ve never been that, certainly not in a work context, often not in any kind of relational context, because they think that’s still quite a new, emergent thing. So I think that’s really powerful what you’re sharing, actually.

Alex: Thanks.

Sam: I remember that—I love that book, and and Frederick Laloux gave us a quote for the new book, and it’s probably the quote I’m most proud of. Not—there’s not lots of other brilliant people because I look up to him so much. But it is that that dynamic when you when you meet someone, you’re like, “Oh me, yeah, I really, really buy that,” but they’re a grown-up, so they can say that, like, qualify myself out of that category quite far.

Lisa: So I guess in in wrapping up this conversation, what words of wisdom, tips for the journey would you like to share with with listeners who are on their own pirate journey, perhaps, and maybe they hadn’t used that language before, but they’re listening and going, “Hey, yeah, that is kind of what I’m doing or that’s what I would like to do.” What could you share with them that might embolden them, give them a bit of courage for their journey?

Alex: I say something which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, which is about which relates to this idea of the whole self and your authentic self, and which is that you—you can’t—your desire, your your inner desire, whatever that is, is choiceless. You cannot escape it. It’s part—it’s part of you. It’s what makes you feel good. It’s what gives you your your momentum and your drive for life. And it’s good. It’s ultimately going to result in your best self, I think.

And yet—so if you when at the point when you start to really locate it and realize that it’s out of kilter with how you’re living, and that you don’t quite know yet what to do about that, and and there’s probably going to be some serious rules to break and changes to make, and you’re terrified of that—that just to know that it can only result in something good in the end. It might be two or three years of something that feels uncomfortable, and it probably will, but it will be worth it. And you also can’t escape it.

Lisa: Thank you.

Alex: Kind of maybe that’s not—doesn’t feel like comfortable advice, but it will come back to bite you if you don’t recognize when you get that moment of glimpsing here you really are. Like you just have to—the sooner you do it, I think the better.

Sam: Yeah, my thought would echo that very much. If you—I think the majority of people the majority of the time aren’t being in that space. And there is nothing more invigorating than a little bit of revolution. And the revolution—the fastest way to get to that place is to alter your relationship with that which scares you, because that’s really where the limiting beliefs and everything else come from. And it’s also where the possibility to do things differently.

And I think that’s the probability of why pirates is so intoxicating, you know, because they look like they’re not scared of anything, and they they present pretty well on that front. So if you routinely navigate to the place of greatest fear in your life—and not fear of like spiders or something, but the fear of the things that you’d like to do but don’t do. You don’t have to do it, but just go and look at it and ask yourself why you’re not doing it.

And you know, that’s an amazing line that’s kind of governed by life. If you want to know what you do—should do next, you should understand what scares you most. But just navigating your way there regularly, know the things that you’re scaredest of and know what that connects to. You will embolden yourself gradually.

There’s no great change that ever came which it wasn’t something to do with small incremental steps every single day. So you don’t have to buy it or fall in one space if you gradually accept that, you know, fear is natural, fear is good, fear is an emotion that’s designed solely to protect you. You can begin to change your relationship with those things. And then imagine your life without the thing that scares you—you know, you’ve taken it away, you’ve overcome it, it no longer scares you and no longer stops you, it’s no longer a headwind but it becomes a tailwind. Then, my friends, you enter a very exciting space and a whole different life.

Lisa: Thank you both so much for the conversation.