I’ll admit that I’ve had a minor fascination with pirates ever since I first rode The Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. While I was disturbed by the recent pirate news described on all major news networks, it isn’t the thing that comes to mind when I think “pirate.” I picture eye patches, wooden legs, accents that include a bunch of “rrrr’s,” planks, buried treasure, and sword fights involving skeletons. I’m picturing the people the Swiss Family Robinson fought, the group Westley joined to become the Dread Pirate Roberts, and yes, I’ll even give a nod to Johnny Depp.
I was surprised by how wrong all my ideas really were.
Last week I ended up spending a few hours in downtown Chicago. Even though it was quite a bit colder than Phoenix, I thoroughly loved the experience. I love the pulse that you feel in a big city. They are so alive with people simultaneously headed home, headed to work, headed to dinner, or headed to a theatrical event. I had a few hours before I was headed to dinner with a friend I’ve known since high school, so I decided to head over to the Field Museum.
If you’ve never been to The Field Museum, go.
Seeing “Sue” (the largest preserved T-Rex ever found) is worth the price of admission on its own, but the breadth and depth of other exhibits dramatically enhance the value to that ticket. I’ve wondered through several of the exhibits before, so on this particular trip I elected to pay a bit extra and see the REAL PIRATES exhibit (available through October 25th). I headed straight to the exhibit, pausing only for a second to look Sue straight in the eye, experience a bit of the fear from that scene in Jurassic Park, and pick up my pace as I headed away.
I had been racing throughout the day, to catch my flight, to catch a bite, to get my rental car, to make it into downtown, to find parking, that I had to readjust into a museum mindset—to take time and to absorb.
REAL PIRATES tells the true story to The Wydah, a former slave ship that becomes a pirates ship and eventually sinks off the coast of Cape Cod. The exhibit contains the only pirate treasure ever found and highlights the lives of several of the men, and even one boy, who worked on the ship. Various weapons, navigational tools, and logbooks, are also on display with detailed maps charting the history of the doomed ship. You can read about the ship at (http://www.fieldmuseum.org/pirates)
It was in the second half of the exhibit where many of my preconceived notions about pirates were promptly corrected. Walking the plank rarely took place, pirates really didn’t bury their treasure, and pirate preferred to commandeer a ship rather than sink it. After some reflection, that all made sense. The next notion really blew my mind.
Pirates, some could argue, had a better democracy than we had at the time. If you joined with the crew, you had a vote in electing its officers, a stake in its treasure, a voice in establishing its course. The captain received little more than his crew. His stake in the loot was slightly higher, but rarely would he sleep in special captain’s quarters. The manner in which a captain treated his crew was of special importance to the pirates. When a ship was captured, the pirates asked the captured crew how their captain treated them. If the captured crew said the captain was cruel, that captain would be tortured or executed. If the report came back that he treated them well, he would often be given command of one of the pirate ships. Pirates also sought out diverse skills strongly encouraging carpenters, navigators, or doctors to join the crew. Perhaps most surprisingly for the time, pirate ships provide equal rights for members regardless of color. A person doomed to a life as a slave on a slave ship could become an officer on a pirate ship.
I want to pause for a moment and say I don’t condone the crimes of the pirates. Stealing is wrong, and I’m not really a fan of violent means of persuasion. It is true that many men elected to become members of the pirate crew, but it should also be noted that the other option wasn’t exactly appealing. However, once someone joined that crew, I’m surprised by how well they were treated. The pirates were really all in it together to the extent that coins were even physically split into pieces and weighed so that each member of the pirate crew received his proper share.
I was thinking about this and some of my upcoming speeches at leadership conventions. Again, I’m not endorsing the crimes of the pirates, but I do believe there are some lessons for us in their practices. I started to wonder how schools would rate the captains (ASBs, Student Councils) of their schools. Are our leadership organizations seeking out our own carpenters and doctors who will provide the sometimes painful assessments and treatments to fix our organizations and move them forward? Do we have navigators who will help us chart a course and have vision for our organization’s future? Do we allow an equal and dissenting voice or do we just force people to walk the plank (something pirates didn’t even do)? Are we actually providing a voice to those who don’t have it in a traditional environment? Do we continue to provide ourselves a comfortable captain’s quarters while the rest of the crew sleeps on the deck, or do we exist on equal footing with them?
Just something to think about as we continue to navigate these waters in leadership and life.