Why asking, "Why do jerks succeed?" is the wrong question

I'm sure you've come across articles similar to this one, "Why Jerks Get Ahead."

Jerks may get ahead, and that leads to much hand wringing on why this happens and how everyone else should unleash his or her inner jerk to move up the ladder.

But "Why do jerks get ahead?" is the wrong question to ask. The question to ask is, "Will an organisation full of jerks getting ahead, get ahead?"

Why do women outlive men?

Yesterday, a friend asked me a brilliant question. Here's the issue he presented to me. He said that in marriages (certainly in earlier decades) men had control, and women held a subordinate position relative to their husbands. Further this subordination is mandated by several religions, and many women made "obedience" promises as part of their wedding vows..

In my book, I've quoted the Whitehall studies that  show mortality and health depend on your grade in the organization hierarchy. The higher up you are in the org chart, the better your health is. Higher grades mean higher levels of control, resulting in better health levels.

My friend's question was, how can we reconcile the Whitehall studies with the fact that women have a higher life expectancy than their husbands, given that women ostensibly have lower control than their husbands within marriage?

I'm guessing that there are two main reasons for this phenomenon:

1. Women traditionally "married up". They wanted a man who was more powerful than they were, in terms of wealth, income, status, education, ambition and so on. Further, they wanted men physically dominant, ie taller and stronger than themselves. Also, this imbalance of power was actually a source of comfort for the woman, as it provided a sense of security (I'm obviously making some broad and sweeping generalizations here).

2. The man was in the position of protector, in that he was primarily responsible for his wife and family's safety and security, including providing for them. It was in his self-interest to protect his family. That said, many men did abuse their wives, as the system was still that of a dictatorship. Nonetheless, this "dictatorship system" does not seem to have an overall negative effect on life expectancy of women (I am of course not talking of extreme cases of abuse that  resulted in women dying of grievous injuries).

In contrast, bosses are in no way responsible for your "safety" (in this case, job security). Your boss's main job is definitely not to care for you, or provide for you, or protect you. 

The future of healthcare: not your doctor, but the system

Dr Atul Gawande is one of my favourite writers. In his latest article, titled "Big Med", Dr Gawande draws parallels between the efficiency of restaurant chains such as the Cheesecake Factory , and the (in)efficiency of the US healthcare system.

Dr Gawande compares the two systems and says (page 10, para 7), "Patients won’t just look for the best specialist anymore; they’ll look for the best system."

While I don't mean to compare two different contexts, I've said something similar in my book about leadership: that leadership is a system, and we have to compare leadership systems, rather than the leaders themselves. Leaders are important, in the same way that individual doctors are important. There are bad leaders and good leaders, and good doctors and bad doctors. Nonetheless, these individual differences can pale in comparison to systemic differences. 

Sally Ride, astronaut who supported Boisjoly, passes away

Just yesterday, I posted about the passing of Roger Boisjoly. And today, I read that Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, passed away yesterday. (NY Times obituary here)

At a time when Mr Boisjoly was being shunned by practically everyone because he revealed the truth about Challenger, Ms Ride backed him. According to Boisjoly's obituary in the NY Times, "He [Boisjoly] later said he was sustained by a single gesture of support. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, hugged him after his appearance before the commission.“She was the only one,” he said in a whisper to a Newsday reporter in 1988. “The only one.”

Rest in Peace, Sally Ride. We should all derive inspiration and strength from her example.
 
(Comments? Email me at cvdhruve (at) gmail.com) 

Rest in Peace, Roger Boisjoly, engineer who battled hard to stop Challenger launch

I've just found out (I know it's rather late) that Roger Boisjoly passed away on the 6th of January this year, aged 73. As someone who's written about the Challenger space shuttle disaster and examined the events closely, I came to respect Mr Boisjoly as a true hero. I'm deeply saddened that he has passed away and it feels like a trusted and dear colleague (though I've never met him) is no more. I've watched several videos in which he's featured, and the strength and courage of his convictions in the face of terrible (both literally and metaphorically) opposition stand out. 

Mr Boisjoly stood up to his managers at Morton Thiokol and NASA the night before the fateful launch. He had also repeatedly warned his bosses that there were problems with the rocket booster O ring seals at cold temperatures.  For stating all this,  he was targeted. According to an obituary in the New York Times, "[H]e paid the stiff price often exacted of whistle-blowers. Thiokol cut him off from space work, and he was shunned by colleagues and managers. A former friend warned him, “If you wreck this company, I’m going to put my kids on your doorstep,” Mr. Boisjoly told The Los Angeles Times in 1987."

"He [Boisjoly] had headaches, double-vision and depression. He yelled at his dog and his daughters and skipped church to avoid people. He filed two suits against Thiokol; both were dismissed."

Imagine the kind of mental trauma - mental torture really - he underwent, all for doing the right thing. 

Rest in Peace Mr Boisjoly. We will continue your fight. 

Comments? Email me cvdhruve (at) gmail.com

The "Survival of the Fittest" fallacy in organizations

Here's a quote from an article in Vanity Fair (July 3, 2012) titled, "Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant":


“Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. ”[Kurt] Eichenwald writes. “If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.” [emphasis mine]

In my book, published in 2007, I wrote, "It [survival of the fittest] works fine if you are trying to fight, survive, and win as an individual. But in the organizational context, if everyone is busy fighting, surviving, and trying to win as individuals, will the organization survive and win?" (pages 147-148).


Comments? Email me cvdhruve (at) gmail.com

Another "routine" firing: bank employee dismissed for whistleblowing

"When Linda Almonte alerted her boss at JPMorgan Chase about potential fraud in a major deal she was helping to close, she expected him to applaud her great catch. Instead, he fired her." (source: JPMorgan Chase Whistleblower: 'Essentially Suicide' To Stand Up To Bank) 

I would encourage you to read the full story, to see the extent of the personal devastation that the firing caused. 

Also quoted in the article is Dana Gold, a senior fellow at the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for whistleblowers: "Employees get fired all the time for blowing the whistle. We see it so much, it's a predictable phenomenon."

Why is it such a predictable phenomenon?  Because the system's the same, ie a dictatorship system.

Moreover, if you're a whistleblower, the agony doesn't just end with being fired. You can't get another job in the same line of business, the one you're qualified for.Linda is quoted saying, "You google me and my name is everywhere. Any company that would hire me will see that. I can never live that down."

Also quoted is Sherron Watkins, the Enron whistleblower: "You won't find someone that is labeled a 'whistleblower' who has been able to return to their original career."

Why can't you get another job after being fired for whistleblowing? The problem is that all companies are dictatorships, and no dictatorship likes to hire dissidents from another dictatorship.

It's gut-wrenching to read stories like these again and again, and again, but until the system changes, we'll unfortunately have more of the same.

(Comments? Email me - cvdhruve (at) gmail.com) 

I've just created a QuickQuiz - A Trivia Quiz on the Word "Boss"

I've just created a QuickQuiz - A Trivia Quiz on the Word "Boss": Play this QuickQuiz now and test your knowledge!

UK's NHS tries to gag doctors

More evidence that the workplace is a dictatorship (fear) system - this time from the British National Health Service (NHS).

Millions spent on doctor 'gagging orders' by NHS, investigation finds

Some key points from the article:

Nearly 90 per cent of severance agreements hammered out between NHS trusts and departing doctors contain confidentiality clauses

At least 170 doctors in England and Wales agreed such a settlement with the trust employing them – backed up by pay-offs totalling more than £3m.

31 trusts simply refused to disclose the size of the payments

The point is, free systems do not want to gag their employees - rather, they would do everything to encourage them to speak out.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. I have disabled the comments feature as there's too much spam)

Where do the laws of a system come from?

Below is a very insightful take on systems - it's guest post from my friend and fellow Systems Thinker, Biren Shah.

I have been informally studying man-made systems (as opposed to the naturally found, complex, self-organising systems). And the most intriguing, confusing, frustrating and enraging thing I find about our systems (that is, our understanding of systems, and the practice of designing and building systems) is the rules and laws we use; thinking foolishly (and convincing ourselves) that they will help us gain control over the behaviour (and thus, outcome or results) of a system.

We have succeeded in convincing ourselves that rules and laws are what govern a system... drive a system... and give rise to a 'fixed' behaviour of a system. But like everything else, we have it topsy-turvy. We design and draft laws, to define the system... and create all the chaos and confusion that is the hallmark of our human systems - economic, social, educational...we have never stopped and wondered, if the above is true, WHO (or what) implements the rules - how are these rules followed, when there is no one single, central, governing feature or creature.

If we observe natural systems, we will see that rules, or laws, are followed and implemented by the whole system itself - the system constituents (both: the components, and the WAY they interact - the processes). There is no 'police' - a dedicated, separate governing part. That means, the rules and laws of a system are the property that arises BECAUSE of a 'coming together of specific components, in a specific way'.

The rules, or laws, are actually the emergent property of a system. They do not define (that is, make) a system; rather, they are a feature of the system.

The other important thing we can make out is, these rules do not reside (as knowledge) in the components of the system, but they arise, and thus reside, in the system - the complex interaction. That is, a lion does not know the law of 'the survival of the fittest', simply because, there is no 'law'. 'Survival of the fittest' is a property that emerges in our planet's natural world, out of the way the whole natural world interacts.

In other words... laws (what WE call laws) arise out of the system... the system does not arise out of the laws. So, why don't we see this? Recognise this?
 
We are focused on the behaviour - the 'emergent properties' - of a system. But we assume that those properties are 'designed' (and not 'emergent'). and then hastily move on, never stopping to wonder about who or what 'designs' this system.

Why?

What I am noticing is... that BECAUSE we look at life (and thus systems) from the 'fear' perspective of helplessness... and victimhood, we NEED to feel in control... we WANT to be in control. This 'control' perspective colours the way we perceive the behaviour of a system. We are focussed on finding WHAT controls the behaviour of systems... what makes it predictable? And as soon as we can find an answer, an explanation that sounds rational, we hastily move on.

And so, we convince ourselves that the laws are 'written in stone' - fixed - for that particular system. We don't see that the 'laws' are a result of the complex interplay of the system's components. and since both, the components and the interplay, are ever changing, the 'laws' may also change in accordance.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. I have disabled the comments feature as there's too much spam)

Air India plane crash in Mangalore - probable cause

For those who aren't aware, an Air India aircraft crashed on May 22 2010, resulting in the deaths of 158 people. The accident took place in Mangalore, a city in southern India.

Essentially, the aircraft overshot the runway and plunged into a valley that lay just beyond the runway. Weather conditions were apparently not ideal; moreover, the runway is what's called a "tabletop" runway, leaving little room for error.

As I watched news of the accident unfold, I hoped that a probable cause was NOT that the co-pilot warned against landing, and being over-ruled by his commander. Why did I hope this? Because a rather similar thing happened 33 years back, resulting in the world's worst aviation accident (more on this later). If it was a probable cause again, it would mean the lessons hadn't been learnt.

Unfortunately, my hope doesn't appear to match reality. According to a newspaper report, the co-pilot of the Air India aircraft twice urged his commander to not land, but go around and try landing again. The co-pilot was over-ruled, and the commander tried landing the plane - with terrible results.

This problem - of the co-pilot or junior crew members being over-ruled by the flight commander - is not a new one. In fact, the airline industry has a type of training called CRM (Crew Resource Management) to ensure that commanders don't make arbitrary decisions. Yet, it happened on the Air India flight.

Worse, this happened 33 years back and was a factor in the world's worst aviation accident, in which 583 peopled died. In that accident, two 747s (belonging to KLM and the now defunct airline, Pan Am) collided on a runway in Tenerife, Spain. The flight engineer on the KLM asked his captain if they were indeed cleared for take-off, and if the Pan Am had cleared the runway. The captain brushed aside his engineer's warning, and continued taking off - with the Pan Am still on the runway. (The Tenerife disaster is a case study in my book).

Of course, disasters are not just the result of a commander over-ruling a junior. Typically, multiple factors are involved. In the Air India case, the airfield itself has issues; in the KLM's case, fog covered the runway, so visibility was poor.

That said, the human factor is a hugely significant one - and it's important to remove the human factor in these accidents. Specifically, it's important to remove the fear-factor - or the power-abuse factor - in cockpits. CRM is meant to neutralize these issues - but it doesn't. Why not? Simple. Because CRM does not take into account the power imbalance between a boss and his subordinate.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. I have disabled the comments feature as there's too much spam)

French man robs bank to take revenge on bad boss

There's an article in the UK's Guardian newspaper that talks about a French man who stole millions of Euros from a bank, to take revenge on his bosses (read the article here).

The article quoted the man saying, "I had a problem with my boss. It was not the right choice." Further, "As I was single I couldn't have holiday during the summer, they didn't pay me all my hours, we were not respected. I respect the law but at a certain moment I crossed over to the other side because of all these injustices."

I obviously don't condone the crime. That said, it's amazing the extent to which people are pushed by bad bosses, so much so that the 'victims' are willing to commit such crazy and drastic acts. Underlying all this is the sense of utter powerlessness on the part of subordinates.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. I have disabled the comments feature as there's too much spam)

Exit interviews

When you leave a company, your organization's HR (Human Resources) department will typically conduct an "exit interview" - an interview in which they ask you questions related to why you are leaving. This is usually an exercise in futility - first, the questions are designed to ensure you give bland answers. Second, the vast majority of people do not tell the truth because they don't want to burn bridges. So this ends up being a back-slapping exercise with answers such as, "I'm leaving for other opportunities" even if this isn't the truth.

And here's one question that HR never asks, even in an exit interview:"Are you leaving because your boss is terrible?"

Why HR doesn't ask that question, even though it's probably the most valid one?

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. I have disabled the comments feature as there's too much spam)

My ChangeThis manifesto

As of today, my manifesto on ChangeThis is at no. 3 on the list of "Recently Popular Manifestos", ahead of the manifestos of the likes of Tom Peters and Seth Godin.

While I'm obviously pleased, the bigger message is this: bad bosses are a real problem, which is why so many people are reading my manifesto. Even today, when hierarchies are supposedly flatter and bosses are "leaders", bad bosses continue to create enormous amounts of stress.

Brilliant Dilbert cartoon

There's a superb Dilbert cartoon today (May 7th). Check it out!

The cartoon simply and clearly shows how bosses ultimately wield power - through the appraisal.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. You can get more information about my book and reader comments at cvdhruve.com)

The role of VIP weight-throwing in air crashes (continued)

In Sunday's post, I spoke about the death of Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, in an air crash, and a possible reason for it (see post below).

A couple of days back, I read a Telegraph newspaper report that said Mr Kaczynski had a bit of a history in over-ruling pilots:

In August 2008, Mr Kaczynski "shouted furiously" at a pilot who had disobeyed his order to land his plane in then war-torn Georgia for safety reasons. He later tried to have Captain Grzegorz Pietuczak removed from his post with the Polish air force for insubordination, however, Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister intervened. Captain Pietuczak was later awarded a medal for carrying out his duties conscientiously for his refusal to land having judged the risks.

Mr Kaczynski was lucky in 2008 that he had a strong-willed pilot; this time round, he apparently wasn't so lucky.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. You can get more information about my book and reader comments at cvdhruve.com)

The role of VIP weight-throwing in air crashes

The recent death of the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, in an air crash has again put the spotlight on the power equations in a cockpit.

Mr Kaczynski (and a host of senior figures) died when their plane crashed while trying to land in thick fog. What went wrong? According to this report in the Independent newspaper, 'VIP syndrome' is being blamed. Apparently, because of the bad weather in the area, air traffic control directed the plane to land at another airport. But the pilots didn't listen and continued their approach to the runway. Why didn't the pilots heed the warning?

The suspected reason (as of now): The President wanted to ensure he would be able to attend a function they'd gone for. So he over-ruled the pilot.

Viktor Timoshkin, a flight safety expert, was quoted as saying, ""Air-traffic control told him to take the plane to Moscow or Minsk. I'm certain that the pilot will have told the President about this, and got a firm reply that the plane must land in Smolensk."

The President was the boss of the plane and he over-ruled his subordinates, the pilots. The result was a disaster for everybody. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that something like this has happened. The world's worst aviation accident (the collision of two 747s at Tenerife), in which over 500 people died, was partly caused by the captain's refusal to listen to his flight engineer. The engineer had warned that another aircraft (invisible in a dense fog) was on the runway, right in the path of his own aircraft. The captain didn't listen, and the planes collided.

In India, a chief minister of a state was recently killed when his helicopter crashed in bad weather. Here too, the pilots didn't want to fly, but the minister insisted on doing so, so he could attend a function (the same as the Polish President).

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. You can get more information about my book and reader comments at cvdhruve.com)

“Life as the wife of a Lehman Brothers banker”

I’m no longer surprised by stories of controlling and dictatorial bosses. But an article about the wives of those who worked for the now dead financial firm, Lehman Brothers, really got my attention.

The article, published in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper, is called “Life as the wife of a Lehman Brothers banker.” The article talks about a book, “The Devil’s Casino”, written by journalist Vicky Ward, who reveals the horror of life at Lehman. The article says:

There was an annual summer jaunt to the Fuld’s ranch in Sun Valley, Idaho. Not for this lot relaxing walks and jovial team bonding; the weekend was planned with military precision. Ward writes that the men were expected to wear “khaki pants and either a golf shirt or button-down”; Fuld believed that sloppy dress equalled sloppy thinking. The women had to pack “pretty dresses, jewellery, and Manolo Blahnik shoes” as well as hiking gear for the day. This annual hike was so gruelling that one wife turned up with a fake plaster cast in an attempt to get out of it. To her horror, another wife had turned up with a real cast on, but still planned to do the hike. “The wives were just as competitive as their husbands,” says Ward. “If anything, they were more political.”

Even worse:

Yet Ward says she found the roles that the wives were expected to play “chilling”. There is one particular episode in the book that stands out in this respect. Karin Jack, the wife of executive Bradley Jack, recalls the moment one of their children had a seizure. That day some of the senior executives and their wives were due to go and look at a house that Joe Gregory, the company’s then chief operating officer, was building. “We were using Joe’s helicopter,” says Karin in the book. “But I said, 'I have to take my son to the paediatrician.’ So they landed the Sikorsky near our home and waited for me, and they were not leaving without me. Can you imagine the pressure? I have this really sick child, but I know that if I don’t get on that helicopter it’s going to hurt Brad.”

What stands out is that absolute obedience was expected. In the Q&A section on her book’s page on Amazon, Ward says:

You cannot run a major securities firm without tolerating dissent or change at the top. Lehman’s “one firm” culture that made it so great when it was a tiny sub-division of a much larger entity became its nemesis when it was a stand-alone investment bank. Anyone who disagreed with Dick Fuld, or more importantly, the firm’s day-to-day manager Joe Gregory was either fired or quit."

All this – expecting wives to stick by the firm’s rules, intolerance of dissent and so on – brings only one word to my mind: dictatorship. But then, Systems Thinking shows us that these behaviors are only to be expected.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. You can get more information about my book and reader comments at cvdhruve.com)

“I like being able to say turn right, and we truly have 67,000 people turn right.”

That quote is from John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems from an interview he gave earlier this month to the New York Times. To be fair to him, he then said something in addition that. But for now, bear with me while I examine his quote.

I worked at Cisco towards the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, a time when the internet phenomenon was beginning to take off. His quote has particular meaning for me now, given all the research and work I’ve done related to Systems Thinking and bosses.

What struck me during my time at Cisco was a very, very strange dichotomy. On one hand, the company was very enlightened in that it allowed employees to access to everything on the internet. This was at a time when many employers blocked off access to innocuous sites such as Hotmail and news sites, fearing that employees would waste time. Cisco’s stand was roughly along the lines of, “When phones first made their entrance in the office, employers feared people would sit on the phone all day long. Hence, they let only a select few employees have phones. But today, companies give every employee a phone because they trust their employees to use phones responsibly. You can’t possibly work without a phone. And if we can trust you to use the phone responsibly, we can trust you to use the internet responsibly.”

That said, I was also struck by the command-and-control atmosphere present. It seemed that while Cisco was creating technologies that were apparently flattening hierarchies, a strong under-current of “chain-of-command” was ever-present.

I always wondered about this dichotomy. One thing I always felt strongly was that a company as enlightened as Cisco couldn’t possibly be command-and-control oriented. It simply didn’t make sense and I couldn’t figure it out. But I put it down to one of life’s mysteries and moved on.

The mystery was solved recently when I read an interview with Cisco’s CEO, John Chambers. In response to a question on his leadership style, Chambers answered, “I’m a command-and-control person. I like being able to say turn right, and we truly have 67,000 people turn right.”

I think this is plain crazy. How can you have 67,000 people all sincerely and whole-heartedly turn in the direction the CEO wants them to? Surely there would be some dissent, some grumbling? I’ve always thought the real measure of teamwork is not when everyone says “Yes Sir” and smartly turns when ordered to turn. You know there’s real teamwork when people are openly offering their opinions without fear rather than dutifully taking orders.

From my research, I know that the attitude of top management travels right down the chain-of-command. And so it was at Cisco – the command-and-control attitude traveled right down. Of course, Cisco is not unique in this. Virtually every modern corporation functions this way.

To his credit, Chambers continued to answer the leadership style question by saying, “But that’s the style of the past. Today’s world requires a different leadership style — more collaboration and teamwork, including using Web 2.0 technologies.”

Chambers was also asked, “What’s changed in the last few years?” His answer: “Big time, the importance of collaboration. Big time, people who have teamwork skills.”

What strikes me about this response is, what was so different about “yesterday’s world” that required a command-and-control style? People are still the same. Human beings haven’t changed much – if at all - in 10 years. Why on earth couldn’t we have more collaboration and teamwork decades ago? Saying collaboration technologies didn’t exist would be a red herring. People have been collaborating and working in teams since the Stone Age, hunting together for example.

What I feel is that Chambers has recognized that the world is a complex place; it always has been – and the way to deal with complexity is not hierarchy but teamwork and collaboration. Moreover, Chambers comes from a generation of ‘leaders’ who have grown up under the command-and-control philosophy so I don’t blame him. At least he has recognized that the old ways don’t work. But the answer lies not in new technology. It lies in new systems that have freedom as the emergent property – without real freedom, you cannot have real teamwork and real collaboration.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. You can get more information about my book and reader comments at cvdhruve.com)

Even pirates in the 18th century got to vote for their boss!

There's a new book called The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, by Peter T. Leeson (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 296 pages, $24.95).

An article in Reason reviewing the book talks about the differences in the ways in which pirates and sailors on legitimate ships worked:

"[A] pirate’s life had less publicized qualities as well: Ships were known among sailors for their relatively decent living conditions, profitsharing opportunities, democratic practices, and racially integrated crews. Life “on the account,” as pirating was known, was often far more civilized than legitimate seamanship.

"[Pirates] invented their own ways of doing business. Decades before the American Founders got their act together, pirates were drafting documents full of voting rights, juries, checks and balances, rules for property allocation, even methods for impeachment. The buccaneers may have been less concerned with natural rights than with survival and claiming their fair share of booty, but the end result feels surprisingly like the kind of self-governance we expect from enlightened modern republics. Perhaps even better, since the deal was truly voluntary (for the pirates if not their prey). No one is born a pirate, and everyone has to swear into the contract on each venture.

"[T]his “rougish Commonwealth” also had due process. Caprtains were elected, and they could be removed by a vote of the crew. Speeches were given for and against candidates. One of Capt. Roberts’ sailors, for example, urged his fellows to vote for a leader “who by his Counsel and Bravery seems best able to defend this Commonwealth... such a one I take Roberts to be. A Fellow! I think, in all Respects, worthy of your Esteem and Favour.” Speeches also contained warnings and reminders of the power of the people: “Should a Captain be so saucy as to exceed Prescription at any time, why down with him! it will be a Caution after he is dead to his Successors, of what fatal Consequence any sort of assuming may be.

"Balancing the powers of the captain was the quartermaster, the captain’s peacetime counterpart. Sort of a den mother with a blunderbuss, he oversaw the distribution of loot and generally kept peace on the ship by enforcing the rules and arbitrating disputes. He too could be replaced at any time by a vote."

And in contrast, here's a look at the lives of (legitimate but lowly) sailors:

"If legally sanctioned sailor pay was bad, the working coditions were worse. Captains on merchant ships held absolute power over their crews, and they regularly ordered floggings, revoked pay or rations, or tied men to the mast. Sailors could sue when they got home, and they occasionally won, but that’s cold comfort when you’re six months at sea, stripes from the lash stinging your back, and ordered to forfeit your rum ration."

And here we are, in the 21st century, working in dictatorship systems that even pirates of the 18th century did not stand for!

For the record: Obviously, I do not support or condone piracy in any way.

(If you have any comments, please email me at cvdhruve@gmail.com. You can get more information about my book and reader comments at cvdhruve.com)