The Pirate School of Management

I think Mrs Lawther has a crush on Johnny Depp

I watched Pirates of the Caribbean last night. If I have seen it once I have seen it twenty times…

• My 10-year-old daughter loves watching it
• My 15-year-old daughter loves watching it
• Even my wife loves watching it…

I suspect that they enjoy it for very different reasons.  It is my wife’s enthusiasm that concerns me the most.   What Capt’n Jack Sparrow / Johnny Depp has that I haven’t is beyond me.  A couple of earrings and a trip to the tattoo parlour and I will give him a run for his money.  I might even grow a beard.

When I confront Mrs Lawther she smiles at me.  Apparently he is just a loveable rogue.

The truth about pirates

Despite what Mr Depp and Disney will have you believe pirates were not loveable rogues, they were criminals, unpleasant ones at that.  The “Golden Age” of piracy was during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Pirates plundered the shipping routes between European countries and their colonies in the East Indies, Africa and Asia.  Murdering, raping, pillaging and mutilating as they went.

There is nothing loveable about leaving somebody marooned on a desert island.

The good guys

The job of thwarting the pirates fell to the Royal Navy and their European counterparts.

Heroic as that sounds, life as a good guy wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.  At that time the Royal Navy was the epitome of a command and control organisation.  On board ship the Captain had as much power as a King.  His word was law.  Many of them were simply dictators.

The Royal Navy paid the average sailor 19 shillings per month. This was about half what sailors in the merchant navy earned.  A Captain was only paid about ten times that amount, so the sailors were often “taxed” by officers and the Captain.   When food or drink was in short supply the Captain and officers would ensure that their needs were met first, leaving the crew hungry.  If there was any dissension punishments were brutal.

Roughly half of the sailors in the Royal Navy had been press-ganged.  If press ganging is your recruitment strategy it is likely you have staff motivation problems.  Conditions on board ship did nothing to improve sailor morale, so to prevent desertion the Captain would often hold back six months pay.

There is no justice or injustice on board ship, my lad. There are only two things: duty and mutiny, mind that. All that you are ordered to do is duty. All that you refuse to do is mutiny
~ Marcus Rediker

The bad guys

Unsurprisingly one of the most fertile recruiting grounds for pirates was the Royal Navy.  Sailors were happy to “jump ship” and find a new employer.  However, once they had left one dictatorial culture they were less than keen to join another.  So the pirates ran their ships under a very different set of rules.

In his paper “An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization”, Peter Leeson shows how the pirate gangs were organised.

Division of management responsibilities

To prevent too much power resting in one person’s hands pirates separated responsibilities.

They had a Captain responsible for finding ships to plunder and battle tactics.  They also had a Quartermaster responsible for “employee relations“ and “compensation and benefits”. He ensured that living quarters, food, alcohol and treasure were all shared out equitably.

This division of responsibility made certain that there was far less of the extreme management behaviour found in the Royal Navy.

Pirates elected their Captains and Quartermasters democratically.  If the crew found either to be lacking then they were unceremoniously dumped. This provided another incentive for the leaders not to become too god like in their approach.

Pirate constitutions

There really was a pirate code.  Pirates who crewed the ship of Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart) sailed under the following conditions:

Every man shall have an equal vote in affairs

He shall have an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized

Every man shall be called fairly in turn by the list on board of prizes

Anybody who defrauds the company shall be marooned

None shall game for money either with dice or cards

The lights and candles should be put out at eight at night

Each man shall keep his piece, cutlass and pistols at all times clean and ready for action

No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them

He that shall desert the ship or his quarters in time of battle shall be punished by death

None shall strike another on board the ship, every man’s quarrel shall be ended on shore

Every man who shall become a cripple or lose a limb in the service shall have 800 pieces of eight

The musicians shall have rest on the Sabbath Day only by right

The crews of other pirate ships all had similar constitutions.

Compensation

The pirates each received an equal share of the takings.

Depending on the ship, Captains and Quartermasters received two shares and the ship’s surgeon received one and a half shares.  For a normal pirate a single share would equate to a years wages for each ship that they captured.  On the most successful ships a pirate could expect to earn £1,000 (equal to about £1,000,000) at least once in their career.

Good guys or bad guys?

It is difficult to say who was the most productive, the navy or the pirates, but one commentator described pirates as the “Rock Stars of their age”.  But if I were to drop you on board a ship in the Caribbean in the 17th century which side of the battle would choose?

I’m sure Mrs Lawther is simply impressed by Capt’n Jack Sparrow’s management skills.

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Image by Russ Morris