That’s the revolution that comes from a pirate mentality, and it’s a pattern I’ve seen across a whole range of sectors. Put actions into place for which you are responsible and accountable. The next is to change the rules and offer a path forward that’s different. Breaking the rules is only the first step. When a small group of people come together and risk everything to start something new, that’s when progress happens. As they stand up for the cause, these individuals recruit others until they have enough mass to force the change they want. Professional rule breakers are the modern equivalent of pirates: people who, with one act of rebellion, stand up and say, “This needs to change,” even if it means losing their jobs or a large client. It’s an action I’ve begun calling “professional rule breaking.” It could be in reaction to a business or human resource issue, but it ought to entail a considerable amount of risk. In the following Q&A, the author explains how adopting a 17th-century pirate mindset can benefit 21st-century businesses.Ĭonniff: When I encourage people to act like pirates, I’m calling on individuals to find places within their companies that have become stagnant or untenable and overhaul them. Pirates’ willingness to buck the status quo could be a model for modern business leaders as they navigate the current era of change, Conniff says. “When the golden age of piracy ended, they took to land in the Caribbean where-as the center of global trade-these ideas laid the groundwork for modern democracy.” “They decided not merely to reject the rules of a broken society but to rewrite them entirely,” Conniff says. Rather than follow established, hierarchical naval traditions, their ships adopted democratic policies with equal representation, compensation structures linking the captain’s wages to the lowest-paid crew member, and remuneration in cases of injury and death. Many of the pirates during this time were young and fighting against governmental and economic systems they thought were unfair, Conniff says. “In many ways, the pirates who roamed the seas from the 1690s to about 1725, which I call the golden age of piracy, profoundly changed the world.” “The stereotype of bumbling raiders with accents is not the image of pirates that I found through my research,” Conniff says.