I just came back from Israel where I was studying innovation. I discovered a land of pirates. The lines on the roads are merely suggestions. All rules aer open for negotiation. And they believe they can do anything. Amazingly, they accomplish the most amazing things. This land of paradox is full of new technology in the middle of ancient cities.

When I asked people about innovation, two elements seem to drive it. One, the common element of the army and the need to protect Israel. This is accompanied with an amazing hope for the future. Hope for a peaceful future, hope for solving problems and building a safe land.

I came back inspired.
Inspired spiritually and artistically. Inspired to make a difference in this world.
Inspired to have even more piratical adventures.

Courage and Pirates

Innovation lies in the hands of the courageous and the "risk hardy."

Innovation takes place when we try new things

in new ways

from new points of view.

The pirates had to have the courage to face

wild seas

well armed armadas

and capricious winds.

How do we find the courage to leave the known shore

to explore the open seas and discover new lands?

We prepare ourselves to be risk hardy.

One way to do this is to say yes to new opportunities and to

try something new on a regular basis.

In every company listed as highly innovative there is an element of courage in the company. In fact, courage is part of the culture. Leadership style supports courage by allowing people to fail.

After all, not all adventures turn out correctly the first time we venture out.

But we have to venture out if we are ever going to succeed.

So, my pirate friend, how do you become more courageous?

Pirate Language of Innovation

So, back to the idea of Pirates as innovators. As I said there are five language aspects that relate to innovation. This first one is the language of Curiosity. Pirates would never have survived, never have created a new way to be in the world with the desire to explore the world. Curiosity is just that, a desire to explore, to find out, to examine and test. It is this drive that pushes Pirates to leave the known world behind and to go where the map is marked "There be monsters here."

Curiosity pushes Pirates, leaders, explorers, innovators and learners to sail away from the shore into the open ocean in order to find new possibilities. Listen to the language of an innovative Pirate, listen for the hints of curiosity. Does she wonder about life? Does she ask how and why? Does she eschew the familiar path for, perfering to blaze a new trail? Does the routine leave her bored?

How do you find an innovator? Listen for the language of curiosity. This will be the first hint.
Next...courage.

Pirate humor

Remeber, laughter is important. We learn better when we laugh. Our lives seem better when we laugh. We are healthier when we laugh. Keep the humor alive on your ship!

Start with this joke:

A pirate walked into a bar and the bartender said, "Hey, I haven`t seen you in a while. What happened? You look terrible!"
"What do you mean? I`m fine."
"What about that wooden leg? You didn`t have that before."
"Well," said the pirate, "we were in a battle at sea and a cannon ball hit my leg, but the Doc fixed me up, and I`m fine, really."
"Oh yeah? Well, what about that hook? The last time I saw you, youhad both hands."
"We were in another battle and we boarded the enemy ship. I was in a sword fight and my hand was cut off, but the Doc fixed me up with the hook, and I feel great, really."
"Oh," said the bartender, "and what about that eye patch? The last time you were in here, you had both eyes."
"One day when we were at sea some birds were flying over the ship. I looked up and one of them shit in my eye."
"You`re kidding," said the bartender, "you couldn`t have lost an eye just from some bird shit."
"It was my first day with the hook."

Pirate language of innovation

As I have said, pirates were the innovators of the sea. They used five distinct elements of innovation in their language and actions.

• Curiosity
• Courage
• Cross-roads
• Commitment
• Chronicle

I will talk about each of these in an individual entry, but will start with pointing out the power of how we talk. Our words create the world we live in. Our words create and determine the flavor and power of our relationships. Or words tell the world who we are, what we want, and what we are willing and able to do.

So it is no surprise that organizations and groups and individuals who are innovative use a similar language; a language that displays the five elements presented above. Innovators have to be curious about the world around them. They have to be "risk-harder" and courageous. They need to see the connections between and across disciplines, they need to have clear intention and integrity. And finally, they have to be great story tellers.

More to come. Meanwhile, drink a bit a grog and watch that sunset on the horizon.

Pirate Creativity

Pirates are by nature creative. Without creativity Pirates would be unable to build a new way around old rules.

This creativity spreads into the arts too. Most pirates played an instrument, or wove nets, or tied macrame, or carved wood or bone. Finding the artistic part of you can help you find your way through wild waters.

What is your hidden talent? Do you knit or tie dye shirts, or paint scarfs or play the flute? Do you raise plants or puppies? Do you dance in the kitchen or sing in the shower?

Trust me, you have a talent.

Use it.

Develop it.

Creative pursuits help your brain develop new neural pathways.

New pathways in your brain lead to new pathways in your life.

New pathways lead to new adventures

which build new neural pathways.

Take out your finger paints and go for it.

Paint your walls and halls.

Decorate the ship and the sails.

Create a new adventure.

Pirate Pearls continue

What does it take to be a great pirate, besides a wild outfit and good rum?

Well, Curiosity helps. Wondering what is around the next bend, wondering if there are ways to sail better or build a better boat, or wondering "what if?" are all powerful questions.

Charisma helps. This is more about the audience then about you. Do your crew believe in you? Do they trust you? will they follow you? Then you have charisma.

And...be a great problem solver. Meaning be innovative. Invite suggestions. Be adaptive AND have a plan.

A pirate's ability to lead comes from a crew's willingness to follow.
Be the leader they believe you can be.

Slides from Innovation playing in backward order...

Secrets for Pirate Leadership

Pirates know they can get their treasure if they are willing to be creative with "how".

Pirates know that fear is the most deeply rooted emotion in the brain. To change our own mind, our "how" we do things, we need to face our own fears and be cognitively and spiritually courageous.

To lead others we need to acknowledge the fears of others. Pirates know that it takes a great deal of courage to face personal fears. It takes even more courage to lead people past personal fears.

This is the charge of the Pirate leader:

To help the crew face and move past their own fears.

This is so much like leading horses. Horses follow the head of the herd. If there is no head horse, the horses can become stranded.

A good pirate has to be a good head-horse.

Check out this video of four amazing women pirates who led 200 horses off an island where they were stranded. Watch closely...they only have to really lead the first two or three horses, then all the rest will follow.

Once they are moving, following a horse they trust, they are no longer afraid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRc3Ev05QiM

Manage by Pirating around

While being a Pirate can be quite enjoyable, all the freedom and adventure also comes with a bit of responsibility. A good pirate captain is only as good as her ship and crew. That means that a pirate is always responsible for growing and maintaining a motivated, committed and innovative crew.

What are the best ways to motivate a crew, any crew? With mentoring, praise, a share of the treasure, and alignment of values.

It is a Pirate captain’s main job to mentor the crew. How can someone handle the rigging or sheets without training? How can someone learn to read the wind and follow the currents without a mentor? Pirates know that it is unfair to grade someone on a task without first training them, and then training them again, and then letting them make a few mistakes, and then trusting and mentoring them.

A trusted crew will rise to the challenge of sailing the ship. A wise captain will notice and praise success. This is not about giving out T-shirts and ribbons for 15th place, or celebrating coming in last even though we tried. This is not handing out random "good job" awards. This is praise that states clearly what was done well so the crew knows what to be proud of and what to do more of. A wise pirate can say: I appreciate the way you handled the sheets in the wind; You did a great job navigating that shallow reef. Specific praise while looking the person in the eyes.

Anyone who helps find the treasure by sailing in rough seas deserves an equal cut of the treasure. Sharing is something that we should all of learned in kindergarten, and something that we need to remember to keep doing.

Share the rum and the gold.

Finally, why would someone sail on my ship if I did not value their efforts and their spirit? How could they be a good crew member if I did not acknowledge the ways that their values were also the values of the ship? Wild seas and capricious winds demand that a crew and captain can work together. A wise pirate makes sure that values are aligned and valued before the ship leaves port.

Black Pearl of Wisdom: Develop a Pirate Mind

See the world as it is.
Live in the world as it should be.
Invite others into the sea of possibility.

This is my one of favorite Pirate sayings. It describes the pirate mind, a way of living in the world. Too often we humans get stuck thinking from the old reptilian part of our brain. That is the part that responds to change by killing it, eating it, running from it, or maybe have sex with it. None of which really lead to a world of possibilities.

Well, sex has potential.

But the reptilian brain is just reacting from fear. Ask yourself, do you really want the part of you that is afraid to make your decisions, to steer your ship and choose your course? Do you want fear to dictate the treasure you seek?

A pirate mind is one that is open to changing winds, seeing the capriciousness of the world as a source of marvelous opportunities. Pirates are cognitively courageous. When faced with choosing between the lesser of two, or several, evils, a pirate will ask: “what might I invent that will give me other choices?”

So, my fine shipmate, the wind is at our backs, and the world opens before us. What can we invent in our lives that will open up a world of powerful and positive choices for us?

Why Pirates?

OK, OK, so many of you are asking "why Pirates?" as a metaphor. I know that Hollywood has made some pretty romantic images, from Errol Flynn to Johnny Depp, but those are not real. I know. What is real is that most pirates started out with letters of marque from the queen or king, giving them legal rights to protect the sea and shores of their respective Queendom. Pirates took that right and pushed the edge. They learned that a lone ship at the edges can shift the course of a large armada. They created democratic systems of leadership on the ship, as well as the first disability payment system. They learned that freedom is always better than corner office, and that pirating has more to do with psychology and relationships than it does with canons and gun powder.

Oh, don’t forget the rum.

This blog is dedicated to that ideal; freedom, fortune and glory for the fun of it.
If you like the idea of swashbuckling your way through life, sailing great ships into unknown waters just for the adventure, watching the sun set and rise over an open horizon…while drinking rum… you just might be a pirate.

I will be posting Black Pearls of wisdom that can be used in any setting to help you pirate your way through life. I know that this is not the current wisdom. According to some authors, one should be able to just dream the perfect life without leaving the comfort of your reclining couch. Maybe that is true, but I have found that no matter how hard I dream and affirm and visualize, I still need a bit of piratical smarts and a dash of grog to make it all work. Or at least to have fun.

So, first black pearl of wisdom is a short one:
Audactiy is a pirate virtue.

Leading like a Shaman

There once was a village that was experiencing a horrible drought. In desperation the villagers sent for a holy woman in hopes that she could break the drought. When she arrived, she went into the small house that the villagers had provided and closed the door behind her. The holy woman sat in the house and began to meditate. The villagers paced back and forth outside the house impatiently waiting for her to come out and deal with the drought. After three days of this, the sky clouded up and a gentle but steady rain fell from the sky. When the holy woman emerged from the house the villagers asked how she had made this miracle happen. She looked at them and smiled. “When I arrived,” she said, “I realized that this place was out of harmony, and that I too was out of harmony. I went into the house and meditated for three days, until I was back in harmony. When I was in harmony, the place moved back into harmony. When the place was in harmony, the rains came.”

The holy woman understood the secret of alignment; we can align with the place and people around us, or pull the place into alignment with our own connection to Spirit. This is such a subtle process that most people do not realize that they are moving away from their sense of spirit and aligning with the surrounding emptiness until the inner sense of barrenness becomes overwhelming. Leaders who are driven by Spirit must face and embrace this challenge on a daily basis; how to remain connected to Spirit, and bring that connection to the out-of-harmony hallways that fill our academic and corporate worlds.

It is easier to make decisions from fear than it is to stay open to adventure. It is easier to create shields of hierarchy than to be visible and vulnerable. There is no true leadership or connection to Spirit, however, if we make our choices from deep within our own fears. It is more powerful to ask ourselves what we would do if we were like the holy woman, aware of our ability and need to stay in harmony and alignment with spirit.

This is the challenge then: to be a Shaman, aware of how the places and tasks, people and obligations, commitments and goals, time schedules and rules tug on us, drain us, and pull us out of our internal sense of spiritual harmony, and yet bring spirit with us as we walk through the empty hallways of our world. If we take the time and energy to realign ourselves with spirit, if we find the courage and elegance to walk and work in that state of harmony, we will find that our hallways are no longer empty, but are filled creative possibility and passion.

Inspiring a Renaissance of Spirit

What is a Renaissance of Spirit? It is awakening the inner sleeper, the dynamic creative force that longs for a true experience of life. It is heeding our desire to live with passion, to embrace and be engulfed by our bliss. A renaissance of spirit ocurrs when we embrace a personal relationship with the universe, measured only by the depth to which it resonates with our true self.

Why do we seek this? Because, as Joseph Campbell said, we are not looking for the mealing of life, but for a meaningful authentic life experience. It is this personal experience that opens our heart and allows us to embrace our own depth of emotion, that frees us from our mundane quotidian routine. We are lifted above our concerns and worries, all of which seem to become trivial, and placed into the midst's of our personal adventure.

How do we enter this personal renaissance? Not through our minds, but through our hearts. The most exciting and often frustrating thing about the journey is that there are no rules, no always or never, no one-right-way or guaranties, only crative chlices. The guides posts are our sense of connection and joy, and feelings of alignemne with the universe. As a wonderful pirate once taught, "Listen to the singing compass of your heart, and it will guide you to the wonderful horizon." Here is to the Pirate's way of navigating into our own true life.