Pirate Crew Maneuvers

June 12, 2009 · Comments

pirates As a pirate captain (president of a small business practicing rogue business execution), I sometimes fall into the leadership trap of “I’ll just do this because I know what I want.” This method is fraught with problems and I’m living them right now. I can’t scale fast enough because I’ve left all the brain-grinding parts up in my skullpot. There’s a reason ships have crews.

Be Aware of Your Inputs and Outputs

In building your projects for social media, especially if you’re a solo practitioner, consider the idea that you might be building one piece of a larger solution, or that you might be executing on only portions of a project. To that end, build your interfaces very well (those parts of your project where you take in information, and those parts where you share out information).

Make Runbooks

Get the repeatable stuff down on paper and into a trainable system so that you can start others on the business of learning what you know that they could use. For instance, if you know the 12 WordPress plugins you always add to a base install of the software, it’s just easier to put those into a “build” document, so that whoever you have build a new site will know that’s how you want it done.

Know Your Place in the Value Chain

Our friends, Justin Rasmussen and Eric Rasmussen are way better web (and print) designers that us. I was just realizing that I need a document set and was starting down the path of creating it. Duh. This work isn’t for me. It’s for Justin and Eric and they’ll do way better than me, will free me to do other things, and will give me documents that help everyone who uses them.

The value chain refers to a concept I got in Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat. It essentially reminds us to work on things that we can add value to, and to push things off to others to help us with if they can be accomplished in part or whole without our direct input. So, if I’m building a website, I push design and installation tasks to Justin and Eric because they’re better at it and because I can then focus on content marketing strategies, which is what I’m good at (for example).

That’s a key point, by the way. If I knew how, I’d use HTML to highlighter this above part a bit.

Grow Your Crew

If you’re the pirate captain, then keep your eyes peeled for great people to add to your crew (even if it’s as a contractor). If you’re the crew, team up where you believe you can add value. We tend to think only in terms of our own capabilities instead of having awareness of how others can participate in the process.

Want the bonus round? Think beyond your locality. If you can empower remote work, and if you can get into making better runbooks (above), then you can really span your capabilities and work better.

What’s Next?

First, I’m curious how this resonates with you. Have you found yourself in that trap of, “I’ll just do it myself” instead of knowing when to work with teams?

Second, I’m curious who will apply this kind of thinking to themselves, either as pirate crew or as a pirate captain, and what you come up with. If you do it, will you share?

I’m going to share my experiences as things move forward. It’s the only way my company will survive.

What say you?

Photo credit Oakley Originals

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  • great post.
    for those interested in learning more, the book e-myth is really the best resource on this topic.
  • Delegation in the pirate nation - always a challenge for those of us at the helm of our rogue ships. Whether the issue at hand revolves around financial concerns, or an often misplaced fear of giving away our treasured ideas, trying to do it all yourself will usually wind up sending you in circles when you could be slicing through the waves.

    I can SAY this with conviction, but am at least as guilty as the next bucaneer when it comes to ignoring my own advice. I am learning, however. In March, I became one of six women who launched a blog called Savvy B2B Marketing. The project developed in a very organic way as a result of a chance meeting at a virtual writers' summit. Although our blog is still a rowboat, we are constantly amazed at how much we've been able to accomplish in the last few months. We launched, have consistenly published quality content, have garnered comments from some fairly big names in our space, and have just kicked off a guest blogger series. We're sometimes shocked (and always thrilled) at our little successes. Though we come from diverse backgrounds, we all agree that pooling our talents and time is absolutely one of the keys to our success. Our complementary capabilties and ego-free collaboration have served us well thus far and are, I think, a great example of a pirate partnership that works.
    Thanks, as always, for the great ideas.
  • It would serve you (and others who have commented) well to read the book, The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber.

    There's a big difference between working in your business and working on your business.
  • Mary Anne Shew
    Chris: You probably know you are not alone in feeling this way. Have you come across a book called E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber? The book addresses this exact issue.

    I'm a regular reader and fan and follower (@shewtime) of yours--keep up the great work!
  • Chris,
    How do you do that when you are first starting out and there isn't much cash flow. I have trouble putting into words how I can help people. I can't even write up my own bio for my website. I would love to have someone else do that for me but I can afford it. How do I get around this dilemma? Any suggestions?
    Thanks,
    E
  • I agree and disagree. Here's why.... I think we should always play to our strengths and not fall into the trap of doing everything we are capable of doing since we cannot be experts at everything. Capable and expertise being two different things which have time implications. I concluded a couple of months back that I should not do my own websites and blog (other than decide on layout, content and write content). If I hired someone else to do them my time was freed up to put my knowledge and true expertise into preparing teleseminars and e books on starting and growing small businessess. BUT... and here's why I disagree with you in some ways... I hired someone who has a great reputation on the internet, is experienced and knowledgeable but - does not have a reliable team around her so my website , which should have been completed by the end of May, has not even been sent to me as a first draft yet and days go by before e mails are responded to... I could have done the darn thing myself in less time.... So...moral of the story - recognise where you are not an expert, hire an expert to do the work BUT do not pay in advance, have a written, signed contract in place so that they have to deliver certain elements by a certain date if not the contract falls and they are not paid a penny. This will flush out the experts who are also professional, competent business people. These are the ones to do business with and spend your hard earned dollars on. Otherwise you waste time chasing them and coaxing them that you could spend doing the work yourself.
  • While it is very gratifying to do things oneself (is that correct verbiage? meh.), it definitely has drawbacks. I keep a lot of things in my head - and if not written down, who's to know how to do those things if I get hit by, say, a pet food truck? No one. So I have trained myself to show others how to do not only basic things, but more complex things. If I can do a tutorial on something versus only in-person verbal training, I'll do that. If a class needs to be whittled down from the heady notions of a trainer into writing or at least assembled into something recognizable, I'll do that (or push the lead person to allow me to do it =)!


    It's massively important to have a team with whom you can work, who can take over the tasks that they are best suited for (all the while keeping an eye open for talents heretofore unseen), and free oneself up for the work, play and creativity that is key to continuing the business.

    You've got it there, Chris. As hard as it is to remind yourself that your best work is not all work, it's still necessary.

    Thanks for sharing what you know and giving us the opportunity to pitch in on this post.
  • Eric Schmidt talked about this in his commencement speech. He said "Do things in groups" and mentioned that groups move faster. I agree! As a solo practicing lawyer, I try to teach my assistants how to fish instead of doing all the work. My practice will not scale at all if I have to crank out tons of administrative stuff. I create instructions that I give to my virtual assistant in India. If he ever leaves, I've got the instructions and can easily get the next one up to speed. I talk about this in this short presentation. It is possible to run a law practice under $100. http://voicethread.com/#q.b536054.i2868384
  • Thanks man for the compliments! We love working with you guys! Way to much fun!
  • I guess being a pirate captain doesn't resonate with me...

    Maybe it's a girl thing?
  • When working with groups, I somehow always seem to end up the "organizer." I usually sit back and listen to all the ideas that people have and then they ask me to assign the tasks. But here's where I falter-I assume that the people I assign the tasks to don't need ANY guidance. Instead of the "I'll do it myself" mentality, I get trapped in the "I won't do any of it because you've got it covered, right?" because I don't want to micromanage.

    This post got me thinking as to how I can balance those extremes. By not providing any type of guidance, I'm not being there for my crew if they see something uncharted on the horizon. I've got to remember that my place in the value chain is making sure all the pieces get put together. But if I don't keep up on all the pieces I'm not going to be able to build something very solid, am I?

    Hmmm...something to think about. Thanks Chris!
  • I think I fall into this trap daily. It's part of me that needs to change. I manage a team of folks who are responsible for delivering services to our customer. I need to use them more. I need to think about how I can equip them, train them, enable them and push them to help our team grow. I get into the 'I gotta do this' mentality and it, at times, slows us down for sure.

    It comes down to knowing your teams strengths and weaknesses. Being willing to let go and let others do. Taking chances. And focusing on building a team that really working together by everyone adding their strengths and helping in a way that benefits the whole.

    Tough to be good at cultivating this type of environment, but that's the job of the pirate ship captain!! Get'em Chris =)

    http://twitter.com/franswaa
  • Hi Chris,

    A few years ago I transitioned from a direct contributor role into a manager role and faced many of these same issues. Now as independent consultant and small business owner, I'm back in direct contributor mode, most of the time, but need to step out of pirate mode as you call it to grow things that are bigger than me.

    While I like your idea of knowing your place in the value chain, sometimes it's best to delegate things even if you think you could do it better yourself. Many times I think I have a great idea, but ask for ideas, only to get an even better idea. Also, by delegating whole tasks and not just the piece I'm not as good at or can't do myself, I tend to get better results. People like to own things.

    Laura
    http://www.bridging-the-gap.com
  • Doing it yourself is great, but as you said, that doesn't scale. You have to build a team that you trust, allow them to do their job(s) and allow them (and yourself) to fail.

    Do this and you'll find your ship sailing faster than most others
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