I have to tell you about one of my favourite business books. ‘Be More Pirate’ by Sam Conniff was one of those can’t put down, read from cover to cover, ‘this is me’ books that I truly believe helped me and team diamond embrace our culture and forge through a tough time post the Brexit announcement and to forge a much stronger fiercer company that has sailed well through the challenges that has scuppered many a business in 2020.
The book is great. I bought 30 of them and used it as our 2018 AGM at a time we were going through some serious challenges. We used it to become more at ease with our maverickness (new word but a good one!) and it led us to becoming truer to who we were and how we did stuff. It was hard as we’d kind of lost our way as we had scaled but returning to embracing our very unique culture has given us potency and dynamism.
The end result of all of this took time, obviously. When I set out our Pirates Charter – and came down on the Mutineers (it was a pretty fierce day!) it was the real turning point. However nearly 2 years after reading the book, and doing the stuff that arose from that ‘conversion’ and we are finally back on course to our Treasure Island. The last 4 months have accelerated that. And the reason its accelerated it, not scuppered us, is because we ARE MORE PIRATE. So when 50% of haulage companies saw zero income and same day courier companies saw revenue drop by 70% and the world shut down – diamond didn’t. In fact we’ve grown by 60%. Which is pretty cool.
I sent my thanks to Sam and presented at a Zoom Pirate Meet on Monday sharing our story hosted by the inimitable Alex Barker. @AlexandraBarke1
You can find out more about Work Pirates (challenging workplace/business norms) from Alex and Be More Pirate here. Be More Pirate
If Sam Conniff is reading this thanks from all here at team diamond. If you haven’t read this book – go out and buy it right now. I promise you it is BRILLIANT!
