profpjm · HackerTrans

sounds like you need to read the book. history will teach you many lessons. In old seafaring ventures AND in modern firms leaders undertake actions that violate shared values. in the historic cases the values are more basic (safety, food) to the human condition than they are in firms today (socialization, esteem). Mutinies on historic age of discovery ventures were extremely sophisticated and subtle and the physical environment brought it all down to basic human social dynamics. why not look at firms today? try it. (a) firms are all different from one another and you can't compare cases - the ships were suitable similar. (b) can't get reliable data - people today will lie to you because they are biased, whereas on the ships the primary account journals are richer and more objective. finally, citing the judicial system strains credulity as there is so much members can do to depose leaders with it completely under the radar.

profpjm

13 anni fadiscuss

actually in both settings you have an example of shared values being affronted. on a ship the values concern safety and food. in a firm the values concern socialization and esteem. in both settings, leaders undertake actions that violate shared values. so the mechanism that stimulates mutiny in both settings is identical. moreover, it is indeed possible for mutineers to take control (subtle control, over weeks or months) of a venture, department, or firm.

profpjm

13 anni fadiscuss

awesome connection - hadn't heard of that mutiny scene before

profpjm

13 anni fadiscuss

excellent comments. it does rarely work. those mutinies for reasons similar to why entrepreneurial ventures fail. success rate is about the same. secrecy, strategy, timing. an idea that is defensible. established elements are threatened by it. try to crush it. risk, etc.

profpjm

13 anni fadiscuss

revolt, takeover. reminds me of the mutiny post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5525173

profpjm

13 anni fadiscuss

that is an awesome example. there is a similar modern case in the book. a mutiny in a company and an entrepreneurial venture in a market space have many similarities, parallel risks and potential rewards.

profpjm

13 anni fadiscuss

great comment. mutiny was viewed extremely differently in the age of discovery, even positively. seafarers were extremely clever about it and so were leaders. it is possible to depose authority in a setting like you describe but not via the current dominant view or what it means to depose authority. a mutiny, done very strategically, can be constructive. but it needs to flow from the culture of the organization in which it occurs.

profpjm

13 anni fadiscuss

that's a pretty good pamphlet, thanks for sharing. but unfortunately, age of discovery seafaring ventures and whaling ventures were very different indeed. the former where driven by discovery and intensely entrepreneurial. the latter were driven my mercantilism and commercial routines and more industrial i.e., less entrepreneurial. you'll learn far more about the implicitly human dynamics of coordinated upward defiance (mutiny) and entrepreneurial action studying the age of discovery. that's what mutiny and its bounty does. whaling wasn't part of the age of discovery, as you imply (btw it belies your point that the age of discovery was intensely studied). whaling came later, with england, which was about 100 years behind spain and 200 years behind portugal with regard to seafaring. that being said, english mercantilism and its traditions generated the largest empire in world history. but large bureaucratic empires are not really what we're talking about here; we're talking about agile entrepreneurial ventures.