URSABLOG: Dynamic Positioning

Everyday life can be a confusing place to inhabit, especially when you can’t read the signals properly. Every culture has its own markers, gestures and signifiers that differentiate it from others. I don’t just mean what people say, or how they talk to each other, but how they do things amongst each other, how they interact and support each other, and how they exclude those whom they deem unworthy of their society.

This is not simply about race, colour or gender – although sadly these things matter all too much, even in these ‘enlightened’ times – but about unseen divisions within societies themselves, even where everyone can understand each other perfectly well. Each different society divides itself uniquely in its own way; there is no one universal model that can be applied generally to all, or even specifically to some. Have you ever had the feeling that you don’t really belong, whether it’s in a family, a group of friends, a classroom, an office, or even in a large crowd? Yes? Me too.

We notice this as a ‘gut feeling’ and try and work out what is wrong. We think we are qualified enough to belong so maybe there is something wrong with us that we can’t see. Sometimes we know we shouldn’t really care and be strong enough to just get over it. Or maybe we think there must be something wrong with the majority but speaking out will only alienate ourselves and lead to ridicule or abuse. Or worse, we just don’t understand and flail around helplessly.

So we try to adapt, we make compromises – not always appropriately – because we feel we need to be comfortable in our environment to be able to function and grow. But in the process we can be bewildered and lost, walking through the wrong doors, or pressing the buttons that plainly say “Do Not Press” in the hope that somehow they may turn out to be the solution.

If this seems depressing and discouraging, it’s not meant to be, it’s the story of societal evolution. Getting along with each other, and smoothing over differences to a point where people can function and grow is essential for societies to do the same. This is perhaps an unfashionable point of view these days, but let me examine one society, the shipping industry – that apparently rapacious, devious and greedy body of people – to show how it functions.

The history of shipping is littered with ‘larger than life’ characters that apparently have succeeded by breaking the rules that govern it. New entrants into the industry find market norms bewildering and are forced to reconsider many of the principles they grew up with sooner or later. But the shipping industry has not evolved due to larger than life successes but by respecting and complying with the societal norms of the market.

I am fond of saying that shipping is all about relationships, but perhaps this strongly held belief of mine needs to be clarified. I do not mean that shipping is one big happy family, cooperating fully, fuzzily and soppily with each other to the benefit of all and all mankind; that would be ridiculous and profoundly untrue. We live and work in the world of perfect competition, where no one party can gain a position of market dominance all – or even some – of the time, because there are just too many of us. But this also means that we all provide the same service as our competitors – whether as owners, charterers, managers and brokers – so we need to fill in the gaps with relationships where we can’t cover the market, or the service.

Take for example the role which I know best, that of the ship sale and purchase broker. In our market, no one broker – whether an individual or a company – can possibly have relationships with every single owner in the world. They can have brand recognition, for good or bad, but relationships are personal and – thankfully – not everyone, or even every company, can have an equally good relationship with everyone else.

People (and companies) are prejudiced. One of my colleagues was puzzled, and upset, when a potential client of theirs told them that they had never worked with – and never would work with – Greek brokers. When asked why, the potential client was vague and disingenuous, but my reaction – that I shared with my colleague – was “more fool them!” If he had a bad impression of Greek brokers due to a past, bad experience, or worse just didn’t like Greeks, that was his problem and not ours. He would miss out on knowledge and information – and potential opportunities – that a good working relationship can bring.

But prejudice is universal: we all prejudge people to protect ourselves. The danger – in shipping and in life – is when we do not question the reasons behind our prejudices, and let them stand. Surely it is better to test our assumptions than to live blindly by them. But one man’s meat is another’s poison (especially if they are a vegetarian) and this is eternal.

Not everyone can be a trailblazer, or an early adopter, and many wait for others to try first before trying themselves later. This is not cowardice but simple common sense, and also very personal. The appetite for risk changes from person to person, and from company to company, and can also change at different times depending on market conditions. And youth isn’t necessarily a guide: I have observed that many older people – and more established companies – can have a larger risk appetite because they know from experience what is at stake.

Breaking the rules is – despite what outsiders think – less common than thought. Bending rules, and testing their limits is another thing altogether and to be encouraged. I do not mean playing with other people’s lives – especially seafarers’ – but within the markets themselves. Innovations are constantly needed to react to changing conditions in the world at large, and if things were done as they always were, I wouldn’t be a shipbroker at all.

But ethics and morals within the marketplace are often confused with legality. The conventions of broking channels – for example – are often misunderstood, but they persist, not because the breaking of them can lead to legal action (except in certain cases, they are mostly unenforceable) but because they are so important to the efficient working of the market.

That said, the efficient functioning of a market is often directly proportional to the degree to which dishonest and deceptive behaviour is deterred and discouraged. Reliable, predictable cooperation (and competition) is rewarded. There are good reasons why deception and deceit exist – let’s not kid ourselves, the potential benefits are huge – but also why human societies, including markets, try to police it, officially or otherwise.

But it’s not just about money, it’s also about status. Most shipbrokers and shipowners – I hope I can safely say this – are not starving. We can feed ourselves and our families, but we also desire a position – preferably a respected one – in the societies we have chosen to be members of. And as the shipping markets are driven by money, our position is mostly measured by financial success. Other societies – of politicians or academics for example – measure success differently. Therefore what we spend our money on – how we wish to live – tells others more about who we are than we would perhaps like to think.

We can be seen at the best clubs, drinking the best whisky and smoking the best cigars, but that only shows us as the best in the society of whisky drinkers and cigar smokers. We can drive the best and most expensive cars, but we will be mostly unnoticed for those who care little about cars. We can collect priceless works of art, but we will only look at them ourselves. Even if we endow charities and foundations with gifts to do good, it usually has to have our name written on the card.

What do we crave most? Like every human being – after acceptance within the society in question – it is status, power, rank and respect. All the better if that status is unique – and comes with a unique back story – to really stand out. And because this is in essence intangible, no amount of money can buy you it. But when I say “we” who exactly do I mean? All of us? Or just the big beasts of the shipping world? Or those of us way down the food chain? Or do I mean just me?

I confess that sometimes I cannot make sense of any of it, and am as bewildered as I was thirty-five years ago as a new entrant into a society I joined out of necessity (I needed a job to fund my postgraduate studies) and in all ignorance of what lay before me. This confusion can sometimes become so cacophonous and distressing – mostly in times of stress – that I despair of ever finding resolution, in shipping or in life. But we are all works in progress – whether we like it or not – and I cannot avoid the world around me, or the society I live and work in. But I can try to adapt, without necessarily changing who or what I am.

My life as a shipbroker has always involved necessary tensions between different areas of my life – professional or personal, or both – requiring dynamic positioning in attempting to deal with them. These attempts are not always successful, and at the same time this continual movement means dissonance returns repeatedly in different forms and intensities. But I have found that it is within the efforts to resolve dissonance that moments of pure beauty and meaning are created, making life itself worth living, and that is more than enough success to be getting on with.

Simon Ward