Crisis of confidence

British based marine insurance broker Seacurus has launched an insurance policy to protect crews against non-payment of wages. Cynics like me will point out that this initiative is not really meant to shield crews from rogue managers or owners, but is to facilitate those very same gentlemen rogues to meet the requirements of the Maritime Labour Convention which comes into force in a few months’ time. That aside, the very fact that sailing employees of shipping companies need to be insured against defaulting employers is a pretty severe indictment of the industry, don’t you think? I wonder if managers or owners will feel encouraged to default on wages once they buy the policy.

On this side of the world, the soap opera at the Indian Maritime University continues in Chennai. From a seniormost official who has been charged by the anti-corruption branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation- a central government controlled body- but still remains active, to faculty who have not been paid for months and were asked to have major terms of their employment retrospectively amended, to students who are not educated properly or employed at the completion of the suspect education, the drama has it all. Vice Chancellors and Registrar’s resigning, MBA graduates being offered salaries government peons would scoff at and the Ministry of Shipping flip flopping like my Hawaiian bathroom slippers are all episodes in the serial tragedy that the rest of us continue to watch with great bemusement. 

But then, what do you expect from a Ministry that has– for many years now- been bartered in exchange for political support from Tamil Nadu, where the so called university is headquartered? The anarchy that is widely reported to prevail at the IMU is not the symptom of the disease; it is the disease itself. 

“The birth of Indian Maritime University is a long cherished dream of the maritime community of India”, their website says. I don’t know which optimist dreamt that cherished dream, but it does not matter today, when the IMU is not even a nightmare; it is a joke. The industry loves to berate private maritime training institutes. I wonder why those that fantasised about the Chennai cherished dream have not publicly protested at the shenanigans that have been going on for years out there. 

The IMU and the Seacurus reports have one thing in common; they highlight the acute crisis of confidence that plagues shipping. Put simply, people have stopped believing that shipping is good. The extent of the rot- rooted in corruption, whether driven by an administrator, a private shipowner or a university- is so widespread today that even a fresher who has yet to step on to his first gangway is deeply cynical of everyone that he meets connected with shipping. Talk to some of them; I have. They expect to be cheated- before and during training and immediately thereafter, at least. They are resigned to the hoax we perpetrate at their expense. Experienced sailors will tell you this crisis of confidence prevails later too, albeit in different ways when employers, inspectors, administrators and other outsiders deal with them. 

Synchronous with this crisis- or maybe because of it- is the collapse of ethical behaviour by the industry and its third parties whenever it comes to seamen and their issues. That this comes at a time when seafaring is being shunned as a ‘career of choice’ (IMO, eat your words, please) in India is obviously potentially calamitous for the industry, but nobody seems to care. The dog-eat -dog atmosphere predominates in the body shopping outfits that we run. Administrators open their mouths and speak, but I don’t know if even they themselves listen to what they are saying. Owners and managers lie to crews about everything under the sun to suit their short term ends. Crews aim just to survive their contracts, physically, emotionally and professionally. 

And some of them do so by sticking masking tape over shipside cracks and painting over (Don’t laugh. I took over a ship run by a ‘premier’ shipmanagement company where this was done, and everybody knew about it.) 

And then we complain that shipping has a bad rep.

To an outsider or a Cadet doing his pre-sea training, the industry is a mistake. To an insider, large swathes of the industry- mostly to do with human resources and their management - appear almost completely fraudulent. If that is not a crisis then I don’t know what is. 
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Balancing the act

Intercargo Chairman John Platsidakis is quoted grumbling in The Economist. “We (shipping) carry 90% of world trade and we emit only 2.7% of the CO2 but still we are treated as if we are acting with indifference to the environment.” 

Mr Platsidakis, I am afraid that a) perception is everything in today’s world, and b) things are going to get worse. And they are going to get worse partly because, if a joint Lloyds Register, Qinetiq and University of Strathclyde report is to be believed, global seaborne trade will more than double by 2030. I believe that things will get worse simply because a major shipping weakness- inability to effectively lobby before one sided and unworkable regulations are passed- will be exposed on a larger scale if trade really takes off.

I have a few issues with that report, by the way, that cites mainly Chinese- but also Indian and other BRIC expanding economies with their huge populations- driving demand for commodities, finished goods and everything else under the sun. To me, these economies, their populations and their GDP numbers are not sustainable- they never have been. Also, in a part of the world mired in poverty, and where social security and State support is absolutely absent, there is only so much disparity that will be tolerated by the effectively disenfranchised before something gives. And so chances of upheaval in countries like India and China, and consequent major global economic turmoil are high. After all, the Arab Spring kick- started over a small episode, when Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after a dispute with a government official over where he could sell his fruit and vegetables. Optimists may think that was a black swan event. Realists will disagree.

But coming back to Mr Platsidakis- and our- problem, which is not just one of perception, by the way. The IMO, which should know better, being industry specific and all, has long made regulations that pander to the perception that shipping is some unique monster that is destroying the environment. The problem is that shipping today cannot really afford the huge financial cost of dealing with over stringent emission and ballast water regulations that the IMO has passed. I doubt very much that it will be able to pass on these costs to the consumer- the Chairman of the ICS reckons these will to be to the tune of ‘hundreds of billions of dollars.’ Just the ballast water regulations may cost the industry upwards of 50 billion.

Shipping has no choice but to lobby; it will be squeezed out of its last breath if it does not. And it needs to allocate resources –money and people- to lobby. This is where shipping- one of the oldest businesses in the world- fails. Don’t tell me this is because we are an international industry, fragmented and incoherent. Look at the airlines, which are clearly focused; they have, not so long ago, effectively got the EU to back off regulations that threatened their profitability. It is not that shipping is incapable of getting its act together and soliciting cooperation; after all, it started the marine insurance business, amongst others, over informal meetings at a coffee house in London. But that was long ago.

It seems to me that modern shipping suffers from a singular combination of hubris, stinginess, short sightedness and lethargy. And of course, the old failing that every seaman will confirm: owners and managers are often penny wise and pound foolish. Nobody wants to spend a dime before the horse bolts. We will spend millions afterwards searching for the horse.

Let us assume that global trade will actually double by 2030, as the Lloyd’s et al report would have you believe. I bet that the costs of complying with environmental regulations will go up at least five times from now until then. Common sense says that shipping should try to influence regulations before they are passed instead of cribbing about them afterwards, or asking the IMO to rethink its rules, which is what the industry is doing at present with the ballast water and clean fuel debate. 

If things are bad now, imagine the scene a decade or two down the road. We will be drowning in a deluge of regulations; it is clear that the IMO is far from done yet. Equally clearly, the industry bodies we have are incapable of doing what is required. Also, the new shipowners of 2030 will be based in the East, particularly in China; existing industry bodies are largely Western. This mismatch will fragment us further.

Shipping must find an effective way to lobby. It needs to set up an international body to do so, and it must go in to battle with a war chest. Scrimpy shipowners should be made to realise that the cost of complying with bad, expensive and almost unworkable regulation is much, much higher than the cost of lobbying. It is critical that shipping persuade, cajole and influence politicians, think tanks and regulators, like all other industries do.  It should find a creative way to get funds for that war chest- perhaps some association of shipowners can start by levying a small one-time cess on all shipowners. Say a small fraction of a cent per Gross Tonne registered. That amount is not crippling for any shipowner, and it should add up; there is supposed to be a billion Gross tonnes or so out there. That should give us the beginning of that war chest.

John Platsidakis has got it right when he complains about how unfairly shipping is treated, but being right does not matter so much. Being able to influence regulations to make them more balanced does.

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One hand clapping

Intriguing questions, the ones that dominated my conversation over a one and a half hour drive with a HR guy recently: should rigid shipboard rank oriented structures be tweaked to become more in line with this century’s human resource development concepts?  Are we paying enough attention, in that Alpha-male dominated world at sea, to things like soft skills, mentoring and collaborative decision making? Is the rank based system on ships broke enough to need fixing? 

Evangelical HR guys with their acronymic jargon aside, nobody who knows anything about life at sea will recommend a change of the organisational structure aboard merchant ships. Which was my point too: hostile environments in which decision making must be usually immediate demand rigid hierarchies- autocratic structures, not democracies. Waiting for consensus is perhaps appropriate in boardrooms; it is a luxury at sea. There we need a person- a rank- that will make the decision. He (almost invariably, still ‘he’) will have, hopefully, the experience and the knowledge to make the right decision, and it will be his rear end on the line if something goes wrong. There can be little collective responsibility at sea, so there can be no collective authority. Simple as that.

If we must apply shore HR concepts to sailors, I told him, shouldn’t we be applying the basic ones first before we threaten everybody with the acronyms? Treating sailors with respect would be a good start, as would be removing the endemic corruption that a youngster faces today when he looks for a first job in countries like India. 

What about formalising for them a career path that goes beyond five or ten years? What about addressing issues of job satisfaction, job security, grievance handling and workplace environment (critical when a worker spends months at a time at sea with no respite)? What about their social needs- internet, for one, aboard ships- even (gasp) Wi Fi?

What about simple recognition from the organisation for a job well done, I asked the HR guy? What about not scapegoating him automatically when things go wrong- often to protect those ashore? Isn’t all this HR 101?

But we are talking about stuff aboard ships, he told me, and what needs to change there.  (Typical, I thought. In his world sailors must show all the commitment and get little of it directed at them- except, of course, those ‘our seafarers are our best assets’ kind of statements that simultaneously amuse and annoy. His talking is the sound of one hand clapping.)

That said, what should change at sea is this: Seniors- Masters, officers or crew- must be involved much more with people working under them than they are today. I don’t like the word mentoring for some reason, but it would be wonderful if more people had an attitude that made them pass on some of their knowledge and experience to those younger than them. It is a way of giving what was passed on to us when we were in those young shoes. Unfortunately, too many- especially senior officers- are too distanced from the rest of the crew aboard the multinational ships of today; that is an attitude that is plain dumb. Interpersonal and other soft skills may be considered somewhat unnecessary by many at sea, but they are not. They get things done.

I would have seniors listen to their juniors more. Relax more. Empathise more. Give a pat on the back for a job well done more often. Avoid contributing to an already stressful job by bringing in the human touch - this circus is filled with self-starters and does not need unnecessary ringmasters. 

Most of all, I would have Shipmasters perform a part of their job that too many have forgotten- ensuring the welfare of the crew. This does not just mean just decent food and water and a television in the smoke room. This also means being fair- and being seen to be fair. This means standing up for them when managers or owners want to penny pinch or short-change or treat them unfairly in other ways. This means taking that extra step towards looking after the crew’s basic physical and mental needs. All of which means a genuine concern, from the Captain, for the well-being of all officers and crew. Too many of us do not have this attitude, and it shows in the results.

So, before going overboard with abstruse HR concepts and before being seduced by the jargon at the expense of the substance, managers and senior officers both need to remember a simpler rule that applies to everything in life, which is this: when you want commitment you have to first show it.

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Less is more

 

A couple of years ago, my father’s brother, an ex-Army man, commented that I was a minimalist. I don’t know if he meant it as a compliment, but this was after I had landed up in an unknown city to handle an incident where a very close family member was going into coma at home. Rushing him to hospital and handling doctors and a myriad of medical complications took weeks. It did not help that the hospital had no resting place for attendants of patients in ICU and that medical treatment there was a racket. I was juggling three cell phones, sleeping in the street in winter and eating and washing when I could, in a city where I had nobody else for any kind of support. 

Like the seaman that I am, I reduced everything to the basics. I concentrated on the problem and ignored everything else for nearly a month- refusing to even take phone calls from well-meaning but eventually useless relatives. My father’s brother made the comment sometime after the emergency passed.

One of the problems at sea is that Masters do not have much of an opportunity of seeing other Masters in action- barring short parallel voyages or such. We sign on or off and the other Captain leaves. But based on what I saw as a junior officer and on a few occasions later, my sense is that good Masters- indeed, all good seamen- seem to have one thing in common when the chips are down, and that is a minimalist approach to work. A sticking-to-basics kind of single-mindedness. A spareness of sorts, if you will. 

Observe a ship Captain when he is shiphandling. If he is good, he will not be charging around the place hither and thither, talking too much or asking for too much information. He will likely be absolutely still, and only his head or his eyes will be moving. He will be concentrating on the essentials and those alone- everything else will be shut out. His situational awareness will be on a knife edge. He will know, to a finely tuned degree, how the wind and the currents are effecting the ship, and at what rate. He will know the quirks of the ship, or those of her engines, better than he knows his wife’s moods. He will know how much safe space he has around him- or below him. He will know, even if he is swinging a two hundred and fifty metre long ship, how much clearance he has to an accuracy of ten or twenty metres. He will know what he will do if something goes wrong.

Everything else is shut out, including the ship-owners and managers- and, barring safety issues, even the crew. If there is too much noise inside the wheelhouse- modern equipment with its alarms, VHF chatter and blinking panel lights can be distracting - he will likely walk away onto the bridge wing, where it is quiet and he can ignore the clutter. Where he can concentrate on the basics. Where he can keep things simple. 

He has to be a minimalist to get the job done right. He has to be focused only on what is important- and dump the rest- to be in control of the situation. He has to ensure that he is not paralysed by information or distracted by peripheral issues; else he will have no room in his head to tackle anything unforeseen. And that, as every seaman knows, is going to surely happen sometime or the other; it is at sea, after all.  

I bet seamen have been minimalists in their work approach forever; in a hostile environment, that is the best way to ensure survival. Even today, training and experience may be critical to handle any emergency at sea, but these will prove to be insufficient, I think, without the mental rigour involved in keeping things simple. Which is, come to think of it, a very intelligent way of sifting out non-essentials. 

I am not sure whether the fact that seamen are often simple people given to pithy comments is an offshoot of this minimalist approach. I do know, however, that we are often perceived as not very smart. Not sophisticated or worldly-wise enough. Too simple.

All that may be true, but it seems to me that the rest of the world could learn much from the simple sailor and his brand of minimalism. Professionally, certainly, but on a personal level too. A world drowning in information overload, paralysed by mental fatigue caused by incessant bombardment of the senses and a world in which communication is often a substitute for action would do well to declutter, decongest and destress. Forget multitasking- another thing seamen do very well, by the way. Instead, discover the benefits of single tasking, or more accurately, of single-minded tasking. 

The world would do well to learn, from the simple sailor, that there is tremendous strength in the minimalist approach. Especially when the chips are down.