Lessons From Afghanistan & Capturing Somali Pirates | Roderic Yapp | Modern Wisdom Podcast 133

1. 0:00 – 1:21

   Afghanistan’s perverse incentives: compensation that led to tragedy

   1. RYRoderic Yapp0:00

      If we got into a firefight and some civilians got injured, we would allow them to come into the base. We'd patch them up and we'd give them US dollars. Um, and so it's sort of, sort of a really kind of blunt compensation tool. And this was kind of when I really early on learnt that lesson of be very careful what you measure and the way in which you incentivize people. Because after a while, we started to get the same girl coming in over and over again, and the boss sort of sat us down and said, you know, "You guys haven't been in a firefight. There's been no contact in the area in the last sort of few days. Am I right in thinking that?" And I was like, "Yeah, 100%, nothing. No fights with the Taliban." He said, "Okay. So why is this girl coming in with fresh gunshot wounds?" On closer inspection, we realized that they're not 5.56 rounds, they're 7.62, so it's not our ... it's unlikely to be our weapon systems that are causing these. And what we found out was that this girl's family were effectively shooting her, bringing her in, and using her as a cash cow to make money. And then when we realized the game was up and we weren't doing this anymore, they shot her with an RPG, and she came in with no lower jaw. And I remember thinking, like, couple of things. A, it's an accident of history to be born in the UK and how lucky I am, and B, I don't ******* understand this place.

2. 1:21 – 3:06

   From university to Royal Marines: choosing the hardest path

   1. CWChris Williamson1:21

      (wind blowing) I'm joined by Roderick Yapp, former Royal Marines Officer, now moved into business, so we're gonna be talking about some of your background today. Also, about how that's translated across into this new, the new world that you've stepped into. One that's even more dangerous, even more vicious (laughs) than the one that you were in before. Roderick-

   2. RYRoderic Yapp1:42

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson1:42

      ... welcome to the show.

   4. RYRoderic Yapp1:43

      Thanks very much, Chris. Very happy to be here.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:45

      Looking forward to speaking to you. So, give us a bit of background. What- what's your heritage? Where do you come from, and what did you do?

   6. RYRoderic Yapp1:54

      So, um, my first career was as an officer in the Royal Marines. Um, I left university in 2003, 2004, struggling to remember now, um, really with an aspiration to do sort of something completely different, um, and I remember ... There were a number of reasons that sort of, you know, caused me to go down that route, but fundamentally it really was sort of seeking a challenge and trying to do something that was different, um, and I've found in life that, you know, if you, if you're faced with a series of sort of paths, choose the one that's the most difficult, because then you're gonna learn the most about yourself, um, and ultimately, that's- that's what I chose to do. So I joined up in 2005. I served for seven years, um, and was lucky enough to go to Afghanistan, um, got civilians out of Libya in 2011 during the Arab Spring, and then towards the end of my time, specialized in counter-piracy and did a couple of tours off the coast of, uh, Somalia and the Indian Ocean. So, uh, had an absolutely fantastic time, um, left when I turned 30 for a sort of number of reasons, ch- primarily kind of domestic, got married in my final year, didn't really wanna be an absent parent, um, and have since then, um, been working in the corporate world before starting my own business.

3. 3:06 – 4:35

   “Lucky to go to Afghanistan”: being tested for real, not just training

   1. CWChris Williamson3:06

      Why did you say, "Fortunate enough to go to Afghanistan"?

   2. RYRoderic Yapp3:10

      Um, because I think, uh, whilst I did choose to join the Royal Marines, I joined at a time where the operational tempo was really, really significant. You know, we were go- we were doing sort of back-to-back tours of a really demanding environment, and I think that I consider myself lucky to have been out to those places, been tested in that environment, because I think I'd have found it really frustrating if I'd gone through training and then frankly done a sort of series of exercises or prepared for a war that wasn't going to happen. You know, within 12 months of passing out training, I was being shot at and being tested in a really hostile demanding environment. So I consider myself lucky to have been there, done that, but also survived it and come out the other side (laughs) .

   3. CWChris Williamson3:56

      Yeah, I get that. There's not many people I know that would've said, "Lucky for being selected to be shot at in Afghanistan."

   4. RYRoderic Yapp4:03

      (laughs) It's- it's a sort of slightly strange way of looking at it, but, I mean, uh, there are a number of people that, you know, that I sort of work with, even now, sort of former Royal Marines officers, you know, who joined the- the Corps in the sort of '90s and- and didn't- and weren't lucky enough to kind of experience that, you know. They were maybe going to Ireland, uh, which wasn't as sort of kinetic and as aggressive as sort of Afghanistan and Iraq, so they were just- j- just because of the political situation, they didn't get the chance to- to go and experience it, and- and I was lucky like that.

4. 4:35 – 6:59

   Leadership acceleration: 15 months after graduation, leading 30 in combat

   1. CWChris Williamson4:35

      (sighs) So, talk me through what it's like coming out of university, because I had a bunch of friends as well who were in OTC when they were at uni, um-

   2. RYRoderic Yapp4:45

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson4:46

      ... Officer Training Corps, and they had the potential, "Oh, maybe I'll go Sandhurst. Maybe I'll do whatever." What's it like being a student-

   4. RYRoderic Yapp4:53

      (sighs)

   5. CWChris Williamson4:53

      ... and, you know, going out on the lash a few nights a week like most of the people that all of us know if we went to uni with them, and, "Oh, hiya mate. See you at rugby on Saturday," stuff like that, and then, you know, within ... How long is it before you're on tour? Two years?

   6. RYRoderic Yapp5:06

      Um, yeah, about that, um, although for some it was much shorter, um, because of the way the rotations worked. Uh, guys joined up as civilians in August 2005, and by Christmas 2006, they were on the front line leading 30 guys.

   7. CWChris Williamson5:24

      Shit the bed.

   8. RYRoderic Yapp5:25

      And I was like, like, you know, you look at every other grad scheme, right? You look at what-

   9. CWChris Williamson5:30

      (laughs)

   10. RYRoderic Yapp5:30

       ... PwC, Deloitte, all these other companies offer you.

   11. CWChris Williamson5:33

       (laughs)

   12. RYRoderic Yapp5:33

       You tell me one, right, that gives you 15 months of leadership training, uh, in some fairly demanding circumstances, and your first job is line managing 30 people in combat. I was like, there's- there's nowhere that offers any level of development anywhere near that. Um-

   13. CWChris Williamson5:50

       That's an interesting analogy, a way- a way to draw it across. Yeah, you would ... Uh, y- I mean, I had again one of my ... The housemate that actually was in the OTC, JT.

   14. RYRoderic Yapp5:58

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson5:59

       Um, he went straight out of uni at 21 and did the, uh, Aldi graduate scheme.

   16. RYRoderic Yapp6:05

       ... okay.

   17. CWChris Williamson6:05

       And that's, like, widely regarded as, you know, sort of one of the toughest ones that you can do.

   18. RYRoderic Yapp6:09

       (laughs) Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson6:09

       But he wasn't getting shot at 15 months later.

   20. RYRoderic Yapp6:13

       (laughs) True. It's, um ... But if you think of it like that, you know, if you think of, you know, when you're in your 20s, you've got an opportunity to take risk, you know, because frankly, you haven't been playing the game long enough for it really to matter. So, you know, even if you join the army or you join the marines, you decide it's not for you, y- you can always join a graduate scheme 12 months later. You know, you're not gonna be significantly behind anyone over the course of a 40, 50 year career, whatever that is. So, yeah, I, I, I was, I loved it. You know, I look back on it being proud to have served. Um, it made me the person I am today. It informed a huge amount of the way I think and sort of see the world. There's strengths and I think sometimes limitations to that. Um, but I wouldn't change a single thing about it.

5. 6:59 – 8:58

   National service vs conscription: building perspective and social cohesion

   1. CWChris Williamson6:59

      Do you think some form of conscription or some form of more encouraged sign-up would be useful for a lot of people?

   2. RYRoderic Yapp7:06

      (sighs)

   3. CWChris Williamson7:06

      A lot of young people now?

   4. RYRoderic Yapp7:08

      So I wouldn't, I'm not a believer in, uh, any form of sort of conscription. I, I think it's really expensive, and also you end up with an enormous number of people in the military that frankly don't want to be there. But I am in favor of some form of national service. So, you know, you, you come out of university or just before you go to university, there are enough problems in the UK that you could take a group of people and say, "Right, y- you can either join the military or you can work in this charitable area." You know, push people out of their comfort zone, get them dealing with people that come from a completely different background, completely different part of the UK. You know, when you talk to people, and I've spoken to a few people from Israel, they, they really talk about their national service. And in that instance, that is military, but they talk about it with a real sort of sense of pride and they hugely value the skills and the change in perspective that they get from it.

   5. CWChris Williamson8:01

      Mm.

   6. RYRoderic Yapp8:01

      Um, so it doesn't have to be military, but I do think that some form of sort of, you know, voluntary or military or ... You, you, you would get to choose an avenue to go down.

   7. CWChris Williamson8:11

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RYRoderic Yapp8:11

      I think that would be genuinely a good thing.

   9. CWChris Williamson8:13

      The people that I know that are in, um, the nurses, the doctors that are working in healthcare, that are working in the, uh, law enforcement in-

   10. RYRoderic Yapp8:23

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson8:23

       ... across the world, all of these, all of these people have a perspective that I think unfortunately those of us who have only ever worked in an office or, you know, run our own business or been an entrepreneur, like, I think that I have a good perspective on the world because I've traveled to different places to go and, like-

   12. RYRoderic Yapp8:41

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson8:41

       ... have a party holiday.

   14. RYRoderic Yapp8:42

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson8:42

       And I don't ... And I, I, I haven't met the locals of, you know, Afghanistan. I, I haven't really ... I've been to, uh, I've stepped foot in that direction once, and it was Dubai. Like, that's not-

   16. RYRoderic Yapp8:54

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson8:54

       That's not a representative example of what that area of the world is like.

6. 8:58 – 12:52

   Afghanistan as “time travel”: why nation-building felt like an impossible brief

   1. RYRoderic Yapp8:58

      And I think, you know, that an- any, any perspective is useful. The more extreme you can go to, the more sort of re- you realize kind of how lucky that you are. Um, when I served ... So, when I was in Afghanistan in 2007, we would basically have this really sort of strange, uh, routine whereby if we got into a firefight and some civilians got injured, we would allow them to come into the base, we'd patch them up, and we'd give them US dollars. Um, and so it was sort of, sort of a really kind of blunt compensation tool. Um, and this was kind of when I really early on learned that lesson of be very careful what you measure and the way in which you incentivize people, because after a while, we started to get the same girl coming in over and over again. And the boss sort of sat us down and said, "You know, you guys haven't been in a firefight. There's been no contact in the area in the last sort of few days. Am I right in thinking that?" I was like, "Yeah, 100%, nothing, no fights with the Taliban." He was like, "Okay. So why is this girl coming in with fresh gunshot wounds?" On closer inspection, we realized that they're not 5.56 rounds, they're 7.62s. So it's not our, it's unlikely to be our weapon systems that are causing these. (inhales deeply) And what we found out was that this girl's family were effectively shooting her, bringing her in, and using her as a cash cow to make money, and then when we realized the game was up and we weren't doing this anymore, they shot her with an RPG, and she came in with no lower jaw. And I remember thinking, like, a couple of things. Fucking A, it's an accident of history to be born in the UK and how lucky I am, and B, I don't fucking understand this place. I cannot understand, I cannot relate my values from where I come from, and now as a father of a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son, I cannot get my head round how someone can make that decision. Um, and I, I, I think the most, the, the, the way I kind of wrested with it, or sort of where I got to was that it's unhelpful to think of some of these places in terms of geography. And some people will probably kick back on some of these things that I say, but I think that this is ... I, I think of things in, in terms of is it useful or, or, or, or not so much? And I think of Afghanistan, frankly, as a country much like the Middle Ages. Think of Britain, you know, in a sort of feudal system, and you're probably not too far wrong. And ultimately, that helps you understand it a little bit more. That's how they behave. That's, that's just the way it is. It's just that level of development. It's more like traveling back in time than it is like traveling to a different part of the world. Um, so yeah. (laughs) Again-

   2. CWChris Williamson11:46

      What a story, man. Wow. I, I ... You're right. I have no values that I can extrapolate out. I have no working model of human nature, human behavior that I can expand to make that story make sense.

   3. RYRoderic Yapp12:09

      ... e- e- exactly. And then so, right, so now, if that's the context that you're faced with, now effectively deliver a change program. Fast track 800 years worth of development inside four to six years. That's the scale of the task. A- and, and you just realize that, you know, you go there for six months and, uh, and you just can't really get your head round it because you don't really have any of the mental models, any of the concepts to understand how they think. It is so far removed you might as well go to the moon, um, a- and try and have s- some sort of impact there. It's just a different planet. Um...

7. 12:52 – 14:50

   Roots of ‘backwardness’: geography, isolation, and path-dependent development

   1. CWChris Williamson12:52

      Have you reflected on why it is so different? Is it just emergent? Is it because of a lack of contact with the outside world? This is me speaking as someone who really doesn't understand sort of where the culture of A- Afghanistan comes from. What's the reason for it being that backward?

   2. RYRoderic Yapp13:10

      Um, I just, I haven't read it but I think something, you know, like Prisoners of Geography probably shines a bit of a, a sort of view on that. Um, A- Afghan is a ver- Afghanistan's a very sort of mountainous and a very kind of isolated place. Um, it doesn't... I don't think it's got the same sort of, you know, inward-outward migration that say, you know, you know, Europe has. I don't think it's had the same access to-

   3. CWChris Williamson13:34

      Quite as cosmopolitan.

   4. RYRoderic Yapp13:35

      Yeah, I don't think it's had the same access to... But even things as simple as someone was saying to me, you know, animals that you're able to domesticate, you know, we take that for granted in Europe but that has had a significant impact on, uh, on how we've been able to fight, um, effectively, you know, move, you know. You take something like a horse, right? Um, we take horses for granted in Europe and, and sort of this part of the world. They, they're sort of fairly... they're able to just kind of survive here. But, you know, you take something like a zebra, and a zebra can't be tamed. So, you know, how that has an impact I kind of don't know. Um, but I suspect it's kind of those kind of things, a kind of cumulative impact of a lot of things, one of them being climate, you know, access to a variety of sort of different cultures that can cross-pollinate, the ability to grow different crops to be, you know, anywhere near say something like the, the enlightenment taking place. That probably never really got there until (laughs) relatively recent.

   5. CWChris Williamson14:37

      Yeah. It's interesting-

   6. RYRoderic Yapp14:38

      You know, all of these kind of things.

   7. CWChris Williamson14:40

      It's interesting to talk about the cosmopolitan sort of thing. I, I, I don't see any students saying, "Oh, I'm gonna go and do my gap year in-"

   8. RYRoderic Yapp14:47

      (laughs) .

   9. CWChris Williamson14:48

      "... like Baghdad," or-

   10. RYRoderic Yapp14:50

       No.

8. 14:50 – 20:57

   Judging the past & cancel culture: why context matters for moral evaluation

   1. CWChris Williamson14:50

      ... you know, like, they're, they're, they're not sending themselves over there, so it is... And then, bizarrely, there's two sides to it, right? There's part of me that wants to look at that story and say, "What fucking savages." Like, "How dare-"

   2. RYRoderic Yapp15:03

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:03

      "... you do that to someone." And then on the flip side of that, I think, well, would you have said the same thing about someone in the 1400s, in the, you know, in the tw- in 1200 AD? Would you have said the same if someone was coming and essentially freeing these peasants from this life that they had and gifting them wealth in-

   4. RYRoderic Yapp15:26

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson15:26

      ... th- they would never ever be able to access themselves? Like, oh, well, maybe it's a little bit more... Again, I, I just have no, I have no way to frame that.

   6. RYRoderic Yapp15:34

      I mean, I think it's, it's, um, it's really... So if, if we, if we stick with that kind of... if we view it as a sort of different time zone, you know, 800 years prior or something, something akin to that kind of era, um, you, you sort of move past... I guess you kind of... it, it becomes easier to sort of move past judgment. You know, if you take your ancestors, I should imagine 800 years ago your ancestors probably did some really unpleasant things (laughs) . Um, but they did what they had to do to survive. They did what they were taught to do. They did I guess what they thought was appropriate given the context that they were faced with. And I think that it's really easy to judge people with a historical perspective. You often get this in The States at the moment, you know, where the sort of founding fathers maybe had some different views on slavery-

   7. CWChris Williamson16:22

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RYRoderic Yapp16:22

      ... um, you know, and people are like, "Oh, this is really bad, we must, you know, we-"

   9. CWChris Williamson16:24

      George Washington owned slaves and like he-

   10. RYRoderic Yapp16:26

       Exactly, yeah. Yeah, "We've gotta, we've gotta erase them from history." And I'm like, "Well, hang on a sec." If, if the subsequent generations judge the past and the behavior of the people that came before them, it's a really easy question to sort of judge them and go, "Well, you know, that was disgraceful." My challenge is to... What, what are your grandchildren, what are your great-grandchildren gonna judge you for? You know, in 100 years time when your, you know, if you live to that age, your, you're sat there with your grandchild and they turn round and go, "I can't believe you used to do that."

   11. CWChris Williamson16:56

       Mm.

   12. RYRoderic Yapp16:57

       What are they gonna be talking about? And I've-

   13. CWChris Williamson16:59

       But-

   14. RYRoderic Yapp16:59

       ... no idea really-

   15. CWChris Williamson17:00

       I think a-

   16. RYRoderic Yapp17:00

       ... but it's a more interesting question.

   17. CWChris Williamson17:02

       ... I think a very good suggestion for what that might be is factory farming. There's a lot of very clever people that I know who think that in couple of hundred years or more, let's say that we're able to create a cost-effective grown petri dish meat which-

   18. RYRoderic Yapp17:21

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson17:21

       ... allows people to f- hit that particular caloric requirement but without having to create animals literally to be slaughtered. I think that that world would look back on us and think, "Hang on, you did... you, you threw away 50% of every chicken, o- all of the chicken breeds that you made literally just into a meat grinder." I'm not a vegetarian or a vegan, um-

   20. RYRoderic Yapp17:43

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson17:43

       ... but I spend time around some ones that are terrifyingly clever and I'm kind of drinking the Kool-Aid at least a little bit from them. But yeah, like, you, you did... what? You just... they were born and then taken away from their mum so that their mum would give milk so that you could drink the milk as opposed to... You know, that, that to me I think is one of those... And you're right, the beauty of, uh, hindsight is that it's 20/20 vision-

   22. RYRoderic Yapp18:08

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson18:08

       ... and you have this amazing perspective where you're able to see-... "Oh, well, this is framed within the values of now," and it's like, yes, but it wasn't now, it was then. And now-

   24. RYRoderic Yapp18:19

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson18:19

       ... is now. And in the future, it won't be now either.

   26. RYRoderic Yapp18:22

       Yeah. And that's the thing. And, and I, uh, that's one of the sort of, I guess, my concerns about the modern world, is that it's so easy to take someone out of context. It's so easy to make a sort of snap judgment on someone that maybe says something and is kind of thinking out loud. Um, and people are so quick to jump all over that stuff, and it can be really, really damaging to people's careers and reputations. Um, and I think it shuts down debate, which I don't think is helpful.

   27. CWChris Williamson18:53

       Not at all.

   28. RYRoderic Yapp18:53

       Um, fundamentally.

   29. CWChris Williamson18:54

       Especially with the frictionless communication which we've got.

   30. RYRoderic Yapp18:57

       Mm-hmm.
9. 20:57 – 46:29

   Counter-piracy 101: piracy as a business model and why it surged

   1. CWChris Williamson20:57

      Mm-hmm. And, uh, yeah, you, you're very right. So I wanna, I wanna find out about the fact that you were a pirate hunter. Tell us about-

   2. RYRoderic Yapp21:04

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson21:04

      ... tell us about being a pirate hunter.

   4. RYRoderic Yapp21:07

      So, um, piracy was really interesting actually. Um, I did my first tour off the coast of Somalia in late 2010, and I was the intelligent office, intelligence officer. Um, so what my job really involved there was effectively looking at aerial photographs of camps, um, and trying to get my head inside the sort of mind of a pirate. Um, piracy is interesting because it's not the same as, it's not the same as Islamic fundamentalism. Fundamentally, this is a business model for them.

   5. CWChris Williamson21:41

      Okay, okay.

   6. RYRoderic Yapp21:41

      The moment they feel that they cannot, the, the, the risk, um, outweighs the reward, they'll sort of pull back, um, and they won't do it anymore. Um, so I went off to, so I went off the coast of Somalia late 2010 and then again late 2011. And the reason it was sort of September to December was because as the monsoon changes, as it moves from southeast to northwest or, or the other way around, you get a period of sort of very calm water in the Indian Ocean. And when the water's calm, small boats can get a reasonable speed up and they can, um, effectively hunt down merchant shipping. When the sea state's really choppy, uh, it's like driving fast on a very bumpy road. Um, you trash the boats, you can't get up to the sort of full speed, whereas the big stuff, because it frankly doesn't really have any impact on that, they can just charge straight through it and basically outrun the small boats. Um, so again, a couple of tours off the coast there, um, arresting, uh, and interdicting pirates who claimed that they were fishermen, despite the fact that we'd sort of have a helicopter over the si- over the top as they were chucking weapons and ladders over the side, and there was sort of a complete absence of fishing gear. Um, again, really, a really interesting tour that both of them were that sort of really changed my perspective. Um, one of my guys, we arrested some pirates and one of my guys said, "Look, we got a guy here who's been shot." And I was like, "Patch him up," you know. (laughs) He's like, "No, no, no, this happened obviously quite a while ago." Um, and basically you can sort of see my forearm there, what this guy had was, I'd say, probably about a 10, 10-degree angle in his forearm, and one forearm was about that much longer than the other. Uh, and I looked at this and I looked at his sort of wrist, and he'd clearly, y- you know, he'd been shot in the wrist. He'd had a really catastrophic injury, and it had never been splinted correctly. Uh, it had just been sort of wrapped up. He'd clearly had some antibiotics pumped into him and he'd survived it. Um, and I remember saying (laughs) to my Marines, like, you know, like, "Guys, you, you can, you bitch and moan when there isn't, you know, a second dessert on the ship."

   7. CWChris Williamson23:54

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RYRoderic Yapp23:54

      (laughs) You know, this guy has been shot through the wrist. He's clearly survived it, and now he's got this sort of permanent injury. And again, you sort of realize that huge amounts of the world are totally ungoverned, and the people with the biggest stick or the most weapons, they're the ones that rule the roost. And while we might bitch and moan about the state of this country, actually-... go and wander around Somalia. You know, go to sort of some far east parts of, you know, Ethiopia or, you know, other parts of the world that are less developed, see how they live, and then ask yourself how well you've got it. Because I think most of the time you find actually, again, coming back to this sort of accident in history thing, you know, if your family's lives are on the line, your values change very, very quickly around what you are willing to do and what you're not willing to do. Um, and again, yeah, another, like another great experience, uh, yeah, off the coast of Somalia. Was lucky enough to recapture a pirated vessel as well, which was, um, yeah, which was a good experience, so-

   9. CWChris Williamson24:53

      Wow, I wanna hear about that in a second, but it-

   10. RYRoderic Yapp24:55

       Sure. (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson24:56

       One of the, one of the things that's coming to mind is I wonder what would happen if nuclear war broke out tomorrow or there was some sort of catastrophe that meant it was pretty much every family for themselves.

   12. RYRoderic Yapp25:10

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson25:10

       And I wonder how many of the people who have civility and, and tolerance and all the rest of it as their front line of personality and how they identify, I wonder how long that would stay if it was dog eat dog.

   14. RYRoderic Yapp25:27

       It'll be very interesting to find out. I mean, the number of people that have said to me, "You know, I've, I would never be able to kill someone." And you're just like, "Well, I'll give you a situation. You come home, someone's got a knife to one of your children's, you know, necks. You have an opportunity to take a shot at very short range. Would you do it?" "Yeah." I'm like, "Right, so the context is, the context has changed your view on that." Of course you would. You know, given the right situation, people are capable of, um, of some fairly unpleasant and, and violent things. Um, and I think, you know, if you, uh, you, you probably sort of, you know, if you looked into the sort of studies around evil, the sort of various experiments that have been done, context and the way the environment shapes our behavior is hugely powerful. Um, I can't remember the name of that experiment where it was done in the US where the people were sort of shocking each other or shocking a, an actor. You know, there was, I think the, The Prison Experiment, The Stanford Prison Experiment that got out of control. Uh, all these are normal people, within a relatively short space of time, capable of doing some really unpleasant things to others.

   15. CWChris Williamson26:34

       Mm-hmm.

   16. RYRoderic Yapp26:35

       Um, so I'd be very careful when people say that they're unable to do those kind of things, and I think, I think given the context and, and the situation they're presented with, I think-

   17. CWChris Williamson26:43

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RYRoderic Yapp26:43

       ... we're all capable of violence if we have to be.

   19. CWChris Williamson26:46

       The thing as well that you keep alluding to is that the only reason that you or me or anyone that's listening isn't that girl with her jaw hanging off, or her mother or father, is purely by roll of the dice. Your consciousness-

   20. RYRoderic Yapp27:04

       Sure.

   21. CWChris Williamson27:04

       ... could've been that one, could've been a different one, could've been whatever one, and the fact that you happened to be born in one of the best countries in the world in the best time in history with-

   22. RYRoderic Yapp27:17

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson27:17

       ... the most wellness and the longest lifespan and the best-

   24. RYRoderic Yapp27:20

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson27:21

       ... econom, economic opportunities, and continue to roll it out from there, you know, and I, I do the same. I catch myself all the time complaining about, "Oh, I can't believe that my dopamine receptors are being manipulated by Facebook," and then go, "What you talking about? You've got this oracle in your pocket which has access to all of human history's wisdom." Like, you, you, you... Uh, one thing, uh, one counterargument to myself, and I brought this up on a previous podcast-

   26. RYRoderic Yapp27:44

       (sighs)

   27. CWChris Williamson27:46

       ... was I, I agree that we need to have perspective when we make judgments about the world that we live in, right?

   28. RYRoderic Yapp27:51

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson27:51

       We need to think, like, it could be so much worse. You could be-

   30. RYRoderic Yapp27:54

       (sighs)
10. 46:29 – 49:58

    How pirates take ships: skiffs, ladders, barbed wire hacks, and ransoms

    1. CWChris Williamson46:29

       What's their, um, what's their MO then? Talk me through how, how they go about trying to take down a ship.

    2. RYRoderic Yapp46:35

       What they'll do is, um, you'll have maybe two, probably two small skiffs. Now, a skiff is 20 to 30 feet long, speedboat with a pretty heavy motor on the back of it, as in something with probably 50-plus horsepower, something that can get up to sort of 30 knots relatively quickly. Um, that's one of the ways in which you can identify them, because of course why would a fisherman require an expensive high-end engine? Um, they don't. So, um, the way they'll do it is that they will, they will shadow the vessel, one on the port side, one on the starboard side, um, and what they're looking to do is, is trying to get the vessel, um, to turn one way or the other. Because if the vessel's going into the prevailing weather, if it turns one way, it kind of creates a, um, it creates almost a calm area to one side. And what they'll do is they'll come up alongside. If there are no, if there's no barbed wire, I mean, it's literally a question of putting a ladder up, uh, and climbing onboard. Um, so what they'll-

    3. CWChris Williamson47:40

       Like the Battle of Hastings or like some Lord of the Rings thing, like just throwing it and throwing it.

    4. RYRoderic Yapp47:44

       Yeah, no, lots similar to that.

    5. CWChris Williamson47:45

       Yeah.

    6. RYRoderic Yapp47:45

       Yeah, exactly that. Like it's a, it's a ladder straight over the side and then straight up. Um, so what they're looking for is, is a vessel with a low freeboard, so a, uh, a deck that's very close to the water so that that, that is easy to do. Um, and they're looking for something without sort of any kind of countermeasures. If there are things like barbed wire running around the outside of the ship, I've not seen it but I have heard what they'll do is they'll take a grappling hook, chuck it onto the barbed wire, uh, attach the grappling hook to a bucket, put the bucket in the water, and then the barbed wire gets pulled back as the ship tries to drag the bucket. Now again, like that's incredibly simple.

    7. CWChris Williamson48:26

       Mm-hmm.

    8. RYRoderic Yapp48:27

       Very, very innovative.

    9. CWChris Williamson48:28

       Mm-hmm.

    10. RYRoderic Yapp48:28

        Um, but all that does is create enough of a gap for them to get up underneath.

    11. CWChris Williamson48:33

        Mm.

    12. RYRoderic Yapp48:33

        And these guys are obviously pretty thin and they're only carrying a rifle. Um, once they're onboard, uh, they're going for...... they're going for the bridge. The bridge is the control center of the ship, they're gonna try and get in there, um, and they are going to, um, ultimately use violence and aggression to sort of take the thing over. They'll then take it into Somali territorial waters, they stick it in an anchorage, they contact the ship owner and they start ransoming, and that's basically how it works. Um, the only real way or the way in which you combat it, is really with guys on, on board with guns. They won't... Again, this is a business model, they're not fanatics, so they will, they won't, uh, they won't go after ships that have people on board with weapons who are protecting them-

    13. CWChris Williamson49:22

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RYRoderic Yapp49:23

        ... um, and particularly sort of high free board. There's a whole kind of risk criteria, um, that, that, you know, that you can sort of look at. Um, I mean, once the ship's alongside, you know, those crew are in pretty, pretty dire straits, 'cause now they're looking at... We're not talking weeks here, we're normally talking months of negotiations to get the price down. Um, and then the sort of, the, the payment of the ransom, and that's generally what's done, um, I think is largely a money drop in cash, um, and that's it. They got off, take their money with them, go back to shore, ship goes on its way.

11. 49:58 – 58:20

    Recapturing MV Monte Cristo: boarding operation, prosecution, and incentive paradox

    1. CWChris Williamson49:58

       Wow. So, what... Tell us about the particular incident that you had where you recaptured a, a vessel.

    2. RYRoderic Yapp50:04

       So, um, the ship in question was a vessel called the MV Monte Cristo, uh, it was a 55, 55,000 ton container ship, so pretty big container ship. Um, had pirates on board, um, and an unarmed security team, and what this unarmed security team did was effectively get everyone into the engine room, lock it down. You can, you can control the ship from the engine room, um, largely. So that was kind of the, the, the sort of, the thing to do. Lock everyone in there, uh, a- and then, and just sort of keep everyone safe. Now, if the crew are isolated from the pirates, it's actually a relatively simple boarding because you don't have hostages mixed in with pirates.

    3. CWChris Williamson50:52

       Shoo- shoot anyone that isn't in the engine room.

    4. RYRoderic Yapp50:55

       Fundamentally, you can get on board and if it goes a bit kinetic and rounds start going down, you haven't got that added risk. So there are various sort of categories of a, of a boarding, and a level 4 is a hostage rescue which is pir- you know, pirates are on board, they're in amongst the crew. That is a very difficult situation to, to sort of deal with. That's, you know, remit of special forces. We used to be able to deal with a level 3 which is the crew are locked in the safe room, there are no other crew, it's only pirates on board. We would go on with the sort of black roll kit, you know, fully, uh, black overalls, you know, dark sunglasses, helmets, body armor.

    5. CWChris Williamson51:41

       Badass. Say bad-

    6. RYRoderic Yapp51:42

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson51:42

       Say badass.

    8. RYRoderic Yapp51:42

       It was badass. Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson51:43

       Yeah.

    10. RYRoderic Yapp51:44

        It, it was, it was the best job I had. It was-

    11. CWChris Williamson51:46

        (laughs)

    12. RYRoderic Yapp51:46

        ... it was, it was just brilliant. Um-

    13. CWChris Williamson51:48

        Did you listen to AC/DC pumping out the speakers on the way there?

    14. RYRoderic Yapp51:51

        (laughs)

    15. CWChris Williamson51:51

        Is that, is that a thing that you can do?

    16. RYRoderic Yapp51:53

        We didn't. I've, I feel I've, I've missed something there.

    17. CWChris Williamson51:55

        Yeah.

    18. RYRoderic Yapp51:56

        I feel that, yeah, list- listening to some of that would have been, would have been pretty special.

    19. CWChris Williamson51:59

        Some Brian Johnson-

    20. RYRoderic Yapp52:00

        Um-

    21. CWChris Williamson52:00

        ... pounding down on the, these Somali pirates-

    22. RYRoderic Yapp52:02

        (laughs)

    23. CWChris Williamson52:02

        ... and they're thinking, "Shit, Brian's here."

    24. RYRoderic Yapp52:05

        I mean, they, they were... Because of the, like... 'cause, I mean, marines are fairly big, physical, physical guys. Covered in this kit with all this body armor, the guys look physically imposing. And there was a, there was a logic to that because it's a little bit of, sort of almost like, you know, dog psychology. You know, if a guy... If you come across a guy who's sort of six foot five and, and built like a brick shithouse in a pub, you are unlikely to startle him if, if something goes down. So, it's that same sort of thing. You want to appear physically imposing. We were respectful, but very, very firm. You know, we would grip them, we would control them, um, we would, uh, put plastic cuffs on them as quickly as possible. They were not... We never, we never hurt any of them but we were, we were sort of firm, as you'd expect a police officer in the UK to be-

    25. CWChris Williamson52:57

        Mm-hmm.

    26. RYRoderic Yapp52:57

        ... dealing with someone that's potentially dangerous. It's firm, it's not, um, it's not aggressive. You're not trying to hurt them.

    27. CWChris Williamson53:03

        Mm-hmm.

    28. RYRoderic Yapp53:04

        Um, so, so yeah, uh, we, um, we recaptured the vessel, released the crew. Um, I remember going down into the engine room a- and it was probably the only time in my career there was a real tangible sense of, "We've delivered some real value for people." Because they were overwhelmed with emotion. They were crying, they were cheering. Y- you didn't get that in Afghanistan (laughs) very often, um, ever. Uh, there was this sort of overwhelming sense of, you know, gratitude and thanks. Um, we then... Because it was an Italian-flagged vessel, the Italian, uh, government wanted to prosecute them. I think one of the first successful prosecutions for piracy in, in God knows how many years. (laughs)

    29. CWChris Williamson53:50

        Wow.

    30. RYRoderic Yapp53:50

        Um, uh, they got carted off to, uh, they got carted off to Rome. Uh, I went there and acted as a witness to the, for the prosecution, which was fascinating, um, going into sort of one of these mafia-style, you know, courtrooms with all the sort of, you know, uh, uh, rooms alongside where they could put all the sort of, you know, large numbers of mob bosses-
12. 58:20 – 1:00:14

    From Marines to nuclear industry: leadership principles that transfer

    1. CWChris Williamson58:20

       Mm-hmm. So you finished catching pirates-

    2. RYRoderic Yapp58:24

       (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson58:25

       ... and decided that you were gonna go into the world of business and leadership?

    4. RYRoderic Yapp58:31

       Yeah, so I, I got some really good advice when I left which was, you know, don't, don't go and do something similar to what you've done before. You know, really push yourself and go to a sort of different environment. So I went into uranium enrichment for a couple of years, um, I worked for a company called Urenco based up in, uh, Cheshire. Really interesting environment, you know, I, I did a, I did a degree in ancient history so I'm gonna work in the nuclear industry.

    5. CWChris Williamson58:55

       Mm-hmm.

    6. RYRoderic Yapp58:56

       You know, no real concept of that. Um, uh, very safety critical culture, um, the words nuclear and accident don't go well together, um, and it's unacceptable to take any form of sort of personal risk in order to get the job done, whereas, you know, my health and safety was a helmet and body armor and plenty of ammunition. Going into that world, that required a complete, uh, mindset change for me. Um, but what I fundamentally realized was that, you know, it doesn't matter whether you're leading a team of marines, uh, leading a sports team, leading a business, or leading a group of uranium enrichment technicians, ultimately, team performance is dependent on leadership, culture, behaviors, the context really, I think people overstate the value of having had to work in the industry that they're in. Um, it's relatively easy to understand that. I think it's more under- more important to be able to sort of understand people. So I sort of became interested in, in, effectively in leadership, um, in taking the skills that I learned in the military and sort of coaching leaders and helping them to sort of improve the performance of their people, 'cause fundamentally that's what I enjoyed most about being in the Marines, uh, helping others to get better. I got a real sort of kick out of that.

13. 1:00:14 – 1:18:59

    What business should import from the military: standards, accountability, and intent

    1. CWChris Williamson1:00:14

       So if you could take some of the values that were common in the Armed Forces and import them into the business world or some of the elements, what would be some of the things that you would take across? Would you have ironed shirts and shiny shoes?

    2. RYRoderic Yapp1:00:29

       (laughs) Um, I would take the standards. I wouldn't necessarily have the...

    3. CWChris Williamson1:00:35

       The dress code.

    4. RYRoderic Yapp1:00:36

       Yeah. But the sta- standards are a really interesting one because I think, you know, what you, what you're willing to accept, um, in terms of standards of performance, standards of behavior-... uh, is really important 'cause that sort of sets the tone for your organization. Um, I've already talked about th- the accountability. I'd, uh, a- absolutely take that. That would be invaluable in any organization because you'd be able to just get so much more done. Um, I think the key thing that I would take is the sort of leadership view that you are there to improve the performance of your people. I think so often in organizations people get promoted to a leadership position 'cause they're good at doing stuff, and what that does is it reinforces the mindset of the doer. And actually, what I try and work with people to change is that look, you're, it's not about you doing things now, it's about that group over there. It's about spending time improving the performance of the team. You have been promoted because you're good at playing the instrument, but now you've got to conduct the orchestra, so stop playing the instrument. It's a totally different way of thinking. Um, and I think organizations generally don't do a very good job of it. They sort of promote people and then kind of expect them to sort of get on with it. Um, and that's the sort of problem or that's the issue that I hope to address in some small way, really because if I work with someone relatively early in their career and I make them like 5% better at leading people, that has an impact not just on their current team, but all the people that they work with for the rest of their life. And that is in some small way gonna contribute towards making the world a better place, and that's why I do it.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:02:20

       I, I think you're right. I recently spoke to Benjamin Dennehy, who is the UK's most hated sales trainer-

    6. RYRoderic Yapp1:02:26

       (laughs)

    7. CWChris Williamson1:02:27

       ... and he was talking about, um, when he goes into sales companies, and a lot of the time they will have a good salesman. Really, they know a top performer and they think, "Right, it's time to move this person up." They give them a promotion, they make him a team leader, and they lose a good salesman and gain a shit manager.

    8. RYRoderic Yapp1:02:43

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:02:43

       Um, and, yeah, it's that going from doer to enabler.

    10. RYRoderic Yapp1:02:48

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:02:49

        Yeah.

    12. RYRoderic Yapp1:02:49

        And, and I think that's 100... I see that in sales classic, absolutely classic. And the organization... Often people, yeah, sometimes people have said to me, "Do you know what? I was much happier when I was just doing the selling."

    13. CWChris Williamson1:03:01

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RYRoderic Yapp1:03:02

        And I'm like, "That's, that's okay." You need to... I think not everyone... Management isn't right for everyone. Leadership isn't necessarily right for everyone. I think y- you kind of have to ask the individual, "Look, do, do you want to just... Do you want a pay rise or do you want a team?"

    15. CWChris Williamson1:03:17

        Mm. Yeah.

    16. RYRoderic Yapp1:03:18

        Um, it's okay to say no.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:03:19

        Yeah. Because you can negotiate, you can negotiate yourself higher and just say, "Look, I just think I want more money." Like, I-

    18. RYRoderic Yapp1:03:23

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:03:23

        ... I'm, I'm the best seller on the floor, the best seller on the team, the best whatever, like, yeah. And there is, there's a... Because we are our jobs now so much-

    20. RYRoderic Yapp1:03:35

        Yeah.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:03:35

        ... there is this desire for natural progression, this sense that if you're not moving up within the organization... Um, but unfortunately, I think a lot of the skills that make someone a good member of staff don't necessarily translate up to being a good manager. But one of the difficulties that I see, and a lot of the listeners might be able to see this within their own organizations as well, is that respect tends to be emergent, not dictated within an organization. So if you just import some manager who's never worked in fucking uranium before, and he's got some classical history degree and was just shooting Pirates a couple of years ago-

    22. RYRoderic Yapp1:04:17

        (laughs)

    23. CWChris Williamson1:04:17

        ... like why should I listen to this schmoe, like talking about-

    24. RYRoderic Yapp1:04:20

        Mm. Yeah.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:04:21

        He's not, you know, earned his keep. He's not done this, that, and the other. And you, the, the problems that a good leader and a good manager within an organization has to get past, like these sort of invisible hurdles or steps that you need to climb, it's like you need to be able to get the respect of people sometimes without having earned it by coming up through the system. Then you need to actually have good leadership skills.

    26. RYRoderic Yapp1:04:48

        Yeah.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:04:48

        Then you need to be able to get them to listen to you, then direction, accountability, da, da, da, da, da, da. Like it's challenging, right? It doesn't, it doesn't surprise me that we have dysfunction within organizations.

    28. RYRoderic Yapp1:04:59

        Yeah. And I, I think it's... (sighs) it's a, it's a real shame, it's a real waste of potential, potential for those individuals in those jobs, potential for those people in those leadership positions. You know, most people, uh, and I, I haven't got the sort of statistics to hand, but, you know, that it's well known that most people don't like what they do for a living.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:05:18

        Mm-hmm.

    30. RYRoderic Yapp1:05:18

        You know, uh...

Episode duration: 1:20:23