URSABLOG: Life Lessons

When people ask me why I am so involved in education, I sometimes wonder myself why I do it. I have been all day in the office, running around (figuratively and literally) and then rush off to the local branch of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers (ICS) at seven o’clock for two and a half hours of sharing my shipping knowledge, such as it is. If it was just teaching there that would be fine, but I also sit on the Institute’s Education and Training Committee (ETC), as well as seminars for Universities, professional bodies and many others. This is on top of my ‘day job.’

There is not one reason, because education is not just teaching in itself, at least to me. I may be an idealist, but education is one of the most important, whilst intangible, investments that can be made. It is not only important, but essential. The return on this investment is out of any proportion to the time and effort put in, for educators and the educated alike. And in any case, if I am going to be idealistic, I would rather be idealistic about things that actually add to the greater good than state a position and leave the rest for other people to deal with.

Earlier this week I was in London to participate in a BIMCO seminar on SALEFORM 2012, the standard form used in sale and purchase shipbroking worldwide. There are other forms, but NSF 2012 (the NSF stands for Norweigan Sale Form) is in my view the best and most fit for purpose. Indeed I think (although I cannot definitively confirm) I, together with a German friend and co-broker, was the very first to use it in a ship sale back in 2012.

I was not leading the seminar by myself, indeed I wasn’t leading it at all. My friends Jon Elvey and Matt Hannaford were doing most of the heavy lifting, but as they are heavy hitting lawyers in their own right, I am quite happy to put them on their own pedestals. Not only have both had impressive careers as maritime lawyers, but both have co-authored two separate legal tomes on sale and purchase, the bibles of sale and purchase law. My role was to add some practical insights from the front lines of the sale and purchase market itself, and offer some suggestions on how to use the form before the lawyers get their hands on it. It is a unique line up:

-         me representing the brokers that use the form as a tool of their trade

-         Matt dealing with not just the legal issues of the form itself, but also as he was a central figure in the committee that originally drafted the form itself, a mine of knowledge of case law and precedent

-         Jon, as a litigator in the past (as senior partner at Ince & Co) and now as an arbitrator, an active player in how the law is decided

We were speaking to a room of shipping professionals - managers, owners, brokers and lawyers - and it was a fulfilling day. As I made my way to the airport I was tired, but it was a good tired, because apart from being challenging – we all have to be on top of our game with so much practical expertise in the room – I had been educated. I felt small, professionally, intellectually and academically, in the company of Jon and Matt, two real heavyweights, but I had a good workout, had been roughed up a bit, and felt energised and invigorated to rejoin the fray of day to day broking.

The day before I had been asked to do a couple of short videos for the ICS’s head office. I was asked for my experiences as an examiner (what are common problems, my recommendations) and as a member of the ETC. It was all pretty ad hoc but I surprised myself by speaking eloquently and passionately about both my profession and education. I thought about this on the plane home to Athens.

So what is it about education that inspires me, and feeds me? And what stops me becoming a full-time educator and leaving broking behind? The answer, I think, is that one feeds the other, that both sides of me, broker and educator, gain.

It always dangerous when someone stands up to educate others, thinking that they are the smartest person in the room: in by far the majority of cases that is simply not true. Neither should they imagine that their opinion is the only one that counts: evidently it is not. My days in London reminded me of the humility required to make teaching, and broking, an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

Humility may sound like a strange word to describe both a shipbroker and a teacher: both roles require a certain charisma and assertiveness, arrogance and aggression if you like. Teachers and brokers are in the business of persuading people to do what they don’t really want to do, so have to find ways to persuade, or coerce even, those people to engage with their agenda. This requires humility, but I do not mean that we should be big softies; we cannot allow oneselves to be trodden underfoot by clients, co-brokers or students (although the risk is always there). However, if we enter into a conversation, listening and learning, guiding and leading, everyone in the room benefits.

So why do I teach? I teach to learn.

-         I learn what I do know, which I share

-         I learn what I don’t know, so I can then go and find out more

-         I learn how to deal with people, individually and in a group

-         I learn my limits, and when I step beyond them

-         I learn other people’s limits, and how to work within them

-         I learn that I can never always be right, even when I am

-         I learn that I can be wrong, and how to acknowledge it, to others and myself, when I am

Funnily enough, this not only informs the broking side of my life, it has also helped me to carry on developing my broking skills at an age when I really should be a ‘know it all’ old fart.

A few years ago I would have said that I taught because I wanted to give back, send the ladder back down, use parts of my brain that I don’t always use and so on. I have even said, as regular readers may remember, that I relish the disruption that a good lesson can have on the industry. But in the end, even when I have to reset the balance and my priorities, I find teaching so important to me, to who I am, and how I continue growing, that I would find it hard to give up.

The strange thing is that I could almost replace the role of “teaching” with “broking” in the previous sentence, and the answer to “why are you a shipbroker?” would be the same, i.e. I find broking to important to me, to who I am, and how I continue growing, that I would find it hard to give up.

So to those who are considering teaching, or lecturing, or just assisting in education, go for it, it will change you in ways you can’t imagine. For those of you who want to be a shipbroker however, forget it. It’s a very tough job, not for everyone, and the competition is excruciating. But I would say that, wouldn’t I, and after all you shouldn’t always treat what the teacher says as being 100% correct.

Simon Ward

www.ursashipbrokers.com