My Steam Engine is Broken Taking the Organization from the Industrial Era to the Age of Ideas

The typical structure of today's corporate organization was essentially invented in the nineteenth century and based deliberately on the military's "command and control" model and on the hierarchical pyramid of the Catholic Church. As such, it is outmoded and not equipped to deliver corporate success in the 21st century. My Steam Engine is Broken calls on a new generation of organisational leaders to stop trying to fix a broken and outmoded structure, and to create new, successful working structures that work with, not against, people's natural modes of behaviour. The authors explore the way in which the Steam Engine organisational model is no longer offering job satisfaction to its managers precisely (and paradoxically) because managers are not being enabled, and are often being prevented, from delivering what the organization most needs from them: self-direction, innovation, leadership and heartfelt commitment.

Mark Powell is a Partner at leading management consultancy firm AT Kearney and Jonathan Gifford is a business coach and writer. They specialize in change management.