Based on the ideas explored in My Steam Engine Is Broken: Taking the organisation from the industrial era to the age of ideas, this theme explores the roots of corporate modernism and explores new kinds of organisational structure better suited for the post-modern world – the Age of Ideas.
Many great and enduring modern corporations began life in the US, in the dramatic period now known as the Second Industrial Revolution that saw the birth of many iconic and enduring corporations: Ford, General Electric, Kellogg’s, Boeing, General Motors . . .
In that remarkable era, the bringing together of industrial processes and the emergence of modern management began to revolutionise production and transform the corporation itself.
It’s hardly surprising that the organisational model adopted by these great corporations, heavily influenced by the principles of Scientific Management, has persisted to this day – even if only subconsciously.
Many of those principles, with their focus on efficiency and standardisation, are still embedded in the corporate unconscious. We still instinctively revert to a default position that workers need to be supervised by managers and that there is ‘one best way’ to carry out most tasks.
And then we complain about the lack of employee engagement and innovation in the modern workplace.
In the masterclass versions of this theme, our unique cultural diagnostics can be completed online by delegates and/or the wider organisation before sessions to provide insight into colleagues’ experiences at work and raise issues for discussion.
Our framework of 10 dimensions of organisational behaviour, for example, as developed in My Steam Engine Is Broken, explores underlying organisational attitudes and assumptions that are often unrecognised and unexamined. The 10 dimensions provide a remarkably accurate picture of corporate culture and give a quantifiable measure of any gaps between colleagues’ aspirations and the reality of their workplace experiences.
Other diagnostics explore creative thinking and ensemble work in senior teams, and levels of ‘Machiavellian Intelligence’ in the organisation.
The theme offers a variety of frameworks that enable a real understanding of organisational culture, exploring how that culture is experienced in reality by members of the organisation and highlighting areas where change can bring about the most positive results.
All of our speaker themes can be delivered in variety of formats to suit the occasion, budget, audience, and purpose.
Themes can be delivered as a short speech, an interactive conference session, a half-day workshop or a full-day masterclass.
We also run bespoke arts-based leadership development programmes.
If you would like any more information, please do get in touch.
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