The Engine Room: The heart of the ship.

Allegories sometimes have a habit of throwing up unintended meanings.  Take, for example, the notion that an organisation is driven by its Engine Room, and relate it to the Engine Room of a ship.

An Engine Room only powers a ship; it has no ability to steer in the right direction without signals from the bridge.  Indeed, the Engine Room isn’t even aware of what the right direction is.  It is the responsibility of the Captain and the First Officer to use their skills to steer the ship to the correct destination and send those signals “Hard a Port”, “Hard a Starboard” etc. to the Engine Room.  They may delegate certain aspects of running the ship to the Bursars, Chief Cooks, Maintenance Managers, Chief Engineers etc., who will then delegate further, setting various objectives.  But those objectives have to be related to the direction set up on The Bridge.  If the Captain and First Officer are missing from The Bridge, the ship will wander aimlessly across the ocean.

Intel Inside only powers a computer because Bill Gates has set a course for success and has enthused his Managers to produce an excellent product.  Steve Jobs had the same function at Apple.

Any team needs a Captain, a Leader, who leads positively.