Steamship Logic - Kirk & Blackbeard

On the evening of 6 September 1870, HMS Captain was the most advanced warship in the Royal Navy. She carried something no British battleship had taken to sea before: two armoured gun turrets that could rotate and fire in any direction. The future of naval warfare, mounted on a single hull. But the Admiralty couldn't imagine a warship without sails. So they gave her a full sailing rig — tripod masts, miles of rigging, and enough canvas to drive a clipper. The turrets needed a low deck to fire over the rails. The masts drove the centre of gravity up. That night, in a gale off Cape Finisterre that caused no trouble to any other ship in the squadron, an officer called out the clinometer readings as the ship began to heel. Eighteen degrees. Twenty-three. Twenty-eight. Then silence. HMS Captain rolled over and sank in under three minutes. Of 497 aboard, 472 drowned — including her designer, who had envisioned the turrets but never questioned the sails. The next year, the Navy launched HMS Devastation: the first ocean-going warship without a single mast. The capability had been ready since 1870. The thinking needed a catastrophe to catch up.

What is Steamship Logic?

Steamship Logic occurs when an organisation adopts a new technology or process but can only imagine using it within the logic of the existing system. New components get absorbed into old rationality — the thinking that decided what work looks like, how value is delivered, what a process is for: Faster reports instead of questioned reports. Automated workflows instead of eliminated workflows. Cheaper production of things that shouldn't be produced at all.

Why does it matter?

For leadership, the new technology feels like progress. Efficiency gains are visible. The quarterly numbers improve. But the deeper opportunity — the redesigned value chain, the eliminated process, the entirely new form of value — remains unseen. Not rejected. Unseen.

if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory.

Somewhere in your organisation, someone sees this. A designer, an engineer, a product lead — close enough to the new capability to sense what it could reshape. But they're probably not heard, because your numbers may already look good. The efficiency gain is already in your quarterly report. The thing it makes possible isn't — because nobody's looking.

What causes it?

The wrong question. When a new technology arrives, the first question is always "how can this make what we do faster?" — because that question fits the existing budget, the existing business case, the existing org chart. The better question — "what does this make possible that we couldn't do before?" — doesn't fit anything yet. So it doesn't get asked.

Early wins that close the conversation. The 10% cost saving is real. It's in the report. Leadership is satisfied, the vendor is paid, the case study is written. Nobody reopens a conversation that already has a happy ending — especially when the alternative is "we might be thinking about this wrong."

The replacement narrative. When drum machines arrived in the 1980s, studios said they were cheaper than hiring a drummer. What actually happened was co-evolution: the craft adapted, new roles appeared, rhythm production was transformed. But the first story is always replacement, because replacement fits a cost line. Augmentation requires new practices, and new practices require changing how you think — not just what you buy.

How to recognise it:

When the new technology is celebrated for making existing processes faster, but nobody asks whether those processes should exist.
When efficiency gains are reported confidently, but the work itself hasn't changed.
When the people closest to the technology describe possibilities that leadership doesn't recognise.
When the conversation is about replacing people instead of replacing tasks — and nobody is building the practices that augmentation requires.

What you can do:

Stop asking what this capability can make faster. Ask what it makes unnecessary.
Invest in co-evolution. New capability without new practices produces replacement by default. Build the practices that let people and tools augment each other.
Protect the people who see the deeper possibility. They're usually close to the work and far from the boardroom.
Don't let early gains close the conversation. A 15% improvement is not transformation. It's the starting point.

What is Steamship Logic?

Steamship Logic occurs when an organisation adopts a new technology or process but can only imagine using it within the logic of the existing system. New components get absorbed into old rationality — the thinking that decided what work looks like, how value is delivered, what a process is for: Faster reports instead of questioned reports. Automated workflows instead of eliminated workflows. Cheaper production of things that shouldn't be produced at all.

Why does it matter?

For leadership, the new technology feels like progress. Efficiency gains are visible. The quarterly numbers improve. But the deeper opportunity — the redesigned value chain, the eliminated process, the entirely new form of value — remains unseen. Not rejected. Unseen.

if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory.

Somewhere in your organisation, someone sees this. A designer, an engineer, a product lead — close enough to the new capability to sense what it could reshape. But they're probably not heard, because your numbers may already look good. The efficiency gain is already in your quarterly report. The thing it makes possible isn't — because nobody's looking.

What causes it?

The wrong question. When a new technology arrives, the first question is always "how can this make what we do faster?" — because that question fits the existing budget, the existing business case, the existing org chart. The better question — "what does this make possible that we couldn't do before?" — doesn't fit anything yet. So it doesn't get asked.

Early wins that close the conversation. The 10% cost saving is real. It's in the report. Leadership is satisfied, the vendor is paid, the case study is written. Nobody reopens a conversation that already has a happy ending — especially when the alternative is "we might be thinking about this wrong."

The replacement narrative. When drum machines arrived in the 1980s, studios said they were cheaper than hiring a drummer. What actually happened was co-evolution: the craft adapted, new roles appeared, rhythm production was transformed. But the first story is always replacement, because replacement fits a cost line. Augmentation requires new practices, and new practices require changing how you think — not just what you buy.

How to recognise it:

When the new technology is celebrated for making existing processes faster, but nobody asks whether those processes should exist.
When efficiency gains are reported confidently, but the work itself hasn't changed.
When the people closest to the technology describe possibilities that leadership doesn't recognise.
When the conversation is about replacing people instead of replacing tasks — and nobody is building the practices that augmentation requires.

What you can do:

Stop asking what this capability can make faster. Ask what it makes unnecessary.
Invest in co-evolution. New capability without new practices produces replacement by default. Build the practices that let people and tools augment each other.
Protect the people who see the deeper possibility. They're usually close to the work and far from the boardroom.
Don't let early gains close the conversation. A 15% improvement is not transformation. It's the starting point.

What is Steamship Logic?

Why does it matter?

What causes it?

How to recognise it:

What you can do:

What is Steamship Logic?

Why does it matter?

What causes it?

How to recognise it:

What you can do:

Let's talk.

Let's talk.

Let's talk.