Boeing’s Post

I believe Kelly Ortberg is correct, and if Boeing is ever going to live up to its remarkable potential, this is how we are going to do it. I started at Boeing in June of 1997 and was among the crowd of employees who watched Phil Condit and Harry Stonecipher announce the MD acquisition of Boeing on August 1, 1997. Some might suggest that it was the other way around, but we know better. Back then the Boeing culture accepted as self-evident that there was no shortcut for solving hard engineering problems. Engineering leaders were involved day-to-day, and Boeing owned its technology and its road map. It was not perfect, nothing is, and I do not want to give the wrong impression that it was some sort of panacea. But the the fundamentals never change, and there is no "secret sauce". Boeing embodied those fundamentals back then and there was a certain satisfying "grit and grime" to the place that reflected a hive of activity; teams of smart people focusing on very hard problems. It was not about "doing less with more". From the CEO on down it was about doing what needed to be done and doing it the right way. Over the last 27 years, Boeing found itself lost and clinging to the destructive financial engineering myths that destroyed GE. We gave away our technology and our road map and leadership got a lot less engaged in the day to day business of solving hard engineering problems. The numbers always looked great, but the overall performance slowly degraded. You know the rest... The way back is pretty simple and I think Kelly "gets it", but execution is going to be very difficult. Go read the book "American Icon" if you want to see what it looks like. As an engineer, I need our leaders to actually lead. I need them to be involved in the day to day as engaged servant leaders and I need them to champion the hard problems that need solving. I need them to set the tone and get us back to fundamentals. At every level I need them to yell it far and wide every day, "There are no shortcuts. If we cannot do something right, we should not be doing it at all." Aerospace is, and always will be, a low margin business. If you are here for fame and fortune, you picked the wrong business to be in. But if you want to be exposed to the very hardest problems imaginable. If you want to do something difficult that has never been done before. If you want to climb that mountain and plant that flag, then you will find no more rewarding place to develop a career. Boeing is worth saving.

This encapsulates the vision and determination required to restore Boeing to its rightful place as a leader in the aerospace industry. The acknowledgment that rebuilding a legacy is a journey, not a sprint, is both realistic and inspiring. It underlines the essential truth that transformative change begins with a foundation of culture where both employee and customer feels valued. Focusing on core values and fostering open communication can elevate a company's ethos, enabling collaborative problem-solving and innovation. By prioritizing trust and transparency in our communication, we not only overcame the challenge but also forged deeper relationships that enhanced our performance moving forward. Improving program execution and stabilizing the business will undoubtedly require patience and persistent effort. This reminds us that every step taken with the right mindset contributes to a brighter future. As we collectively set the stage for Boeing’s revival, let's hold onto the belief that by focusing on our shared mission and fostering a healthy culture, we can indeed bring about remarkable change. Together, we can transform challenges into opportunities, paving the way for the iconic company Boeing is poised to be once again. Here’s to the journey ahead, full of potential and promise! #Boeing #Culture #Focus

It's good to hear the truth finally coming out, but the absence of timeliness sadly a product of current culture will cost the company many more billions. I'll post my thoughts from 3 months ago in hopes there might be something there pertinent to the agents of change at Boeing. Be leaders! Do not follow the path of your bureaucratic customers in the federal government. You will need to indoctrinate college graduates because the culture you seek is foreign to them and most early career employees. The employees you want to keep will relish in the change ... good luck! Prior Post: Excellence in engineering and manufacturing is an exacting process requiring a disciplined organizational culture. Even the most elaborate configuration management systems, AI inspired video surveillance, strict MIP compliance and flawless V&V can replace the value associated with a disciplined workforce. This disciplined culture is in direct conflict with a society that constantly promotes every kind of off-nominal behavior and free will to make any choice desired and seldom obedience to norms, rules and directions. Thank God there are still many people in this country willing to be obedient to the norms that assure everyone’s goodwill, but they are fading quickly. It ain’t “easy” and it takes hard work and discipline to reach optimal potential. For an old engineer fading away it’s sad to see entropy not only at work in society but in my own and others abilities to keep it at bay even in engineering processes. Boeing is one of the true jewels of America, but sadly we cannot let it reflect the current culture in America … we need Boeing and all our proud American companies to fight disorder and embrace the order necessary for excellence far into the next century. This is the light of freedom that demands correct choices!

The $BA case is undoubtedly a study case for every investor. It will show us from the very bottom what a company is made of. More importantly what its employees and management are capable of.

Thursday marked a pivotal moment for Boeing as Kelly Ortberg assumes the role of CEO. Let’s delve into what this means for the aerospace giant. Ortberg steps in at a critical juncture, tasked with rebuilding trust after a series of setbacks. His engineering background and hands-on approach signal a commitment to addressing challenges head-on. Industry insiders view Ortberg’s outsider status as an asset. Fresh eyes can drive cultural change. Boeing’s reputation hinges on transparency and accountability, and Ortberg aims to lead by example. Like his predecessor, Ortberg inherits a company grappling with issues across commercial and defense units. His tenure begins with a visit to the 737 Max factory floor, emphasizing the importance of understanding production firsthand. Welcome aboard, Kelly Ortberg! May your leadership steer Boeing toward brighter skies. #Boeing #Leadership #Aerospace

First significant action from Boeing new CEO straight out of Jack Welch’s playbook, fire the bottom 10% of employees. Boeing has struggled with attracting and retaining top engineers. A significant downsizing certainly mobilizes and motivates the top tier employees to abandon ship and go elsewhere. Alongside which, he is taking a knife to programs by delay and cancel. I have heard nothing but glowing reviews of Mr. Ortberg. I hope this slash and burn start will play out favorably, like Phoenix rising from the ashes. Boeing is struggling with harsh realities from largely self-inflicted wounds across decades of pushing back labor and embracing shareholders through buybacks and ruthless negotiations. IAM workers harbor significant resentment from being strong-armed a decade ago. Programs founder from being pushed to the brink by understaffing and focusing on margin not quality. Supply chain is decimated by incessant downward pricing pressure and production delays. Was there another way, building a new Boeing bottom-up from employee risk-sharing? Not this cycle, but maybe in the next stage. But for now, the company is still failing.

While I understand the tendency for leaders to step down when they are exposed as making a huge mistake or lapse in judgement, I think the normalcy of this type of response is exactly what breeds the kind of short-term thinking and goals that we see in many leaders today. Imagine an alternative where, rather than accepting that someone "retires early" there was instead a requirement that the leader who "messed up" has to fix the mess they created in order to preserve their reputation. Leaders would be so much more prone to thinking and acting in sustainable ways if they knew that there was no short-term benefit (material or reputational) to be gained from quickly raising shareholder profits. We hear so many companies speaking of the failure-friendly cultures they want to encourage, but then when someone at the top actually fails in a way that leaves so much to be learned from, instead of giving them the chance--and even requiring--that they learn from it and improve what they've screwed up, we instead allow them the "easy route" out of quitting or retiring. It's not about not holding leaders who make big mistakes accountable, but rather changing the definition of accountable into "he who messes it up, must clean it up."

#economics #unitedstates #NobelPrize Former Bill Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says “America has socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for everyone else.” It is not a statement from an honest but characterized as a disgruntled socialist old college professor who has had it inside government in Washington, nor is it a polemic or a sound bite for MSNBC evening news of the far left. It is a valid point well founded in hard data and documented politically and economically since the 1980s, and as an economic ideology since 1945, to resist FDR the last time the world was socialist. To this I will add, America has de facto unions of the rich, its oligarchy at World Economic Forum, and systematically eviscerated trade unions of the workers since 1981. I understand that President Joe Biden The White House wants to correct this imbalance by restoring worker unions. Do we really want trade unions for all, done better after Jimmy Hoffa, because there are unions of the wealthy, and socialism for all, done better, because there is socialism for the wealthy, if necessary by war, and enforced by a bigger government we cannot afford? Money is never the problem. It is made out to be. It is only money. A piece of paper. We all can declare bankruptcy and get a fresh start as the Internal Revenue Service says from March Rich who fled to Switzerland evading taxes only to get a presidential pardon for “pay for play” along with the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama papers guys who should be awarded The Nobel Prize to the guy who works in Walmart for a minimum wage but up to the eye balls in debt to keep the economy humming for the wealthy to get wealthier, around the world. Deficits for governments may not be an issue either when the whole world is just as indebted as each other by forgiving each other’s indebtedness in a mass sovereign bankruptcy to start all over again like Brazil and Lula. We are going gravely wrong in how to respond to neoliberal excess since Bill Clinton’s election in 1993. Is this how he is finally putting people first by gutting neoliberalism from the inside by co-opting it to produce better socialism? The world, divided into three camps, better mixed economy bureaucratic socialism like India to converge with China, better globalization at International Monetary Fund to fix what went wrong in the 1990s, and better capitalism Council for Inclusive Capitalism to fix neoliberalism. Both American Rawlsian socialism of far left and neoliberal excess of far right of unbridled utilitarian laissez faire Chicago School capitalism of Milton Friedman, a corporate governance ideology since 1970, will produce Friedrich Hayek’s serfdom. The better way to think outside the box of Marxist class warfare or “better everything” is by reforming the system to basic human decency and honesty in a regime of limited government as it ought to be done, founded by United States of America in 1776. © 2024 TAMIRISA https://www.tamirisa.com/

The Rise and Fall of Boeing: A Deep Dive into an Aviation Giant's Journey Boeing, once the pinnacle of aerospace innovation, now grapples with significant challenges. This in-depth article explores Boeing's storied history, the impact of its merger with McDonnell Douglas, and the recent issues that have tarnished its reputation. Gain insights into what went wrong and the steps Boeing needs to take to rebuild trust and reclaim its leadership in the aviation industry. Read more and share your perspective on Boeing's future. https://lnkd.in/gS4fqAAs #Boeing #Aviation #AerospaceIndustry #Leadership

Boeing has announced the appointment of Kelly Ortberg as the new CEO, succeeding Dave Calhoun. Ortberg, a seasoned aerospace veteran with a rich history at Rockwell Collins, steps into the role as Boeing navigates a tumultuous period. The company is grappling with recent financial losses and ongoing scrutiny following incidents affecting its manufacturing and safety reputation. Ortberg's leadership is seen as a pivotal move, with hopes of reinforcing a commitment to safety and quality. As Boeing strives to recover, the industry and investors alike are keenly watching for signs of a turnaround. #TheSocialTalks #LeadershipChange #Aerospace #Boeing #Aviation #KellyOrtberg #CorporateLeadership #SafetyFirst #IndustryNews #BusinessUpdate #EngineeringLeadership