As usual, it IS a system’s issue. It’s an incentive issue. If the people that made decisions were incentivised to prioritise long-term stability and performance, they would. They aren’t, and the reason they aren’t isn’t solved with a swift “get rid of them all”. You think that these big scary business people you demonise don’t themselves have KPIs? The pressure of corporate America, of short-term returns, is still going to be there. Have you seen how drastically the average shareholding lifespan has dropped over the last 10 years? Businesses are just operating in more of an environment where long-term stability and even growth don’t matter.
Boeing is such an easy target. It’s very easy to just lazily say “Boeing is rotten!” and leave it at that, because then you get to pretend that the solution is easier than it is. Whilst there are definitely Boeing-specific circumstances that heavily heavily contribute, the reality is that Boeing has had few chances to ‘innovate’ in recent memory, especially with its new makeup. This is just what it looks like when they do. The reality is that this is merely a reflection of how the wider world works. And that’s the thing with systems problems. It’s intellectually dishonest to just sit back and “blame MBAs”. These sorts of problems fester in the wiring and the mechanics, with unpredictable consequences that are almost impossible to reverse by the time they’re realised.
The wheels were set in motion before the Boeing merger. It wasn’t a trigger, it was a consequence. Similarly, some “MBAs” making decisions, either with Boeing or investors, were themselves not the trigger. Fate had already been decided several layers up the stack when personal and organisational incentives were set as they are in the first place.
>The MO of ‘business people’ isn’t inherently ‘quick wins, bleed the company dry’.
It absolutely is the model, because humans gotta human.
I assure you that Engineers with knowledge of the products are rarely included in steering meetings, and when they are, they are window dressing.
I know this because I'm an expert in my field and over 3+ decades, this is pretty much exactly how technical people get handled when it comes to meetings and decisions.
Guess who occupies most of the C-suite. Do you think it's engineers? No, its MBAs.
MBAs are NOT the source of all things bad, but lets not break our arms jerking them off over the "great work" they've done.
smh.
1. Engineering incompetence.
2. Mgmt pressure.
3. Engineering failure. As in legitimately attempted, but missed the mark.
Considering how this company has operated, for decades, it's fairly simple to point to Option 2 as the most likely culprit. Option 1 is possible, but unlikely, since there are a number of engineers involved. Option 3 is also possible and could still be the issue, but if we were betting, it would be option 2, because they've already proven, that's who they are.
