From what I understand, a big part of what’s happening with Boeing, is that Boeing is run by Business person who want to maximize return of stock-owner rather than by people wanting to make a good product. The gained flexibility/nicer budget from massive sub-contracting led to “loss of knowledge”, and cutting-down quality control steps which “never catch anything” led to issue being missed-out.
Do you think that MBA program will take this reality into account ? or would they keep focusing on maximizing short-term profit even if it jeopardize the company’s future ?
Sadly you see this at all levels of companies.
I’ve seen it in IT for 30+ years (Google is a great example): new projects/changes make you visible to upper management, but if you prevent failures/outages no one cares.
Now, have an actual outage and fix it, you’re a hero.
So, don’t prevent outages, but note the issues privately, develop mitigation plans, so when the outage occurs you’re the hero. That’s the lesson anyway.
Absolutely not.
If they learn anything from this, it will be to better find the boundaries of what kind of grift they can or can’t get away with. The criminals will get smarter and barely a slap on the wrist. Worst case scenario, an entirely new flock of shitbirds will replace them and keep doing the same or worse.
As long as no one at the top goes to jail or completely personally bankrupt, there is 0 incentive for the system to change in the slightest.
IMHO everyone is entirely missing the point pointing their finger at Boeing.
The main issue is the FAA and how it failed to control Boeing. It’s obvious a business will try to sacrifice safety for money. But there should be check and balances. Someone making sure a business doesn’t do that.
The FAA let Boeing supervise itself.
Just to be clear some of the higher up at Boeing are criminals but so is the cop that told him he could police himself.
Maybe they’ll include a class on hiring more subtle hitmen.
You can’t educate your way out of the logic of capitalism. These folks are optimizing return on investment, not human utility. The system is working as intended, why would they change it?
I’m a recent MBA grad and I can attest that stuff like this was an important part of the curriculum re: sustainable growth. Cutting corners, focusing on short term profits is always a dead end. When leaders get lazy and don’t drive a culture that is aligned with the company’s mission, values, and obligations, decay is inevitable. The Boeing board of directors is as complicit in all of this as their executives are.
I don’t necessarily believe you have to have deep expertise in a given field to govern a business in said field. Often it’s even an advantage to come in with a fresh set of eyes. But you need to at least RESPECT that field and its experts and be forthright about taking responsibility when you take action intended to eliminate waste. If the only metric you are using is revenue, or operating profit, or whatever, you are creating an organization that is incentivized to maximize those at the expense of other, core-business-critical factors. If you’re making something inconsequential, by all means take those risks and race to the bottom. But when people’s lives are at stake, you need to have reverence for what your business actually does.
