What did really go wrong at Boeing? Are Best Practices always best?

There are three main elements that appear to have likely gone wrong when things went wrong at Boeing.

To be truthful there is a huge level of secrecy around what happened with the two 737 Max liners that crashed.

Boeing itself certainly isn’t saying much beyond surface level statements which is expected. One can however deduct and piece together what might be at cause and what happened with a little research and background knowledge on how things usually work at large corporations, even in the US.

These are the three elements:

·       Technical

·       Cultural

·       Leadership

All three have contributed to the failure and I will show how one of them could have prevented the other two and in turn could have avoided this disaster altogether. None is anyone’s particular fault as in most cases that’s just how it’s been done as a so-called Best Practice. This is one prime example of when Best Practices fail.

·       Technical

Boeing’s design calls for a single sensor on a critical input for the plane’s inflight control system. When this sensor fails or malfunctions the system has no way of telling as it has nothing to compare it to. Maybe Boeing might take a page out of the Daimler Benz design guidelines. Daimler/ Mercedes-Benz appears to have backup systems for everything. When one sensor fails the onboard computer can compare the two sensors and trigger a warning light at minimum and for more critical failures it either shuts down that part of the system or goes into limp-home mode or manual over-ride. Boeing claims it came up with a software fix. If that is true I would be keen to know how that is supposed to work and what the computer will compare its sensor values to so it will know whether that sensor has failed or not. Not sure I can blame Mr. Muilenburg for this technical issue his engineers several level below him should have integrated into this brand-new plane. But let’s see…

·       Cultural

For seed to grow it needs fertile grounds. For such a design flaw to pass through Boeing’s rigorous quality assurance systems there must be more than the eye can see. One might suspect that cost was a concern which is indicated by Boeing’s decision to offer these sensors as an upgrade for a significant additional investment which caused several airlines to not choose this option.

What is more important? Cost and profits and sales or passenger safety is what we need to ask here. What do you think?

·       Leadership

Was Leadership at fault? Maybe, or maybe not. With four years as the CEO, and Chairman since 2016 Dennis Muilenburg certainly had more than enough time to create a culture of consciousness and ownership that one would hope has passenger safety at its core. But has this happened one must ask? As the CEO and Chairman he has the responsibility for company culture rest squarely on his shoulders.

But one must also ask if that’s his fault. Maybe, maybe not. To know for sure, we would need to see how Boeing developed its leaders and If what they did was enough and how do they measure and know whether someone’s leadership is at par with what is needed for this great company

A company such as Boeing should certainly have deep enough budgets to provide leadership development for its key leaders early enough in the talent pipeline to have enough talent to select from when the time comes. Dennis Muilenburg certainly cannot be blamed for what the company did or did not provide early in his career as an engineer at Boeing. This is one reason why we always coach our clients to take development into their own hands and to never solely rely on the company to provide for all their development needs. Even if Boeing did provide leadership development it may not have been enough.

So these are some of the questions that Boeing needs to face if it wants to regain it’s once awesome reputation and maintain its brand.

We would love to hear what you think, both on how Boeing is handling this situation as well as your thoughts on this article

We have offered our assistance to Boeing via email to Dennis Muilenburg. If Boeing handles this well it will be a net positive at some point. However if Boeing doesn’t handle this well it can affect the brand if not the entire company.

Dennis Muilenburg’s career according to Wikipedia

Muilenburg started work at Boeing as an intern in 1985.

Muilenburg held numerous management and engineering positions on various Boeing programs, including the X-32 (Boeing’s entry in the Joint Strike Fighter competition); Boeing’s participation in the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighter; the YAL-1 747 Airborne Laser; the High Speed Civil Transport; and the Condor unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. He later served as vice president of the Boeing Combat Systems division. Muilenburg served as president and chief executive officer of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (later renamed Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) from Sept 2009 till 2015.

In June 2015, Boeing announced that Muilenburg would succeed James McNerney, who was stepping down after ten years as CEO.[5]

airlines and countries began grounding the Boeing 737 MAX 8 due to safety concerns.[9] On 12 March, President Donald Trump spoke to Muilenburg and received assurances that the aircraft was safe

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