Boeing became our only remaining airliner manufacturer as the rest fell by the wayside. It has had a magnificent run with world-class and safe aircraft. Its only major competition has been Airbus and they are heavily subsidized by its European consortium - which pushed Boeing to start acting like any other company run by MBAs instead of airplane people. Now people have been killed and there have been a bunch of near-misses.
Does Boeing resume what made it the best for decades, or do they keep hiring bean counters?
I liked that article too - amazing piece that pretty well sums up what went wrong: the culture that searches for generic CEOs and other upper management positions just because they did OK in other unrelated fields. The whole corporate culture is driven towards maximizing shareholder dividends - which is not a good fit for aircraft manufacturers or any other business that has make quality its first and highest priority (ask Colt ‘s Firearms).
Boeing became our only remaining airliner manufacturer as the rest fell by the wayside. It has had a magnificent run with world-class and safe aircraft. Its only major competition has been Airbus and they are heavily subsidized by its European consortium - which pushed Boeing to start acting like any other company run by MBAs instead of airplane people. Now people have been killed and there have been a bunch of near-misses.
Does Boeing resume what made it the best for decades, or do they keep hiring bean counters?
11 posted on 4/22/2024, 5:07:57 PM by Chainmail
There's the heart of the problem. An MBA program teaches the students how to run a generic company, and to do it with expertise based on "best practices". But there is no such thing as a "generic company", and "best practices" may sound great in a conference room while having to recognizable relationship to reality.
A company, any company, exists for a particular reason: to manufacture some things, or to provide some service. A person, MBA or no, who does not in his bones understand those things or services will never be able to run the company effectively. The MBA has become a plague on American industry.