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Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

wsj.com

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Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#71

Post by TeMPOraL »

xoa wrote: post #48
at-fates-hands wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Yeah. As the company, you don't want emails like that coming out Which, honestly shocked me they were sending emails like that in the first place. Talk among yourselves at the lunch table, complain in private and try to talk to someone in management who will listen. It was 2018 for god's sake. Do these engineers still not know how stupid it is to be sending emails like that around the company? Maybe it just highli…

> Do these engineers still not know how stupid it is to be sending emails like that around the company? I've started to wonder over the past few years myself: maybe in some cases they very much do, and it's not stupid at all? If you know such emails may come out in case of trouble, then it can in turn become a tool for a low level of whistleblowing/accountability in a hard situation. A lot of us are fortunate enough…

Indeed. Hell, isn't the whole deal with real engineering (as opposed to software "engineering") and professional licenses that engineers have obligations going beyond the company?

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#72

Post by TeMPOraL »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

Firing people is always an interesting way to prove you are doing something about a problem which has already happened and is already being addressed. Generally it try’s to show that you are “taking responsibility” but generally the people who are actually responsible are just doing the firing to avoid the stigma of being the screw up[1]. [1] At one group in Netflix (which has an aggressive fire fast culture) that I…

> I came to realize the position existed primarily to provide shielding for the managers above it

Basically, employees are used as ablative armor for management?

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#73

Post by salawat »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #42
uxp100 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. As the company, you don't want emails like that coming out, but getting rid of messages like that damages the so called safety culture. I think a good answer as a CEO would be to tell managers to be more careful in emails, but no real punishment. However, the criticism in the emails was pretty low content, it's not like this was a message that said, man those monkeys really screwed up the MCAS or something. I t…

>> Yeah. As the company, you don't want emails like that coming out Which, honestly shocked me they were sending emails like that in the first place. Talk among yourselves at the lunch table, complain in private and try to talk to someone in management who will listen. It was 2018 for god's sake. Do these engineers still not know how stupid it is to be sending emails like that around the company? Maybe it just highli…

What is with this thread of conversation?

"Don't send emails like that because they could end up in eDiscovery."

How about, don't do things in a way where eDiscovery is likely to be an outcome, and actually foster processes that act on quality issues instead of telling the people you're shouldering with making this work with enough weight on their conscience that the only way they feel like they can cope with the foreseeable tragedy is to at least make sure there is some note in the record somewhere that they tried and could do nothing despite it all?

I have absolutely no respect for for anyone who is so caught up with these messages sound, that they can't read between the lines to see the picture of the completely dysfunctional dynamic these people had to be operating within.

The lower an engineer ends up stooping, the worse and more endemic the problems they are facing likely are. If your company has those types of email at all, whether they get out should be the least of your concerns!

The mentality being demonstrated admonishing delivery and sweating on the damage from dirty laundry being aired instead of the fact there is dirty laundry to air at all is like worrying whether or not you left the faucet on when your house is below sea level, and the tsunami is already on the way.

And apologies to those from New Orleans, or the Netherlands; to be fair I could have used leaving the burner on and fires on the way and pissed off the Californians and Aussies, but water was the first thing that came to mind.

And I'm not letting the engineers entirely off the hook either! If they felt that strongly, they should have walked away to, but I can forgive a lot more in the name of familial security than I can the pursuit of profit at all costs.

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#74

Post by ohyes »

mark-r wrote: post #67
jessaustin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great idea. Can we think of any examples where this has worked? Famously, it didn't work at Kodak when they invented digital photography.

Kodak gets picked on unfairly I think. When you look at the revenue streams before digital photography took off, you can see that Kodak had their fingers in every part of it - cameras, film, processing, printing. They made money every time you took a picture. There's simply no revenue stream in digital that's big enough to replace that. It's impossible to shrink a company by 90% gracefully.

I guess they could have just invented Instagram or something

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#75

Post by AlexCoventry »

toohotatopic wrote: post #34
Mirioron wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of an article sounds incredibly damning to me. It indicates that Boeing is essentially rotten on the inside and that anybody doing business with them should be wary.

>Boeing, one of the US’s largest and most important companies, acquired its longtime plane manufacturer rival, McDonnell Douglas, in what was then the country’s tenth-largest merger. >The resulting giant took Boeing’s name. More unexpectedly, it took its culture and strategy from McDonnell Douglas https://www.msn.com/en-za/money/news/how-the-mcdonnell-dougl...

Great article. It's an interesting framing, that Boeing's woes stem from a shift from "great engineering firm protected by airlines' government-mandated monopolies" to "lean engine of capitalism." The story about McDonnell-Douglas doing much better out of the merger than you would expect for the junior partner is interesting, too. It would be fascinating to read more about howthat happened.

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#76

Post by pkaye »

dylan604 wrote: post #60
irrational wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a Fortune 150 company where VP is definitely a mid-level management job. It's insane how many VP we have. Just my small part of the company has 5 VPs and they are all at least 4 levels below the President of the company.

How does that even look on an org chart? Normal: President -> Vice-President Common: President -> Executive VP -> VP Guessing: President -> Platinum VP -> Exec VP -> VP (It is related to airlines, so just borrowing their classes)

In the airline industry, it might be

President -> Platinum VP -> Gold VP -> Silver VP -> Bronze VP

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#77

Post by dbcurtis »

goatinaboat wrote: post #18
mrbonner wrote: post #8

He was a VP. I’m not aware VP is a mid level management job. I always thought director level and below would be the case.

A VP in an investment bank would be a middle manager.

Or in enterprise sales, someone who has 6 months tenure. Why? Because an angry customer call can always be handled with: "I will put you straight through to the Vice President."

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#78

Post by PebblesRox »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

Firing people is always an interesting way to prove you are doing something about a problem which has already happened and is already being addressed. Generally it try’s to show that you are “taking responsibility” but generally the people who are actually responsible are just doing the firing to avoid the stigma of being the screw up[1]. [1] At one group in Netflix (which has an aggressive fire fast culture) that I…

I’m curious, what was it that triggered your suspicions?

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#79

Post by jessaustin »

mark-r wrote: post #67
jessaustin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great idea. Can we think of any examples where this has worked? Famously, it didn't work at Kodak when they invented digital photography.

Kodak gets picked on unfairly I think. When you look at the revenue streams before digital photography took off, you can see that Kodak had their fingers in every part of it - cameras, film, processing, printing. They made money every time you took a picture. There's simply no revenue stream in digital that's big enough to replace that. It's impossible to shrink a company by 90% gracefully.

Kodak may have been boned no matter what, but it's still not the example I seek, of a firm that successfully "played catch against itself".

Re: Boeing fired midlevel executive following embarrassing emails

#80

Post by mark-r »

ohyes wrote: post #74
mark-r wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kodak gets picked on unfairly I think. When you look at the revenue streams before digital photography took off, you can see that Kodak had their fingers in every part of it - cameras, film, processing, printing. They made money every time you took a picture. There's simply no revenue stream in digital that's big enough to replace that. It's impossible to shrink a company by 90% gracefully.

I guess they could have just invented Instagram or something

That would have been interesting, but they still would have needed to figure out how to monetize it.
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