Boeing in Uncontrolled Descent

For John, BLUF:  A tad sctalogical, but the point is a shift in focus from engineering and flying to management has damaged the performance of Boeing.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Boeing is everything wrong with American capitalism

Here is the sub-headline:

Boeing’s descent is a case study in how American capitalism has become so rotten. Robert Reich explains.

From Nation of Change, by Professor Robert Reich, 16 July 2024.

Here is the lede plus six:

Excuse my language, but why is Boeing such a shitty corporation?

Their planes are literally falling apart in the sky.

At least six Boeing planes have had parts fall off this year—including an exit door in mid-flight. A whistle-blower has accused Boeing of a “criminal cover-up” of its safety failures.

But beyond this one company, Boeing’s descent is a case study in how American capitalism has become so rotten. Let me explain.

I’m old enough to remember when people used to say “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going.”

But in 1997, everything changed when Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas and became the only major maker of commercial aircraft in America. With no domestic rivals, it no longer needed to stay on the cutting edge of innovation.

Executives at Boeing who once specialized in engineering were replaced with Wall Street types who looked down on the engineers. One money-hungry CEO described those who cared too much about the integrity of Boeing’s planes, and not enough about its stock price, as “phenomenally talented assholes.”

It took the Professor a few paragraphs to get to the punchline.  An emphasis on "management' rather than engineering, has caused Boeing to lose its edge as an aircraft producer.  This issue has recently been discussed by Doctor Matthew Stewart, in his book:  The Management Myth:  Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong:  Debunking Modern Business Philosophy.

Here is the link to the Post on Professor Reich's own blog page.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Sometimes it is On Management

For John, BLUF:  We need to always be asking questions.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Toyota vs GM

A friend of mine just sent this along:

Here's something else to think about:  GM has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US.

The last year's results:

TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while GM racked up 9 billion in losses.
GM folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses...

OK, maybe it is all about the labor unions, but I doubt it.

Maybe it is because Toyota learned, after WWII, from American methods, while GM learned nothing.  Maybe we should have paid attention to American expert Edwards Deming.

If you aren't learning you are falling behind.

Regards  —  Cliff

Chuck Hegal v The White House

For John, BLUF:  If you can' trust your subordinates, you need new subordinates, but if you never trust any of them you might need to look in a new location for the problem.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From Fortuna's Corner we have "Why Former Pentagon Chief Chuck Hagel’s Coming Out Against The White House Matters".

Here is the lede:

When Chuck Hagel resigned as defense secretary last year, the narrative was clear: President Obama and he did not see eye-to-eye on how to prosecute the war against the Islamic State, so Hagel needed to go. White House officials, speaking anonymously, said at the time that the president had lost faith in Hagel’s ability to lead – a charge that Hagel’s advisers brushed aside.

The article ends with these two paragraphs:

Hagel, for his part, told Foreign Policy that he got “the hell beat out of him” figuratively at the White House for delaying in signing transfer orders to release detainees from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when he had concerns about the individuals involved. He also said he felt micro-managed – something that Gates, Panetta and other defense officials have all expressed. 

“There is a danger in all of this,” Hagel told Foreign Policy, referring to White House micromanagement and the administration’s expanding national security staff. “This is about governance; this isn’t about political optics. It’s about making the country run and function, and trying to stay ahead of the dangers and the threats you see coming.”

The thing about micromanagement is that it suggests a lack of confidence and also suggests an over-centralization.  Micromanagement works well when one is dealing with a single crisis.  But, if there are several crises running concurrently, something is going to be missed or messed up.

  

Hat tip to the blog Fortuna's Corner.

Regards  —  Cliff

Night of the Long Knives

For John, BLUF:  If a new City Manager quickly and quietly purged all the second level managers it would be a "Night of the Long Knives".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

This morning, I was in a discussion with some friends in which I mentioned that "Top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett♠ 'was behind Hillary Clinton email scandal leak'".  The source is The Daily Mail, which means a dose of caution is needed.  However, the story goes on to assert that "the leak was reportedly planned to hit at the same time Clinton planned to announce her run for presidency".  Further, the The New York Post is pulled into the story for claiming "that [Valerie] Jarrett was angry that the Clintons had been working to 'marginalize' President Obama.  Payback or forestalling?

At any rate, I described it, rather loosely, as a "Night of the Long Knives."  Well, that event was over 80 years ago, and it appears to have passed out of common memory.  So, as I was trying to describe this event, I mentioned the "SA" and was asked what that was and I was unable to come up with the official name for the SA, the German "Brownshirts".  It was the Sturmabteilung, the storm detachment.  The SA was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party.

Thus, a blog post to explain the general idea.

Below are the first two paragraphs from the Wikipedia entry for "The Night of the Long Knives".

The Night of the Long Knives (German:  Nacht der langen Messer), sometimes called Operation Hummingbird or, in Germany, the Röhm-Putsch, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders.  Leading figures of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, along with its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were murdered, as were prominent conservative anti-Nazis (such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had suppressed Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923).  Many of those killed were leaders of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary Brownshirts.

Adolf Hitler moved against the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm, because he saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power.  Hitler also wanted to conciliate leaders of the Reichswehr, the official German military who feared and despised the SA—in particular Röhm's ambition to absorb the Reichswehr into the SA under his own leadership.  Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Röhm's outspoken support for a "second revolution" to redistribute wealth.  (In Röhm's view, President Hindenburg's appointing of Hitler as German Chancellor on January 30, 1933 had accomplished the "nationalistic" revolution but had left unfulfilled the "socialistic" motive in National Socialism.)  Finally, Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate critics of his new regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, as well as to settle scores with old enemies.

Some 85 people died in the purge and over a thousand were arrested.

In American argot of a previous generation the term has been used to talk about bloodless coups.  When a certain group is purged, there may be a reference to "The Night of the Long Knives".

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Ms Jarrett is a Senior Advisor to President Obama and perhaps is a sort of éminence grise (grey eminence) in the Obama Administration.

How To Manage an Empire

For John, BLUF:  Don't micromanage.

Blogger Glenn Reynolds writes:

WHY THE BRITISH EMPIRE WAS SO EFFICIENT:  Bad communications inhibited micromanagement.

I think this is very insightful.  Good intermediate managers don't ask for help.  They do, however, recommend change upward.

Regards  —  Cliff