018: Which Way Is Your Moral Compass Pointing?
Last weekend, I watched a documentary on Netflix called Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.
It’s an eye-opening film and well worth a watch if you can find the time. At its core, the documentary charts the serious mistakes and failings of Boeing which led to two air crashes in 2018 and 2019. Both tragedies were linked to the same aircraft - brand new Boeing 737 Max’s which crashed shortly after takeoff in Indonesia (October 2018) and Ethiopia (March 2019) - killing all of those on board.
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Once upon a time, Boeing was a truly great American brand. It had the highest reputation for safety and reliability, and its staff loved working for the company. There was a sense of pride to tell people you worked for Boeing. Staff members went above and beyond to play their part in building (what was) an engineering powerhouse in the second half of the 20th Century. In fact, Boeing is linked to many of the greatest moments in human history - with, for example, their technology used in the Space Race and the subsequent moon landings.
Over several decades, Boeing had attracted the greatest and most innovative talent. These individuals were breaking ground, exploring new frontiers and building a reputation that was unmatched around the world. But in the 90’s, the wheels started to come off the wagon.
Things really took a turn following a merger with Mcdonell Douglas. Boeing executives were replaced with Mcdonnell Douglas executives at the very top - and the culture and focus of the business shifted dramatically.
What was once a steadfast, diligent approach to safety and reliability had now been replaced by a drive for efficiency and profit. Quality control engineers were taken off production lines and anyone who raised a safety concern had their pay cut, or were transitioned out of the company entirely.
For a while this worked, and Boeing caught back up with their rivals - European-based Airbus. But it was never going to last forever. Tragically, for those who were flying on Lion Air 610 and Ethiopian Airlines 302, they were the ones that paid the price for Boeing’s crisis of responsibility and governance.
And that’s before we even begin to speak about the subsequent cover up after the crash, the denial of responsibility and the resignation of CEO Dennis Muilenberg - who left the company with a substantial severance package…
Now why am I telling you all this? You probably don’t run a multinational engineering aerospace company. The kind of company that employs hundreds of thousands of people whilst simultaneously enabling hundreds of thousands of others to fly around the world - every single day. Also, I’d imagine it’s quite unlikely that the product you create has the risk for your customers that Boeing has with theirs.
But that’s not the parallel I’m trying to draw here.
What I think is important about documentaries like this is that they just cause you to pause, assess and to ask some important questions about what you are doing with your business. Regardless of how big it is.
At some point, you will need to make some important decisions of quality over profit. Of doing the right thing over taking shortcuts. Of growing and scaling at all costs, or growing and scaling steadily to ensure you don’t compromise your values, processes or approach.
It’s always important to just check-in with your moral compass and to ensure that you’re on the right path.
The right path might not always be the easy path, but as Edde Godden of Ensemble mentioned to me once: “great work lasts”.
James
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