How a culture fail ruined Boeing

ALSO: James Timpson says you can measure culture in laughter

Do you check what model plane you’re flying on? With Ryanair having 150 orders of the new Boeing Max 737 planes coming it’s a consideration that I’ve never thought about before. There are a lot of the new Boeing planes on their way to us and it’s a little scary.

You might have seen a few days ago a Boeing Max had its landing gear collapse on landing, adding to the laundry list of construction errors that the plane has experienced in the last 6 years, leaving 346 people dead along the way. The New York Times reports that in an audit by the Federal Aviation Authority in January Boeing failed 33 out of 89 tests.

Not to get all #WaterKate about it but one of the first whistleblowers to the company’s failings was found dead this week.

Last week John Oliver ran a session on his weekly news review asking for Boeing leaders to ‘fix the culture they’ve destroyed’, highlighting the fact that bosses (incentivised to keep stock price high) have focussed their attention on stock buybacks and have ignored quality concerns.

The piece looked at how in their past Boeing prided themselves on a quality-first approach to construction but then switched it to keeping the stock-price up. All of this serves as a vivid reminder that strong cultures have to be founded on an obsessive focus on creating a quality product.(Frustratingly HBO don’t allow the John Oliver clip to run outside the US but there’s a hacky version of it here).

Reader Giverny Harman shared this wonderful Provoke Media article with me about how this case (and Enron before it) illustrates the difference between overt corporate values and lived corporate behaviours. Reports suggest that workers at Boeing had reason to doubt the anonymity of the firm’s whistleblower phone line and were never given the sense that safety was paramount.

The Provoke Media piece outlines 3 questions that would help a firm audit the gap between their values and the culture.

First, “Do you understand our values?” This can help communicators understand whether most employees have received adequate information about the company’s stated values.

Second, “Do you believe the company management lives these values?” This can help communicators understand whether the company’s actions reflect these stated values, or whether they are regarded as mere puffery.

And third, “Do you personally feel empowered to make decisions based on these values?” This last question can help communicators understand whether people believe they would be rewarded or punished for acting on company values—and also for pointing out that others are not living up to those values.

Boeing is a clear example of how businesses that lose sight of a clear purpose can find themselves running down a rabbit hole of chasing money.

(Further reading from the world of politics).

• Cal Newport has a new book out this month which explores ‘the fundamental separation between busyness and productivity’ - he’s convinced that we charge around feeling busy but getting nothing done. Interestingly one of his key principles of slow productivity is to ‘obsess about quality’. (The other two being ‘do fewer things’ and ‘work at a natural pace’)

• I love the ethos of Nintendo so I was delighted to comment on the leadership style of their former CEO Satoru Iwata.

• Britain has 9.2 million people of working age who aren’t in work according to the latest stats released this week. Around 30% of this total is labelled ‘long-term sick’ and the official ‘unemployed’ total is 908,000. Any government wanting to deliver the lusted after bounty of economic growth needs to invest in ways to get these millions of people into some form of employment.

• More on the fascinating culture of Timpsons as I’ve been reading James Timpsons’ book this week:

  • “All of our competitors in the UK have gone bust….But weʼre still doing pretty well.”

  • Nice quote from James: “I will keep saying it until I am blue in the face: at the heart of every successful venture lies a remarkable, happy team”. Timpson sees culture as a simple, visceral thing: “My belief is rooted in the notion that the more laughter that resonates throughout the office, the more prosperous our shops will become”.

  • “So many businesses have all these rules to stop the odd idiot being an idiot. But I believe to have great service you need flexibility for people to do what they think is right based on their personality and skills.”