From the article:<p>Mr. Cooper didn’t send or receive the messages, the latest batch of which Boeing disclosed to lawmakers and the news media in January, this person said. Those messages show Boeing employees mocking airline officials, aviation regulators and even their own colleagues. In one, an employee said the 737 MAX had been “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”<p>Boeing Chief Executive David Calhoun, who has called the messages “totally appalling,” has said he aimed to stamp out such behavior and hold managers accountable. “Awareness in the leadership ranks around whether that’s happening or not is not an excuse if it’s happening,” Mr. Calhoun said in a call with reporters in January, shortly after taking over as CEO. “Disciplinary actions have to be taken.”<p>---<p>To summarize:<p>They fired a guy for not knowing about emails he did not send or receive where engineers were voicing their internal concerns that the 737 MAX design was lacking.<p>Boeing's take away wasn't, "People knew something was wrong and didn't have a way to properly voice that concern."<p>Boeing's take away was, "Middle management should have sufficiently threatened those under their supervision into self-censoring their concerns."<p>Seems like a super-healthy corporate culture that would simultaneously be a fun place to work and produce the best products /s
I'm reminded a lot of the Challenger explosion investigation [1]. Specifically, Feynman's discoveries and analysis while investigating NASA. He discovered a huge disconnect between engineers and management. What's more, the commission seemed less intent on identifying the systemic issue and more on giving the appearance of a quick resolution, which Feynman hates. "For a successful technology," Feynman concluded, "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."<p>I feel like it's the same problems at Boeing, and the same pattern of addressing problems. It will be interesting to see if a publicly traded company will be more effective than a government organization at solving these problems.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report</a>
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 <i>actually</i> responsible are just doing the firing to avoid the stigma of being the screw up[1].<p>[1] At one group in Netflix (which has an aggressive fire fast culture) that I interviewed with, I came to realize the position existed primarily to provide shielding for the managers above it. I reached out to the former person in the role and they confirmed my suspicions. Not the behavior that Netflix was trying to encourage but there you go.
Boeing CEO David Calhoun vows to stamp out 'such behavior' and hold managers accountable. What behavior? Well he reassigns the Boeing pilot who lied to regulators, and fires the Boeing manager overseeing external pilots, who called out the bad design and incompetence within. Got it.
Typical PR move by Boeing, they're going to start beating the drum on accountability and turning a new corner. Which is all BS, but executive leadership will be applauded on wall street for their efforts. Sad to see especially when you consider the role the company has around the world.