[_giorgio_]

Clearly you don't have a degree in engineering.

If you had one, you would know how much you need to suffer to explain to non technical people why a development direction is better than another, and how much it will profit the company in the end.

[ttyprintk]

You could tone this better. The clearest argument is that cost cutting for stock buybacks involves the same thinking, whether accountant or engineer. Since 2014, the CEO is explicitly compensated this way.

[_giorgio_]

I can't tone this better. And a request about tone - while completely forgetting about the real problem - explains exactly what I mean with engineers not being listened to.

Non technical people are always talking about themeselves.

[arkey]

That's the whole point. That's precisely why you need managers with backgrounds in engineering in a business based on engineering.

[dagw]

The whole point is that the previous CEO and the one that arguably kicked off this whole mess did in fact have both a degree and background in engineering. Your mindset and business philosophy matters far more than your degree.

[arkey]

> Your mindset and business philosophy matters far more than your degree.

I completely agree with you, and therefore with the idea that having a background in engineering is still not a guarantee of success or even good practices or good business philosophy.

I disagree however with parent's implication about those difficulties being some sort of justification for malpractice, and my argument is that having engineering-capable managers should mitigate those issues in a properly managed company.

[rurban]

No, the whole mess was created by the old McDonald managers in the old merger. Muilenburg inherited the MAX from McNerney, but you can easily blame his predecessor Stonecipher for all that Boeing mess, when they moved to Chicago and outsourced everything.

[plorg]

Again, you can push the blame back and back and back in time, but putting an engineer at the helm doesn't seem to have righted the ship either. Then it's not clear why such a background is necessary or sufficient for the successor in that position. Arguably the more important criteria may be that a candidate be from outside the Boeing organization, thus making them better suited to see beyond the existing structure and culture.

[kamaal]

Once a company like Boeing is put on the slippery slope, it keeps going down south, until you make radical changes. Notice that in most of these engineering driving businesses, the culture was built bottom up, right from the birth of the company. You are now trying to restore that top down. Its not really possible.

People don't realise how hard it can be rebuild the organisation once sufficient corruption has set in. If you do away with top talent, processes and promote regular career managers to run things for you, they will do everything in their power to ensure no right people will ever rise to a position of power. This is for a simple reason that they feel a threat to their jobs.

At that point in time, there is no way a company can resurrected bottom up. Your only options are getting some great talent and then tearing apart the whole company and rebuilding it over time. This is not even possible after a while.

[loeg]

Do you mean McDonnell?

[guappa]

pecunia non olet…