Boeing’s Top 10 Failures

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed; “It’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far deeper. They expose decades of American corporate philosophy gone awry. Boeing is a quintessential example of America’s rotting business culture over the past 40 years” (Markets Insider). Boeing focused on pleasing Wall Street because that’s how American executives believe companies should operate. The people who are at the top are there for a reason, and it’s basically to maximize shareholder value. Simply changing CEOs or hiring more engineers won’t make Boeing’s problems go away. The company needs to rethink its very reason for existing and what it should provide to society as an enterprise.  

Boeing’s trajectory has veered off course due to America’s deteriorating business culture, which prioritizes swift profits for shareholders over aircraft safety. This shift was initiated by Jack Welch approximately 40 years ago. The recent Boeing crisis lays bare years of flawed American corporate philosophy centered around shareholder interests. Lopez: “An entire generation of politicians and executives preached the doctrine of efficiency in the name of maximizing profits for shareholders, and we’ve seen the results: stagnant wages, massive inequality, legislators captured by industry lobbyists, and companies that coast on past innovation and financialization because it’s easier than investing in something new. As Boeing has been forced to reckon with the corporate culture it developed over the past 40 years, corporate America has been forced to face the long-term cost of its obsession with shareholder primacy and efficiency.” McGee: “Boeing is vital, but we don’t treat it like it’s vital. We treat it like a casino”. 

Former CEO Jim McNerney systematically promoted non-technical people to executive positions, particularly on the board. Incredibly, the MAX was developed under him and the commercial unit CEO — neither of whom had a technical degree. Former CEO Dave Calhoun, who is also not an engineer, has followed the same path, promoting people with similar financial backgrounds (left brain bookkeepers). This diagram shows Boeing’s top 10 failures.

Boeing’s Top 10 Failures

1. The board consists mainly of incompetent left-brain bookkeepers with no engineering background and no understanding of airline industry safety. How to revive.
2. The board prioritizes maximizing profits for shareholders and speed to meet deadlines over quality and aircraft safety. How to revive.
3. Board members lack a strategic and innovative vision and holistic thinking skills related to the airline industry. How to revive.
4. Safety is not a subject of board discussions; the board does not honestly and transparently address safety concerns and does not practice accountability. How to revive.
5. The company lacks a sustainable, purpose-driven ethical culture. How to revive.
6. The company does not control its supply chain effectively. How to revive.
7. Poor design methodology; non-holistic design approach and non-purpose-driven design culture. How to revive.
8. The company is merely treating the symptoms of the problems rather than addressing the root causes. How to revive.
9. Mental absence of assembly workers due to disengagement leads to a lack of critical thinking skills and many mistakes. How to revive.
10. Mismanagement; poor corporate governance, leadership, quality, and HR systems, outsourcing production of most critical parts, and layoffs of highly experienced engineers. How to revive.

Innovations fail at Boeing due to a lack of anchoring innovations in a purpose-driven corporate culture. The best innovations align with the innovator’s and company’s purpose and generate mutual value for its stakeholders. When innovations resonate with the employee’s and organization’s higher purpose and benefit the company, its employees, and key constituents, they are more likely to succeed and become sustainable. Purpose-driven tech companies are not only focused on profitability but also on making a positive impact on society. Their innovations are sustainable. This appears to be different at Boeing, read my article “How the Boeing 737 Max Incidents Could Have Been Avoided”.

These “10 Ways to Kill Creativity, Sustainability, and Innovation” apply to Boeing.

How to Fix it

In this article, I propose a holistic framework for building a purpose-driven culture at Boeing that fosters sustainable innovation. The framework includes several key elements, such as fostering authenticity, integrity, and a sense of purpose and empathy among leaders and employees, cultivating sustainable innovation, and integrating sustainability into the company’s business activities. By following this framework, Boeing can create a culture that benefits their bottom line and contributes to the greater good and leaders and employees in these companies will be genuine and true to themselves. I also refer to my article “5 Steps to Cultivate Authenticity, Integrity, Empathy, and Critical Thinking in the Age of AI”. All Boeing leaders and employees should follow these 5 steps to cultivate their authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills.

This article is based on my experience as a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and Europe’s most valuable tech firm.

HOLISTIC MODEL FOR BUILDING A PURPOSE-DRIVEN CULTURE AT BOEING

Boeing should not only prioritize profits but also promote high values, high character, and critical thinking among their leaders and employees. This will help them impact our society’s well-being, integrity, and empathy in a positive way. In this article, I provide a holistic model to realize this sustainably, as shown in this diagram. This model is based on my latest book, “Eco-Design Thinking for Personal, Corporate, and Social Innovation.” It will aid Boeing to avoid any new problems by cultivating a purpose-driven culture. Read also “The End of Design Thinking: Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Design Culture to Fix the World”. 

This holistic, never-ending, purpose-driven cycle entails six stages:

1. Developing the personal purpose of leaders and employees at Boeing entails the foundation for cultivating their authenticity, integrity, empathy, emotional intelligence, critical thinking skills, and character. Personal purpose is associated with ethical and emotionally intelligent individuals with a sense of direction. This will help them to work smarter and love their job.
2. Formulating the personal innovation strategy of leaders and employees; this strategy entails a roadmap to translate their personal purpose into measurable actions.
3. Implement and cultivate their personal innovation strategy according to the Plan-Deploy-Act-Challenge cycle to continuously improve and purposely manage themselves to become creative, innovative, smart, and empathic.
4. Aligning the personal purpose of leaders and employees with their behavior and actions to cultivate their personal integrity and empathy skills; Remember: “The higher your personal integrity, the better your attentiveness, the better your empathic skills, the fewer mistakes you make”– Hubert Rampersad
5. Developing the shared company purpose is about what Boeing stands for, its reason, and how it benefits society. Shared purpose entails Boeing’s soul and joint mission, vision, and core values.
6. Aligning the personal purpose with the shared company purpose. This creates uniformity of personal and Boeing values. Matching these two purposes is essential for achieving an ethical, cohesive, unified company and a happy, engaged, committed, and passionate workforce. It’s about aligning the objectives of leaders and employees with those of Boeing, as well as fostering mutual value addition.

Below, I will elaborate on each of these six stages.

Personal Purpose

Having a higher purpose in life means you’re living your values and beliefs. Finding your higher purpose is discovering who you are, what you stand for, what matters to you, and what you can contribute to the world. When someone feels that his life lacks purpose, he may struggle to find motivation and direction. This can lead to a sense of detachment from his values and a lack of inspiration to enrich his life and those around him. Finding motivation and direction can be easier when you have a purpose in life. This will inspire you to become more effective, ethical, and fulfilled. Having a purpose in life will inspire you to discover ways to become more creative, imaginative, and innovative. Life is never richer, fuller, or more rewarding than moving faithfully and persistently toward a compelling purpose. Remember what Elon Musk said: “Don’t even attach yourself to a person, a place, a company, an organization, or a project. Attach yourself to a mission, a calling, a purpose only. That’s how you keep power and your peace. It worked pretty well for me this far”.

Your personal purpose entails your identity (mission) and dream (vision). Your dream is related to a higher calling. Everyone has a higher calling, a so-called inner assignment. Personal mission is aimed at being, and personal vision is aimed at becoming. Your personal mission inspires you, and your personal vision motivates you. Your mission and vision statement (personal purpose statement) embodies your values. Your personal mission encompasses your philosophy of life and your overall objectives, indicating who you are, the reason for existence, why you are on earth, what your purpose here is, what you stand for, what values you are most committed to, what is decisive for your success, what is your life purpose, what do you live for, what are your core beliefs, what are your deepest aspirations, what makes you happy,  and what do you do that you are most proud of.  Your personal mission is your personal leading light, keeping you steadily in the course of your dream. “Who am I?” is an identity question. It initiates self-examination of your personal identity (the unique position you find yourself in) and a voyage of discovery. My mission is: “Enjoy the freedom to unleash the creative potential in others, especially if this can mean something in their life.”

Your personal vision statement is a description of how you want to realize your dream in the long term. It indicates where you are going, which values, beliefs, and principles guide you on your way, why you are involved in the design industry, what you want to achieve, what you desire for your life, what your long-term intentions are, what talents, skills and experiences you need to add value to your others, where you want to be at the end of your life, what you hope to become, where you would like your life to be headed, the ideal characteristics you want to possess, your perfect job situation, and what you desire to be. All Boeing leaders and employees should ask themselves these questions and answer them honestly.

By practicing breathing and silence exercises, you can better connect with your inner self and find answers to these questions. This will help you to discover your higher purpose. Please click on this link to view my personal purpose statement. It also entails my values and beliefs. Read further “How Mindful Meditation Boosts Critical Thinking in the Age of AI” and “Crafting Your Authentic Personal Brand: A 5-Step Guide“.

Through this process, you’ll cultivate self-knowledge, self-awareness, self-management, and self-learning, which entails a journey toward personal disruptive innovation, as shown in this diagram:

The best ideas come when you are alone.Self-learning – the ability to gather, process, retain, and evaluate knowledge alone — is the foundation of creativity and imagination. Traditional creativity approaches lack imagination because they neglect self-learning and, because of this, fail to address complex problems. They heavily rely on group meetings and, therefore, miss opportunities to develop innovative and imaginative ideas. Nikola Tesla developed many innovative ideas while working alone for over thirty years. Similarly, Stephen Hawking made significant discoveries while confined to his wheelchair, and Isaac Newton famously discovered gravity while in social isolation. Remember Nikola Tesla’s statement: “Being alone is when ideas are born. This is the secret of innovation”.  Albert Einstein said almost the same: “Albert Einstein said almost the same: “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living”.

Personal Innovation Strategy

To bring your purpose alive, you must translate it into measurable actions. Boeing leaders and employees should formulate their personal innovation strategy to get their personal purpose to life. This is a roadmap to developing a growth mindset, authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills. Without continuous improvement based on your personal innovation strategy, you won’t be successful in life and business. The following are the five steps to develop your personal innovation strategy:

Your personal innovation strategy helps you turn your personal purpose into manageable, measurable objectives and milestones in a balanced way. Using this strategy, you can effectively manage your time and become more disciplined, proactive, innovative, and empathetic. Please click on this link to view my personal innovation strategy. Suppose you want to learn more about this personal innovation strategy system. In that case, I recommend reading my article “How to Redesign Your Life Based on Your Personal Innovation Strategy”.

Implementation According to the PDAC Cycle

Once you have established your personal innovation strategy, it is essential to consistently implement, maintain, and cultivate it to effectively manage and challenge yourself in your personal and company life. To aid you in this process, I recommend following the PDAC cycle (Plan-Deploy-Act-Challenge), which is a continuous improvement cycle that will help implement your personal innovation strategy effectively, as illustrated in this diagram:

Implementing your personal innovation strategy through the PDAC cycle will lead to self-awareness, happiness, personal disruption, and enhanced authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills. It’s important to regularly update your personal innovation strategy and repeat the cycle to stay current with new challenges and lessons learned. These 50 tips will assist you in implementing your personal innovation strategy effectively.

Aligning Personal Purpose with Personal Behavior 

The next stage ensures harmony between your purpose and actions, aligning your deeds with your conscience. Our conscience is the inner voice that guides us to distinguish between right and wrong, fact and fiction. By listening to this voice, we can gain better insight into our empathic behavior, strengths, and weaknesses, ultimately impacting our solidarity with others. Albert Schweitzer once said: “The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity and empathy with other human beings.” This diagram illustrates this personal integrity concept.

To enhance empathy and personal integrity, aligning your personal purpose with your behavior is essential. This involves achieving more excellent compatibility between the two elements so that they are in harmony, as shown in the above diagram. When your personal purpose and behavior match, you can work authentically and purposefully without internal conflicts. This will lead to greater empathy, enhanced charisma, transparency, and trustworthiness.

Personal integrity and empathy

I advise Boeing leaders and employees to balance their personal purpose with their current behavior and actions to develop personal integrity and empathy. During this alignment process, they must reflect honestly on the following questions: What are my personal values, and how do they align with my actions? How can I ensure that my actions are consistent with my values? What are the potential consequences of my efforts toward others? How can I empathize with others and understand their perspectives? Am I staying true to my values and conscience in my actions? Are my thoughts and actions aligned consistently? How do my values and intentions relate to my current behavior? Is there congruity between my thoughts and my actions? Am I always acting according to my personal ambition and empathetic nature? Does my personal purpose reflect my desire to work with ethics and empathy? Are there any discrepancies between my personal purpose and my compassionate actions? Do I keep the promises I make to myself? How do others perceive me and my values? Do they see me as someone who stays true to my core beliefs and remains authentic to myself? They must also ask themselves: Have I always acted by my conscience? Have I always done what was right? Have I always worked morally? Have I performed compassionately regularly?

Shared Company Purpose

The shared company purpose statement differs from a personal one, but the fundamental principles remain the same. Boeing purpose entails the company mission, vision, and core values to inspire leaders and employees toward a common goal. The mission encompasses Boeing’s identity, while the vision is its long-term dream, based on several core values used to strengthen the single-mindedness of its people. The related questions are included in this below diagram:

Look at Boeing’s purpose statement:

Boeing mission statement is: “To connect, protect, explore, and inspire the world through aerospace innovation.” Boeing vision statement is “People working together as a global enterprise for aerospace industry leadership.” Boeing core values: “How We Operate; Start with engineering excellence; Be accountable; Apply Lean principles; Eliminate traveled work; Reward predictability and stability”.

Aligning Personal Purpose with Shared Company Purpose

Aligning personal purpose of Boeing leaders and employees with the shared Boeing purpose creates uniformity of personal and organizational values. Matching these two purposes involves reaching a higher compatibility between personal and company objectives and mutual value addition. To foster better ethics within Boeing and become a purpose-driven company, I encourage Boeing leaders and employees to formulate their personal purpose and reflect on aligning their personal purpose with the shared Boeing purpose, as shown in this Figure. This will help them to find their higher purpose and cultivate a good character.

Boeing leaders must communicate their personal purpose to their employees and coach them in this alignment process. By unifying the shared Boeing purpose with their personal purpose, you will create a strong foundation of peace, integrity, engagement, and learning upon which creativity, productivity, and growth can flourish, and life within Boeing will become a more harmonious and ethical culture. This will catalyze innovation by encouraging a learning culture of curiosity and exploration in the organization. This process is about getting the optimal fit and balance between these activities to enhance productivity, create a climate of trust, and cultivate a purpose-driven Boeing. This process is needed because leaders and employees at Boeing don’t work passionately, or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. If there is an effective match between their interests and those of the company, and if their values and the institution’s values align, they will be actively engaged and motivated. This will create trust, and they will work with outstanding commitment and dedication toward realizing Boeing’s objectives. When their personal purpose is in harmony with the shared purpose (are compatible) and combined in the best interest of both parties, the results will be the good character of leaders and employees, restoration of their higher purpose, trust, engagement, collective sense of belonging, and cultivation of innovation and sustainability. In this way, they are stimulated to commit, act ethically, and focus on those activities that create value for Boeing.

Purpose Meeting

I recommend introducing a purpose meeting between Boeing leaders and their employees to build a sustainable higher-purpose culture. This meeting is a periodical, informal, voluntary, trusted, and confidential meeting of half an hour between the parties, aligning the personal purpose with the shared purpose as a topic. The purpose meeting also includes individual coaching. It is recommended to be held structurally at least once every two months. The leader plays a crucial role in this process. He/she should be an empathetic, trusted leader, coach, mentor, and role model. This approach fosters ethical awareness among Boeing leaders and employees, creating a purpose-driven company. When they see their efforts as part of a greater purpose, they will be more likely to invest their creativity, passion, and energy into their work and work smarter.

A study by Towers Perrin found that instead of matching the right employee to the correct position for long-term success, most US companies and human resource departments emphasize simply filling the job as quickly as possible and on corrupt DEI policies, read “Why DEI Sucks; How to Measure and Fix DEI“. As a result, American companies are losing money as fast as they lose employees. Getting the optimal fit between personal and shared purpose has become necessary to enhance workforce productivity and stimulate creativity, learning, engagement, commitment, and passion.

SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION

In today’s complex world, sustainable innovation is crucial. Traditional innovation approaches are inadequate because they lack a holistic approach. Instead, they are superficial, theatrical, and cozy. Technology companies should prioritize sustainable innovation as a fundamental capability to achieve sustainable growth and competitive advantage. Unfortunately, there are no real good examples of American tech companies focused on sustainable design innovation. Apple, Google, IBM, Samsung, Uber, Airbnb, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, OceanGate, Tesla, and SpaceX are not design-driven due to their poor design approach they learned at Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. Read my article “Cultivating a Design-Driven Culture in Tech Companies“.

We must develop and implement innovative ideas better, faster, smarter, and sustainably. This is why I introduced the Eco-Innovation concept. Eco-Innovation involves integrating sustainability into the process of innovation. I identify three types of innovation that fall under this category:

• Personal innovation is unlocking your creative potential and creating new opportunities for yourself. By disrupting your current market, you can make a significant social impact. Personal Disruptive Innovation by Hubert Rampersad helps you find your higher purpose and improve your business and personal life for greater happiness and success. Combining personal disruptive innovation with corporate innovation and social innovation will help you generate more imaginative, innovative, empathetic, and disruptive ideas. “We need to understand that all knowledge starts with self-knowledge, all learning starts with self-learning, all innovation starts with self-innovation (personal innovation), real empathy starts with personal integrity, and without empathy, innovations are not sustainable ”- Hubert Rampersad
• Corporate innovation involves applying new ideas to create new products, processes, or services that increase the value of a company. Corporate innovation also encompasses Open Innovation by Chesbrough, Disruptive Innovation by Clayton Christensen, and BlockChain Innovation.
• Social innovation is developing and implementing new ideas and solutions that meet social needs and strengthen civil society. There is some overlap between social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Social innovation aims to improve the world by implementing innovative ideas that create social and environmental change, benefiting many people. Social entrepreneurs seek the most effective ways to achieve their social mission and provide social benefits.

The diagram below shows how personal, corporate, and social innovation are interconnected. Personal innovation is linked to self-learning, corporate innovation is linked to organizational learning, and social innovation is linked to community learning.

Traditional innovation approaches are unsuitable for a sustainable circular economy as they focus on process-driven, analytical thinking, cozy, theatrical meetings, and completing related tasks in a particular order using design tools. These approaches lack imagination and fail to address the larger picture. We must adopt a new design method better suited for sustainable innovation. I have therefore introduced eco-design thinking. This creative process involves empathizing with yourself, the end user, and the environment to generate innovative, imaginative, empathetic, and disruptive design ideas that are better aligned with social innovation. The new model is depicted in the figure below and consists of four stages: Explore, Ideate, Prototype, and Execute. It is an iterative, incremental, cyclic, and concentric process of exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing (Rampersad, 2023). 

Eco-design thinking is a circular and iterative process that has no endpoint. The model consists of various stages that may form iterative loops and do not need to follow a specific sequence. Every iteration brings forth fresh insights. Eco-design thinking is a continuous and circular process that requires testing and refining your design while empathizing with yourself, the users, and the environment. Unfortunately, Boeing has ignored essential steps in this design model, with all the consequences that entails. Read “How the Boeing 737 Max Incidents Could Have Been Avoided”. Read also “How SDGs, ESG, and Purpose Fuel Design For Sustainability”.

The most important benefits of this new design model are: Before delving into corporate innovation issues, exploring and redesigning your own life to become innovative is essential, which leads to more empathetic, intelligent, and sustainable innovations that are in line with social innovation and the higher purpose of the company and its employees; A high level of personal integrity and a designer’s empathy is necessary to achieve superior design quality; By gradually building and enhancing the product and detecting defects early on, you can achieve better and more sustainable innovation outcomes.

Lopez: “Boeing can become better. The first step is believing that the state of Boeing is not a natural one — that it can be changed with conscious effort. We just have to choose a better way”.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

Complimentary Initial Consultation to Enhance Your Design Process and Boost Design Team Performance

If you’re interested in gaining more knowledge about this program, you may want to consider joining our Orlando–Tampa Live Events:

Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture

Building a Purpose-Driven Design Culture in Tech Companies

How Sustainability and Generative AI Fuel Design Innovation

Cultivating Authenticity, Integrity, Empathy, and Critical Thinking in the Age of AI

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., is a Dutch-American innovation expert who founded the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered and Purpose-Driven Innovation in Orlando. He is a visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm“.

Orlando, Florida |  tpsi@live.com |  Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116 

Orlando–Tampa Event: Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture

Boeing lost its way and needs to rethink its very reason for existing. Innovations fail at Boeing due to a lack of anchoring innovations in a purpose-driven corporate culture. Purpose-driven companies are not only focused on profitability but mainly on making a positive impact on society. Their innovations are sustainable. This appears to be different at Boeing, read my article “How the Boeing 737 Max Incidents Could Have Been Avoided”.  

Keynote: Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture

Speaker: Renowned Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D. | Location: 133 Town Center Blvd, Clermont, Florida 34714, USA  | Target audience: Tech executives, innovation leaders, and design managers only | Prior registration required via tpsi@live.com | Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116 | Date/Time: To be determined 

Event content and topics to be discussed:

Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture of Sustainable Innovation

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

 “The one thing missing from the board of directors of Boeing is a holistic view on cultivating a purpose-driven culture of sustainable Innovation” — Hubert Rampersad

Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed; “It’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far deeper. They expose decades of American corporate philosophy gone awry. Boeing is a quintessential example of America’s rotting business culture over the past 40 years” (Markets Insider). Boeing focused on pleasing Wall Street because that’s how American executives believe companies should operate. The people who are at the top are there for a reason, and it’s basically to maximize shareholder value. Simply changing CEOs or hiring more engineers won’t make Boeing’s problems go away. The company needs to rethink its very reason for existing and what it should provide to society as an enterprise. Lopez: “A good American company isn’t just a vehicle for financial returns; it is first and foremost an employer, a contributor to economic and/or technological innovation, and a source of US power. Whether the recent disasters shake Boeing out of its somnambulance remains unclear. It’s also questionable whether other major companies with a similar maximize-shareholder-value-at-all-costs ethos will learn from the mistakes. But it’s clear that what Boeing — and the entire American corporate body politic — needs is nothing short of a philosophical counterrevolution”. William McGee: “For decades Boeing was the pinnacle of American engineering. It was America’s crown jewel and one of the most important and impressive companies in the US”. In Boeing’s quarterly earnings, President and CEO Dave Calhoun (who was hired after the previous 737 Max disasters) promised more of a focus on quality and encouraged employees to speak up about issues on the factory floor. But the short-sighted Calhoun is putting out fires with his ad-hoc approach. He does not realize that he is only treating the symptoms of the problem and not addressing the root cause. The real root cause is a rotten corporate culture at Boeing which is focused on making shareholders happy instead of focusing on a purpose-driven culture.

Boeing’s trajectory has veered off course due to America’s deteriorating business culture, which prioritizes swift profits for shareholders over aircraft safety. This shift was initiated by Jack Welch approximately 40 years ago. The recent Boeing crisis lays bare years of flawed American corporate philosophy centered around shareholder interests. A significant portion of today’s corporate challenges can be traced back to the legacy of GE’s former chairman, Jack Welch, who was revered by CEOs worldwide. Interestingly, Boeing’s current Chairman, David Calhoun, once served as Welch’s deputy. Calhoun is focused on maximizing profits for his shareholders, just like many CEOs in corporate America. It’s probably no surprise that CEO pay increased by 1,322% from 1978 to 2020.

Lopez: “An entire generation of politicians and executives preached the doctrine of efficiency in the name of maximizing profits for shareholders, and we’ve seen the results: stagnant wages, massive inequality, legislators captured by industry lobbyists, and companies that coast on past innovation and financialization because it’s easier than investing in something new. As Boeing has been forced to reckon with the corporate culture it developed over the past 40 years, corporate America has been forced to face the long-term cost of its obsession with shareholder primacy and efficiency.” McGee: “Boeing is vital, but we don’t treat it like it’s vital. We treat it like a casino”.

Former CEO Jim McNerney systematically promoted non-technical people to executive positions, particularly on the board. Incredibly, the MAX was developed under him and the commercial unit CEO — neither of whom had a technical degree. Former CEO Dave Calhoun, who is also not an engineer, has followed the same path, promoting people with similar financial backgrounds (left brain bookkeepers). The whole board should be fired!

Innovations fail at Boeing due to a lack of anchoring innovations in a purpose-driven corporate culture. The best innovations align with the innovator’s and company’s purpose and generate mutual value for its stakeholders. When innovations resonate with the employee’s and organization’s higher purpose and benefit the company, its employees, and key constituents, they are more likely to succeed and become sustainable. Purpose-driven tech companies are not only focused on profitability but also on making a positive impact on society. Their innovations are sustainable.  ….READ FURTHER.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

To gain more knowledge about this subject, you may consider attending his other Orlando-Tampa Live Events:

Building a Purpose-Driven Design Culture in Tech Companies

Purpose-Driven and Human-Centered AI

Cultivating Authenticity, Integrity, Empathy, and Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Design-Driven, Human-Centered, and Purpose-Driven Innovation in Orlando, Florida. He is a visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm.

   

Orlando, Florida |  tpsi@live.com |  Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116

About the speaker: https://bit.ly/2CQLIfS  

Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture of Sustainable Innovation

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

“The one thing missing from the board of directors of Boeing is a holistic view on cultivating a purpose-driven culture of sustainable Innovation” — Hubert Rampersad

Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed; “It’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far deeper. They expose decades of American corporate philosophy gone awry. Boeing is a quintessential example of America’s rotting business culture over the past 40 years” (Markets Insider). Boeing focused on pleasing Wall Street because that’s how American executives believe companies should operate. The people who are at the top are there for a reason, and it’s basically to maximize shareholder value. Simply changing CEOs or hiring more engineers won’t make Boeing’s problems go away. The company needs to rethink its very reason for existing and what it should provide to society as an enterprise. Lopez: “A good American company isn’t just a vehicle for financial returns; it is first and foremost an employer, a contributor to economic and/or technological innovation, and a source of US power. Whether the recent disasters shake Boeing out of its somnambulance remains unclear. It’s also questionable whether other major companies with a similar maximize-shareholder-value-at-all-costs ethos will learn from the mistakes. But it’s clear that what Boeing — and the entire American corporate body politic — needs is nothing short of a philosophical counterrevolution”. William McGee: “For decades Boeing was the pinnacle of American engineering. It was America’s crown jewel and one of the most important and impressive companies in the US”. In Boeing’s quarterly earnings, President and CEO Dave Calhoun (who was hired after the previous 737 Max disasters) promised more of a focus on quality and encouraged employees to speak up about issues on the factory floor. But the short-sighted Calhoun is putting out fires with his ad-hoc approach. He does not realize that he is only treating the symptoms of the problem and not addressing the root cause. The real root cause is a rotten corporate culture at Boeing which is focused on making shareholders happy instead of focusing on a purpose-driven culture.

Boeing’s trajectory has veered off course due to America’s deteriorating business culture, which prioritizes swift profits for shareholders over aircraft safety. This shift was initiated by Jack Welch approximately 40 years ago. The recent Boeing crisis lays bare years of flawed American corporate philosophy centered around shareholder interests. A significant portion of today’s corporate challenges can be traced back to the legacy of GE’s former chairman, Jack Welch, who was revered by CEOs worldwide. Interestingly, Boeing’s current Chairman, David Calhoun, once served as Welch’s deputy. Calhoun is focused on maximizing profits for his shareholders, just like many CEOs in corporate America. It’s probably no surprise that CEO pay increased by 1,322% from 1978 to 2020.

Lopez: “An entire generation of politicians and executives preached the doctrine of efficiency in the name of maximizing profits for shareholders, and we’ve seen the results: stagnant wages, massive inequality, legislators captured by industry lobbyists, and companies that coast on past innovation and financialization because it’s easier than investing in something new. As Boeing has been forced to reckon with the corporate culture it developed over the past 40 years, corporate America has been forced to face the long-term cost of its obsession with shareholder primacy and efficiency.” McGee: “Boeing is vital, but we don’t treat it like it’s vital. We treat it like a casino”. 

Former CEO Jim McNerney systematically promoted non-technical people to executive positions, particularly on the board. Incredibly, the MAX was developed under him and the commercial unit CEO — neither of whom had a technical degree. Former CEO Dave Calhoun, who is also not an engineer, has followed the same path, promoting people with similar financial backgrounds (left brain bookkeepers). This diagram shows Boeing’s top 10 failures.

Innovations fail at Boeing due to a lack of anchoring innovations in a purpose-driven corporate culture. The best innovations align with the innovator’s and company’s purpose and generate mutual value for its stakeholders. When innovations resonate with the employee’s and organization’s higher purpose and benefit the company, its employees, and key constituents, they are more likely to succeed and become sustainable. Purpose-driven tech companies are not only focused on profitability but also on making a positive impact on society. Their innovations are sustainable. This appears to be different at Boeing, read my article “How the Boeing 737 Max Incidents Could Have Been Avoided”.

How to Fix It

In this article, I propose a holistic framework for building a purpose-driven culture at Boeing that fosters sustainable innovation. The framework includes several key elements, such as fostering authenticity, integrity, and a sense of purpose and empathy among leaders and employees, cultivating sustainable innovation, and integrating sustainability into the company’s business activities. By following this framework, Boeing can create a culture that benefits their bottom line and contributes to the greater good and leaders and employees in these companies will be genuine and true to themselves. All Boeing leaders and employees should follow the steps to cultivate their authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills. This article is based on my experience as a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and Europe’s most valuable tech firm.

HOLISTIC MODEL FOR BUILDING A PURPOSE-DRIVEN CULTURE AT BOEING

Boeing should not only prioritize profits but also promote high values, high character, and critical thinking among their leaders and employees. This will help them impact our society’s well-being, integrity, and empathy in a positive way. In this article, I provide a holistic model to realize this sustainably, as shown in this diagram. This model is based on my latest book, “Eco-Design Thinking for Personal, Corporate, and Social Innovation.” It will aid Boeing to avoid any new problems by cultivating a purpose-driven culture. Read also “The End of Design Thinking: Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Design Culture to Fix the World”. 

This holistic, never-ending, purpose-driven cycle entails six stages:

1. Developing the personal purpose of leaders and employees at Boeing entails the foundation for cultivating their authenticity, integrity, empathy, emotional intelligence, critical thinking skills, and character. Personal purpose is associated with ethical and emotionally intelligent individuals with a sense of direction. This will help them to work smarter and love their job.
2. Formulating the personal innovation strategy of leaders and employees; this strategy entails a roadmap to translate their personal purpose into measurable actions.
3. Implement and cultivate their personal innovation strategy according to the Plan-Deploy-Act-Challenge cycle to continuously improve and purposely manage themselves to become creative, innovative, smart, and empathic.
4. Aligning the personal purpose of leaders and employees with their behavior and actions to cultivate their personal integrity and empathy skills; Remember: “The higher your personal integrity, the better your attentiveness, the better your empathic skills, the fewer mistakes you make”– Hubert Rampersad
5. Developing the shared company purpose is about what Boeing stands for, its reason, and how it benefits society. Shared purpose entails Boeing’s soul and joint mission, vision, and core values.
6. Aligning the personal purpose with the shared company purpose. This creates uniformity of personal and Boeing values. Matching these two purposes is essential for achieving an ethical, cohesive, unified company and a happy, engaged, committed, and passionate workforce. It’s about aligning the objectives of leaders and employees with those of Boeing, as well as fostering mutual value addition.

Below, I will elaborate on each of these six stages.

Personal Purpose

Having a higher purpose in life means you’re living your values and beliefs. Finding your higher purpose is discovering who you are, what you stand for, what matters to you, and what you can contribute to the world. When someone feels that his life lacks purpose, he may struggle to find motivation and direction. This can lead to a sense of detachment from his values and a lack of inspiration to enrich his life and those around him. Finding motivation and direction can be easier when you have a purpose in life. This will inspire you to become more effective, ethical, and fulfilled. Having a purpose in life will inspire you to discover ways to become more creative, imaginative, and innovative. Life is never richer, fuller, or more rewarding than moving faithfully and persistently toward a compelling purpose. Remember what Elon Musk said: “Don’t even attach yourself to a person, a place, a company, an organization, or a project. Attach yourself to a mission, a calling, a purpose only. That’s how you keep power and your peace. It worked pretty well for me this far”.

Your personal purpose entails your identity (mission) and dream (vision). Your dream is related to a higher calling. Everyone has a higher calling, a so-called inner assignment. Personal mission is aimed at being, and personal vision is aimed at becoming. Your personal mission inspires you, and your personal vision motivates you. Your mission and vision statement (personal purpose statement) embodies your values. Your personal mission encompasses your philosophy of life and your overall objectives, indicating who you are, the reason for existence, why you are on earth, what your purpose here is, what you stand for, what values you are most committed to, what is decisive for your success, what is your life purpose, what do you live for, what are your core beliefs, what are your deepest aspirations, what makes you happy,  and what do you do that you are most proud of.  Your personal mission is your personal leading light, keeping you steadily in the course of your dream. “Who am I?” is an identity question. It initiates self-examination of your personal identity (the unique position you find yourself in) and a voyage of discovery. My mission is: “Enjoy the freedom to unleash the creative potential in others, especially if this can mean something in their life.”

Your personal vision statement is a description of how you want to realize your dream in the long term. It indicates where you are going, which values, beliefs, and principles guide you on your way, why you are involved in the design industry, what you want to achieve, what you desire for your life, what your long-term intentions are, what talents, skills and experiences you need to add value to your others, where you want to be at the end of your life, what you hope to become, where you would like your life to be headed, the ideal characteristics you want to possess, your perfect job situation, and what you desire to be. All Boeing leaders and employees should ask themselves these questions and answer them honestly.

By practicing breathing and silence exercises, you can better connect with your inner self and find answers to these questions. This will help you to discover your higher purpose. Please click on this link to view my personal purpose statement. It also entails my values and beliefs. Read further “How Mindful Meditation Boosts Critical Thinking in the Age of AI” and “Crafting Your Authentic Personal Brand: A 5-Step Guide“.

Through this process, you’ll cultivate self-knowledge, self-awareness, self-management, and self-learning, which entails a journey toward personal disruptive innovation, as shown in this diagram:

The best ideas come when you are alone.Self-learning – the ability to gather, process, retain, and evaluate knowledge alone — is the foundation of creativity and imagination. Traditional creativity approaches lack imagination because they neglect self-learning and, because of this, fail to address complex problems. They heavily rely on group meetings and, therefore, miss opportunities to develop innovative and imaginative ideas. Nikola Tesla developed many innovative ideas while working alone for over thirty years. Similarly, Stephen Hawking made significant discoveries while confined to his wheelchair, and Isaac Newton famously discovered gravity while in social isolation. Remember Nikola Tesla’s statement: “Being alone is when ideas are born. This is the secret of innovation”.  Albert Einstein said almost the same: “Albert Einstein said almost the same: “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living”.

Personal Innovation Strategy

To bring your purpose alive, you must translate it into measurable actions. Boeing leaders and employees should formulate their personal innovation strategy to get their personal purpose to life. This is a roadmap to developing a growth mindset, authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills. Without continuous improvement based on your personal innovation strategy, you won’t be successful in life and business. The following are the five steps to develop your personal innovation strategy:

Your personal innovation strategy helps you turn your personal purpose into manageable, measurable objectives and milestones in a balanced way. Using this strategy, you can effectively manage your time and become more disciplined, proactive, innovative, and empathetic. Please click on this link to view my personal innovation strategy. Suppose you want to learn more about this personal innovation strategy system. In that case, I recommend reading my article “How to Redesign Your Life Based on Your Personal Innovation Strategy”.

Implementation According to the PDAC Cycle

Once you have established your personal innovation strategy, it is essential to consistently implement, maintain, and cultivate it to effectively manage and challenge yourself in your personal and company life. To aid you in this process, I recommend following the PDAC cycle (Plan-Deploy-Act-Challenge), which is a continuous improvement cycle that will help implement your personal innovation strategy effectively, as illustrated in this diagram:

Implementing your personal innovation strategy through the PDAC cycle will lead to self-awareness, happiness, personal disruption, and enhanced authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills. It’s important to regularly update your personal innovation strategy and repeat the cycle to stay current with new challenges and lessons learned. These 50 tips will assist you in implementing your personal innovation strategy effectively.

Aligning Personal Purpose with Personal Behavior 

The next stage ensures harmony between your purpose and actions, aligning your deeds with your conscience. Our conscience is the inner voice that guides us to distinguish between right and wrong, fact and fiction. By listening to this voice, we can gain better insight into our empathic behavior, strengths, and weaknesses, ultimately impacting our solidarity with others. Albert Schweitzer once said: “The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity and empathy with other human beings.” This diagram illustrates this personal integrity concept.

To enhance empathy and personal integrity, aligning your personal purpose with your behavior is essential. This involves achieving more excellent compatibility between the two elements so that they are in harmony, as shown in the above diagram. When your personal purpose and behavior match, you can work authentically and purposefully without internal conflicts. This will lead to greater empathy, enhanced charisma, transparency, and trustworthiness.

Personal integrity and empathy

I advise Boeing leaders and employees to balance their personal purpose with their current behavior and actions to develop personal integrity and empathy. During this alignment process, they must reflect honestly on the following questions: What are my personal values, and how do they align with my actions? How can I ensure that my actions are consistent with my values? What are the potential consequences of my efforts toward others? How can I empathize with others and understand their perspectives? Am I staying true to my values and conscience in my actions? Are my thoughts and actions aligned consistently? How do my values and intentions relate to my current behavior? Is there congruity between my thoughts and my actions? Am I always acting according to my personal ambition and empathetic nature? Does my personal purpose reflect my desire to work with ethics and empathy? Are there any discrepancies between my personal purpose and my compassionate actions? Do I keep the promises I make to myself? How do others perceive me and my values? Do they see me as someone who stays true to my core beliefs and remains authentic to myself? They must also ask themselves: Have I always acted by my conscience? Have I always done what was right? Have I always worked morally? Have I performed compassionately regularly?

Shared Company Purpose

The shared company purpose statement differs from a personal one, but the fundamental principles remain the same. Boeing purpose entails the company mission, vision, and core values to inspire leaders and employees toward a common goal. The mission encompasses Boeing’s identity, while the vision is its long-term dream, based on several core values used to strengthen the single-mindedness of its people. The related questions are included in this below diagram:

Look at Boeing’s purpose statement:

Boeing mission statement is: “To connect, protect, explore, and inspire the world through aerospace innovation.” Boeing vision statement is “People working together as a global enterprise for aerospace industry leadership.” Boeing core values: “How We Operate; Start with engineering excellence; Be accountable; Apply Lean principles; Eliminate traveled work; Reward predictability and stability”.

Aligning Personal Purpose with Shared Company Purpose

Aligning personal purpose of Boeing leaders and employees with the shared Boeing purpose creates uniformity of personal and organizational values. Matching these two purposes involves reaching a higher compatibility between personal and company objectives and mutual value addition. To foster better ethics within Boeing and become a purpose-driven company, I encourage Boeing leaders and employees to formulate their personal purpose and reflect on aligning their personal purpose with the shared Boeing purpose, as shown in this Figure. This will help them to find their higher purpose and cultivate a good character.

Boeing leaders must communicate their personal purpose to their employees and coach them in this alignment process. By unifying the shared Boeing purpose with their personal purpose, you will create a strong foundation of peace, integrity, engagement, and learning upon which creativity, productivity, and growth can flourish, and life within Boeing will become a more harmonious and ethical culture. This will catalyze innovation by encouraging a learning culture of curiosity and exploration in the organization. This process is about getting the optimal fit and balance between these activities to enhance productivity, create a climate of trust, and cultivate a purpose-driven Boeing. This process is needed because leaders and employees at Boeing don’t work passionately, or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. If there is an effective match between their interests and those of the company, and if their values and the institution’s values align, they will be actively engaged and motivated. This will create trust, and they will work with outstanding commitment and dedication toward realizing Boeing’s objectives. When their personal purpose is in harmony with the shared purpose (are compatible) and combined in the best interest of both parties, the results will be the good character of leaders and employees, restoration of their higher purpose, trust, engagement, collective sense of belonging, and cultivation of innovation and sustainability. In this way, they are stimulated to commit, act ethically, and focus on those activities that create value for Boeing.

Purpose Meeting

I recommend introducing a purpose meeting between Boeing leaders and their employees to build a sustainable higher-purpose culture. This meeting is a periodical, informal, voluntary, trusted, and confidential meeting of half an hour between the parties, aligning the personal purpose with the shared purpose as a topic. The purpose meeting also includes individual coaching. It is recommended to be held structurally at least once every two months. The leader plays a crucial role in this process. He/she should be an empathetic, trusted leader, coach, mentor, and role model. This approach fosters ethical awareness among Boeing leaders and employees, creating a purpose-driven company. When they see their efforts as part of a greater purpose, they will be more likely to invest their creativity, passion, and energy into their work and work smarter.

A study by Towers Perrin found that instead of matching the right employee to the correct position for long-term success, most US companies and human resource departments emphasize simply filling the job as quickly as possible and on corrupt DEI policies, read “Why DEI Sucks; How to Measure and Fix DEI“. As a result, American companies are losing money as fast as they lose employees. Getting the optimal fit between personal and shared purpose has become necessary to enhance workforce productivity and stimulate creativity, learning, engagement, commitment, and passion.

SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION

In today’s complex world, sustainable innovation is crucial. Traditional innovation approaches are inadequate because they lack a holistic approach. Instead, they are superficial, theatrical, and cozy. Technology companies should prioritize sustainable innovation as a fundamental capability to achieve sustainable growth and competitive advantage. Unfortunately, there are no real good examples of American tech companies focused on sustainable design innovation. Apple, Google, IBM, Samsung, Uber, Airbnb, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, OceanGate, Tesla, and SpaceX are not design-driven due to their poor design approach they learned at Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. Read my article “Cultivating a Design-Driven Culture in Tech Companies“.

We must develop and implement innovative ideas better, faster, smarter, and sustainably. This is why I introduced the Eco-Innovation concept. Eco-Innovation involves integrating sustainability into the process of innovation. I identify three types of innovation that fall under this category:

• Personal innovation is unlocking your creative potential and creating new opportunities for yourself. By disrupting your current market, you can make a significant social impact. Personal Disruptive Innovation by Hubert Rampersad helps you find your higher purpose and improve your business and personal life for greater happiness and success. Combining personal disruptive innovation with corporate innovation and social innovation will help you generate more imaginative, innovative, empathetic, and disruptive ideas. “We need to understand that all knowledge starts with self-knowledge, all learning starts with self-learning, all innovation starts with self-innovation (personal innovation), real empathy starts with personal integrity, and without empathy, innovations are not sustainable ”- Hubert Rampersad
• Corporate innovation involves applying new ideas to create new products, processes, or services that increase the value of a company. Corporate innovation also encompasses Open Innovation by Chesbrough, Disruptive Innovation by Clayton Christensen, and BlockChain Innovation.
• Social innovation is developing and implementing new ideas and solutions that meet social needs and strengthen civil society. There is some overlap between social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Social innovation aims to improve the world by implementing innovative ideas that create social and environmental change, benefiting many people. Social entrepreneurs seek the most effective ways to achieve their social mission and provide social benefits.

The diagram below shows how personal, corporate, and social innovation are interconnected. Personal innovation is linked to self-learning, corporate innovation is linked to organizational learning, and social innovation is linked to community learning.

Traditional innovation approaches are unsuitable for a sustainable circular economy as they focus on process-driven, analytical thinking, cozy, theatrical meetings, and completing related tasks in a particular order using design tools. These approaches lack imagination and fail to address the larger picture. We must adopt a new design method better suited for sustainable innovation. I have therefore introduced eco-design thinking. This creative process involves empathizing with yourself, the end user, and the environment to generate innovative, imaginative, empathetic, and disruptive design ideas that are better aligned with social innovation. The new model is depicted in the figure below and consists of four stages: Explore, Ideate, Prototype, and Execute. It is an iterative, incremental, cyclic, and concentric process of exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing (Rampersad, 2023). 

Eco-design thinking is a circular and iterative process that has no endpoint. The model consists of various stages that may form iterative loops and do not need to follow a specific sequence. Every iteration brings forth fresh insights. Eco-design thinking is a continuous and circular process that requires testing and refining your design while empathizing with yourself, the users, and the environment. Unfortunately, Boeing has ignored essential steps in this design model, with all the consequences that entails. Read “How the Boeing 737 Max Incidents Could Have Been Avoided”. Read also “How SDGs, ESG, and Purpose Fuel Design For Sustainability”.

The most important benefits of this new design model are: Before delving into corporate innovation issues, exploring and redesigning your own life to become innovative is essential, which leads to more empathetic, intelligent, and sustainable innovations that are in line with social innovation and the higher purpose of the company and its employees; A high level of personal integrity and a designer’s empathy is necessary to achieve superior design quality; By gradually building and enhancing the product and detecting defects early on, you can achieve better and more sustainable innovation outcomes.

Lopez: “Boeing can become better. The first step is believing that the state of Boeing is not a natural one — that it can be changed with conscious effort. We just have to choose a better way”.

These “10 Ways to Kill Creativity, Sustainability, and Innovation” apply to Boeing.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

Complimentary Initial Consultation to Enhance Your Design Process and Boost Design Team Performance

If you’re interested in gaining more knowledge about this program, you may want to consider joining our Orlando–Tampa Live Events:

Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture

Building a Purpose-Driven Design Culture in Tech Companies

How Sustainability and Generative AI Fuel Design Innovation

Cultivating Authenticity, Integrity, Empathy, and Critical Thinking in the Age of AI

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., is a Dutch-American innovation expert who founded the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered and Purpose-Driven Innovation in Orlando. He is a visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm“.

Orlando, Florida |  tpsi@live.com |  Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116 

Boeing Puts Profits, Speed and DEI Over Planes

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

“The one thing missing from the board of directors of Boeing is a holistic view on cultivating a purpose-driven culture of sustainable Innovation” — Hubert Rampersad

The Alaska Airlines incident on January 6, 2024, involved a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft that suffered a mid-flight blowout of its fuselage, leading to an emergency landing at Portland International Airport. The incident raised safety concerns and prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground all US 737 Max 9 aircraft with the door plug feature until the plane could be thoroughly inspected. Former Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun acknowledged ‘quality escape’ but defends the company’s ‘proven design.’ During a new interview with CNBC, he said he was “devastated” and “emotional” after seeing a video from the Alaska Airlines midflight blowout. He emphasized that he is “confident” in the FAA’s ongoing work to “inspect every one of the airplanes” and make “certain that they’re in conformance with our design, which is a proven design.” Read also RECENT updates: “Cracked window on Boeing 737 forces All Nippon Airways flight to turn back”, “Alaska Airlines CEO: We found ‘many’ loose bolts on our Max 9 planes following near-disaster”, “In another blow to Boeing, a Delta Airlines 757 jet lost a wheel under its nose just before takeoff from Atlanta“, “Spirit AeroSystems rises on media report of possible Boeing errors,” “United Airlines Boeing 737-800 Lands In Atlanta After Engine Fails Mid-Flight“, and “United Airlines flight diverted because Boeing jet had cracked windshield in another flight near-disaster.”  And still, Boeing does not want to learn from its mistakes. Read “Latest 737 Max Accident Shows Boeing Has Not Learned Its Lesson”.This is due to arrogancy, read: “Despite lawsuits, monopoly may keep Boeing’s business intact.”  

In the meantime, the new Boeing CEO is dealing with the aftermath of Boeing’s repeated quality and safety issues with its aircraft. The company has faced these issues for five years, leading to the long-term grounding of some jets and the halt in deliveries of others. The design of the 737 Max was found to be responsible for two fatal crashes, one in Indonesia in October 2018 and the other in Ethiopia in March 2019. These crashes killed all 346 people aboard the two flights and led to a 20-month grounding of the company’s best-selling jets, which cost more than $21 billion. The Boeing 737 Max had flaws in its design due to unreliable sensors and cutting corners to save money. Some crashes were linked to the absence of warning lights and issues with pilot training and maintenance logs. Ethics were a contributing factor in this situation. Internal communications released during the 737 Max grounding showed one employee describing the jet as “designed by clowns, who are supervised by monkeys.”

Recently, Boeing asked airlines to inspect all of their 737 Max jets for a potential loose bolt in the rudder system after an airline discovered a possible problem with a critical part on two aircraft. United Airlines found loose door plug bolts on an undisclosed number of its Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft while performing the FAA-mandated inspections of the jets. During inspections, Alaska Airlines also found loose hardware on some of its 737 Max 9 planes.

Former CEO Jim McNerney systematically promoted non-technical people to executive positions, particularly on the board. Incredibly, the MAX was developed under him and the commercial unit CEO — neither of whom had a technical degree. Former CEO Dave Calhoun, who is also not an engineer, has followed the same path, promoting people with similar financial backgrounds (left brain bookkeepers). The whole board should be fired!

It is concerning that the company is only treating the symptoms of the problem and not addressing the root cause. This may not be effective in the long run, and the company may continue to face challenges. The root cause of the problem is the poor Boeing culture that values profit and DEI above engineering and safety, the poor design methodology, and the mental absence of assembly workers due to disengagement, which leads to a lack of usage of their cognitive capacity and critical thinking skills. Plug bolts can become loose for various reasons, such as vibration, wear and tear, or improper installation. Loose bolts caused by vibrations are often due to poor design. However, it is essential to note that a lack of mental capacity, self-awareness, or critical thinking skills can also cause loose bolts. These skills are necessary for all Boeing employees to ensure the safety and quality of their products because airplanes are imperative products that affect human lives. Read: Boeing ‘overworked’ employees are linked to its 737 Max issues. Read: “Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed.” It’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far more profoundly.

Due to America’s deteriorating business culture, Boeing’s trajectory has veered off course, prioritizing swift profits for shareholders over aircraft safety. This shift was initiated by Jack Welch approximately 40 years ago. The recent Boeing crisis lays bare years of flawed American corporate philosophy centered around shareholder interests. Many of today’s corporate challenges can be traced back to the legacy of GE’s former chairman, Jack Welch, who was revered by CEOs worldwide. Interestingly, Boeing’s former Chairman, David Calhoun, once served as Welch’s deputy. Like many CEOs in corporate America, Calhoun was focused on maximizing profits for his shareholders. It’s probably no surprise that CEO pay increased by 1,322% from 1978 to 2020. This diagram shows Boeing’s top 10 failures.

Poor design process in Corporate America

The design process in Corporate America has been criticized for its shortcomings. It lacks critical elements that affect safety, accountability, transparency, integrity, and empathy.  Examples of bad designs include Elon Musk’s $3 billion Mars rocket failure, Boeing’s 737 Max airplane disasters, the doomed Titan sub tragedy, Citibank’s loss of $500 million due to an unfriendly loan management tool, and the $2 trillion F-35 project. According to my article “Why OceanGate’s Design Approach Sucks,” these bad designs are mainly due to a lack of critical thinking skills, personal integrity, empathy, resilience, and creativity on the part of the designer, lack of a holistic design model, no sustainable design tools, and mental absence of the designers. I have also written an article titled “Top-10 Causes of Bad Designs”.Boeing puts profits and DEI over planes. Is it time for Boeing to change its culture, which values profit and DEI, into a purpose-driven and design-driven culture? Read my article “Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture of Sustainable Innovation“.

We Need a New Generation of Brilliant Engineers

We also need a new generation of brilliant engineers with a new mindset to design a better world and create a vibrant future. Colleges and universities today do not commonly teach the skills that future engineers will need. Engineers must possess skills like creativity, imagination, agility, critical thinking, and sustainability to become visionary and innovative entrepreneurial leaders or to design innovative products. Read “Why Creativity Sucks“. These skills are not typically associated with engineering, but the rapid rate of technological change has made most college and university courses obsolete by the time students graduate. Read my article “We Need a New Generation of Brilliant Engineers.”

STEM programs give engineers insights into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, they often fail to nurture the holistic, authentic, and imaginative qualities essential for tomorrow’s engineers. Please read “Things About Sustainability, Innovation, and Creativity You Don’t Learn at Universities.”

and “How STEM Education is Failing in the Age of AI.”

We Need a New Design Method

The era of design thinking has ended; read my article “The Era of Design Thinking Has Come to an End, Replaced by Eco-Design Thinking.” Eco-design thinking goes beyond traditional design thinking. It is based on my latest book, “Eco-Design Thinking for Personal, Corporate, and Social Innovation.” I suggest checking out this excerpt for further insights. The eco-design thinking model is depicted in the figure below and consists of four stages: Explore, Ideate, Prototype, and Execute. It is an iterative, incremental, cyclic, and concentric process of exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing. 

The eco-design thinking process involves exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing different aspects of a design. Each iteration is then reviewed to identify additional requirements, and the process is repeated to produce a new and improved version of the invention. The model involves creating a rough product in one iteration, reviewing it, and then improving it in the next iteration until it is complete. Based on the results of incremental prototyping and execution, changes and refinements are made to the most recent iteration of the design.

The eco-design thinking model comprises multiple stages that create iterative loops, each bringing new insights. This process should be repeated until the issues of the designer and end-user reach an acceptable level. Eco-design thinking is a continuous and circular process that requires testing and refining the design while empathizing with yourself, the users, and the environment.

The first step in this design methodology is personal disruptive innovation, which means empathizing with yourself, examining and redesigning your life, and reinventing yourself before tackling the design problem. This will give you a better understanding of yourself and the design challenge. This first stage aims to transform the designer into an innovative and empathetic disruptor. To create a good design, it’s essential first to explore your life, empathize with the end users, and research the environment. Once you’ve identified the design problem and user needs, you can generate ideas to meet those needs. From there, you’ll develop a prototype of the finished product and test it to ensure it’s fulfilling the requirements in the best possible way. This first stage enhances and strengthens leaders’ and employees’ mental capacity, self-awareness, and critical thinking skills, improving their accountability, transparency, integrity, and empathy. Read how in my article “Cultivating Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.”

Considering the Boeing tragedies, it would be beneficial to examine the four stages of the eco-design thinking model, as outlined below. This design model applies to all Boeing employees, not only designers. Read also “How SDGs, ESG, and Purpose Fuel Design For Sustainability”.

Design stage 1: EXPLORE

Before approaching the design problem, it is essential to take two critical steps. Firstly, you must reflect on and revamp your life to reinvent yourself. Secondly, you must develop a compassionate understanding of the end user and the issue that requires resolution. This empathetic approach will aid in creating an effective design solution. This task will help you better understand yourself and the underlying design challenge. The exploration phase includes three sub-phases:

• Personal disruptive innovation: Personal disruptive innovation refers to a framework and roadmap that helps you explore your life, develop resilience, reinvent and redesign your life, and uphold personal integrity. It’s about designing the designer’s life. Read also“Crafting Your Authentic Personal Brand: A 5-Step Guide”. By unlocking your creative potential, personal disruptive innovation allows you to disrupt the usual course of your life. Before exploring the design problem, it’s essential to understand yourself and the end users empathetically. In every design process, prioritizing personal disruptive innovation as the first step is crucial. This first stage enhances and strengthens designers’ mental capacity, self-awareness, and critical thinking skills, improving their accountability, transparency, integrity, and empathy. Boeing ignores this crucial first design step entirely. 
• Empathize: Before moving forward, gaining a compassionate understanding of the end users and the issue that needs to be resolved is essential. This can be achieved by listening to their stories, observing their behavior, and engaging with them. By empathizing with the customers, we can better understand their experiences and develop a personal connection with the design problem.
• Define: During this stage, you will compile the information that was collected during your empathetic research, analyze your observations, interpret the empirical findings, and define the problem in a way that is centered around the customers. The end result should be a problem statement that is customer-focused and human-centered.

Design stage 2: IDEATE

The ideate phase is composed of three sub-phases, which are:

• Initiate: Choose a facilitator who can effectively initiate and manage discussions, revisit the problem, and establish guidelines for using design tools. It is essential that the chosen facilitator has experience with the personal disruptive innovation method and has applied it to himself.
• Think: Engaging in divergent and convergent thinking is essential to develop innovative design ideas. Begin by spending approximately one-third of the allotted time on divergent thinking, which involves generating multiple solutions to a problem without being constrained by traditional approaches. Then, allocate around one-sixth of the time to convergent thinking, which entails refining and strengthening ideas by combining and building upon them.
• Synthesize: Combining various product ideas is essential to creating a coherent whole. Use one-third of the allocated time to synthesize your ideas. Analyze and connect your thoughts, and choose the strongest to create themes. Cluster similar ideas together and select the best clusters. Assign a group to each set to evaluate the ideas, and hold separate follow-up meetings to eliminate any unusable ideas based on selection criteria.

Design stage 3: PROTOTYPE

The prototype phase is made up of three sub-phases, which are:

• Create an experience: After implementing solutions into the prototypes, they are evaluated based on user experiences. It is essential to guide the customers through the prototype to allow them to experience it firsthand. Use product storyboards to visualize the design concept from start to finish.
• Feedback: You can improve your solution by listening to customer feedback. It may be helpful to utilize storytelling once again to gather feedback. Generative AI can aid in accepting new ideas from the user, while Stable Diffusion can help design a better solution. 
• Iterate: If the customer disapproves of the solution and provides negative feedback, you must make adjustments and repeat the process. This involves modifying the prototype based on the feedback received. If the customers are not content with the results, redefining the issue and empathizing with them more effectively is essential.

Design stage 4: EXECUTE

The execute phase is made up of three sub-phases:

• Test: When presenting the prototype, it is essential to allow the end users to experience it fully. Through testing, you can determine whether the solution is effective.
• Refine: If the testing phase doesn’t yield positive results, it will be necessary to go through another round of iteration to refine the design. After testing, the process can be repeated to improve the solution or move on to the implementation stage if the end-user approves.
• Implement: Once the final solution has been approved, it will be implemented, realized, and communicated. Take pleasure in the eco-design thinking experience and note what you have learned and unlearned throughout the design process. Celebrate any accomplishments and move forward to the next project. Boeing does not execute this design step effectively. Read “We now have more details on what happened with the Alaska Airlines door plug — and how Boeing plans to address quality issues.” It was due to mismanagement, poor culture, and stupidity in the assembly process at Boeing. When National Transportation Safety Board investigators recovered the door plug, they learned four bolts designed to secure it were missing. The Wall Street Journal reported that those bolts weren’t in place when the plane left Boeing’s factory. Two anonymous sources, a Renton mechanic and a former 737 Max production line manager, gave the same description regarding Boeing’s two internal systems, with one source describing the informal log as a place to flag defects and bring more eyes to what the problem is. According to the unnamed sources, the problem with Boeing’s multiple logs is they don’t always talk to each other. Bloomberg reported that the work could be discussed in the informal system but never logged in the official one, meaning nothing would trigger further quality-control inspections on performed actions.

Mismanagement, poor culture, and stupidity could have been avoided by applying the personal disruptive innovation system to develop critical thinking and reduce the mental absence of the assembly workers at Boeing. This is caused by the lack of effective leadership skills of operational managers and a poor HR system focused on corrupt DEI policies instead of focusing on working smarter with a motivated and actively engaged workforce in a learning culture. Boeing’s CEO says the company will reward employees who call out problems with its production processes. This is the proof that Boeing’s culture sucks.

Boeing needs a new culture and HRM system to reduce mental absence due to disengagement.

Mental absenteeism refers to an employee not fully engaged at work due to a mismatch between his personal ambition and the company’s. This can be remedied by helping the employee work brighter, better, and faster with more passion, commitment, and inner involvement. This could have prevented the problem with the bolds at Boeing. I encourage leaders, managers, and employees at Boeing to formulate their personal ambitions and reflect on the match between their personal ambitions and Boeing’s ambition, as shown in this Figure. The managers must communicate their personal ambition to their employees and coach them in this alignment process.

Boeing’s ambition statement entails its mission statement (to connect, protect, explore, and inspire the world through aerospace innovation), vision statement (people working together as a global enterprise for aerospace industry leadership), and core values (Respect one another and advance a global international, diverse team; Apply Lean principles; Impacting society and not the environment; Accountability; Engineering Excellence for a better future; Quality and safety for everyone). This statement is being affected by  Boeing’s corrupt DEI policy. Read “Why DEI Sucks, How to Fix It“.

Your personal ambition statement entails your personal mission, vision, and key roles. By writing it down, you’ll gain insights into your life and acquire self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-regulation, which are the building blocks of authenticity, empathy, trustworthiness, integrity, creativity, imagination, and critical thinking, as described in this article. Your personal ambition statement also serves as the foundation of an innovative, creative, imaginative mindset. The words of Galileo Galilei may also be recalled here—“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.”  Remember, the more you want to be innovative, the more you should develop self-knowledge. Read “How Mindful Meditation Boosts Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.” You can click on this link to view my personal ambition statement. Elon Musk’s vision is to create an inspiring and appealing future for humanity. The thing that drives him is vision. He said, “I think having an inspiring and appealing future is important. There must be reasons you get up in the morning and want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future?”

By unifying Boeing’s ambition with the employee’s ambition, you will create a strong foundation of peace, integrity, engagement, and learning upon which creativity and growth can flourish, and life within Boeing will become a more harmonious experience. It’s about getting the optimal fit and balance between these two activities to enhance productivity, create a climate of trust, and stimulate the organization’s engagement, commitment, integrity, and passion. This process is needed because staff members don’t work passionately or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. If there is an effective match between their interests and those of Boeing, and if their values and Boeing’s values align, they will be engaged. They will work with more outstanding commitment and dedication toward realizing Boeing’s objectives. When the personnel’s personal ambition is in harmony with Boeing’s (are compatible) and combined in the best interest of both parties, the results will be higher productivity and better quality. Employees are stimulated to commit, act ethically, and focus on those activities that create customer value.

I recommend introducing an ambition meeting between leaders/managers and their employees to build a sustainable learning culture at Boeing. The ambition meeting is a periodical, informal, voluntary, and confidential meeting of half an hour between the parties, aligning the employee’s personal ambition with the shared Boeing ambition as topics and aligning the employee’s ambition with his/her behavior. It is recommended to be held structurally at least once every two months. The outcome of these informal meetings should be highly confidential and kept out of the personnel file. The leader/manager plays a crucial role in this process. He/she should be a trusted person, coach, mentor, and role model. One needs a confidential, informal, and friendly atmosphere of trust and open communication to talk about the individual’s personal ambition.

A study by Towers Perrin found that instead of matching the right employee to the correct position for long-term success, most US companies and human resource departments emphasize simply filling the job as quickly as possible. As a result, American businesses are losing money as fast as they lose employees. They do not understand that their employees do not work passionately or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. They do not know that clarity and uniformity of personal and organizational values and principles are essential for the active involvement of their employees. Getting the optimal fit between personal and corporate ambition has become necessary to enhance workforce productivity and product quality, and stimulate creativity, learning, engagement, commitment, and passion.

These “10 Ways to Kill Creativity, Sustainability, and Innovation” apply to Boeing.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D. 

If you’re interested in gaining more knowledge about this subject, you may want to consider attending his Orlando-Tampa Live Events:

Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Boeing Culture

Building a Purpose-Driven and Design-Driven Culture in Tech Companies

“How Sustainability and Generative AI Fuel Design Innovation.”

Purpose-Driven and Human-Centered AI

Cultivating Authenticity, Integrity, Empathy, and Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.

How to Measure and Fix DEI

We also offer the Certified Authentic Leadership Coaching program. This program is appropriate for leaders, managers, and professionals who wish to strengthen their critical thinking skills, drive their purpose and human-centeredness, and coach their employees and team members to realize the same.

You may also want to consider becoming a Certified ECO-DEI Practitioner.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered and Purpose-Driven AI Innovation in Orlando. He is a Dutch-American visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm“.

   

Orlando, Florida |  tpsi@live.com |  Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116

Boeing is Not Addressing Its Problems’ Root Causes and Only Treating The Symptoms

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D.

“The one thing missing from the board of directors of Boeing is a holistic view on cultivating a purpose-driven culture of sustainable Innovation” — Hubert Rampersad

The Alaska Airlines incident on January 6, 2024, involved a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft that suffered a mid-flight blowout of its fuselage, leading to an emergency landing at Portland International Airport. The incident has raised safety concerns and prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground all US 737 Max 9 aircraft with the door plug feature until the plane can be thoroughly inspected. Former Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun acknowledges ‘quality escape’ but defends the company’s ‘proven design.’ During a new interview with CNBC, he said he was “devastated” and “emotional” after seeing a video from the Alaska Airlines midflight blowout. He emphasized that he is “confident” in the FAA’s ongoing work to “inspect every one of the airplanes” and make “certain that they’re in conformance with our design, which is a proven design.” Read also some RECENT updates: “Cracked window on Boeing 737 forces All Nippon Airways flight to turn back”, “Alaska Airlines CEO: We found ‘many’ loose bolts on our Max 9 planes following near-disaster”, “In another blow to Boeing, a Delta Airlines 757 jet lost a wheel under its nose just before takeoff from Atlanta“, “Spirit AeroSystems rises on media report of possible Boeing errors,” “United Airlines Boeing 737-800 Lands In Atlanta After Engine Fails Mid-Flight“, and “United Airlines flight diverted because Boeing jet had cracked windshield in another flight near-disaster.”  And still, Boeing does not want to learn from its mistakes. Read “Latest 737 Max Accident Shows Boeing Has Not Learned Its Lesson”.This is due to arrogancy, read: “Despite lawsuits, monopoly may keep Boeing’s business intact.” 

In the meantime, the new Boeing CEO is dealing with the aftermath of Boeing’s repeated quality and safety issues with its aircraft. The company has faced these issues for five years, leading to the long-term grounding of some jets and the halt in deliveries of others. The design of the 737 Max was found to be responsible for two fatal crashes, one in Indonesia in October 2018 and the other in Ethiopia in March 2019. These crashes killed all 346 people aboard the two flights and led to a 20-month grounding of the company’s best-selling jets, which cost more than $21 billion. The Boeing 737 Max had flaws in its design due to unreliable sensors and cut corners to save money. Some crashes were linked to the absence of warning lights and issues with pilot training and maintenance logs. Ethics were a contributing factor in this situation. Internal communications released during the 737 Max grounding showed one employee describing the jet as “designed by clowns, who are supervised by monkeys.”

Recently, Boeing asked airlines to inspect all of their 737 Max jets for a potential loose bolt in the rudder system after an airline discovered a possible problem with a critical part on two aircraft. United Airlines found loose door plug bolts on an undisclosed number of its Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft while performing the FAA-mandated inspections of the jets. Alaska Airlines also found loose hardware on some of its 737 Max 9 planes during inspections.

Former CEO Jim McNerney systematically promoted non-technical people to executive positions, particularly on the board. Incredibly, the MAX was developed under him and the commercial unit CEO — neither of whom had a technical degree. Former CEO Dave Calhoun, who is also not an engineer, has followed the same path, promoting people with similar financial backgrounds (left brain bookkeepers). The whole board should be fired!

It is concerning that the company is only treating the symptoms of the problem and not addressing the root cause. This may not be effective in the long run, and the company may continue to face challenges as a result. The root cause of the problem is the poor Boeing culture that values profit and DEI above engineering and safety, the poor design methodology, and the mental absence of assembly workers due to disengagement, which leads to a lack of usage of their cognitive capacity and critical thinking skills. Plug bolts can become loose for various reasons, such as vibration, wear and tear, or improper installation. Loose bolts caused by vibrations are often due to poor design. However, it is essential to note that a lack of mental capacity, self-awareness, or critical thinking skills can also cause loose bolts. These skills are necessary for all Boeing employees to ensure the safety and quality of their products because airplanes are imperative products that affect human lives. Read: Boeing ‘overworked’ employees are linked to its 737 Max issues. Read: “Boeing lost its way. Other companies should take heed“; it’s become clear that Boeing’s problems run far deeper. 

Boeing’s trajectory has veered off course due to America’s deteriorating business culture, which prioritizes swift profits for shareholders over aircraft safety. This shift was initiated by Jack Welch approximately 40 years ago. The recent Boeing crisis lays bare years of flawed American corporate philosophy centered around shareholder interests. A significant portion of today’s corporate challenges can be traced back to the legacy of GE’s former chairman, Jack Welch, who was revered by CEOs worldwide. Interestingly, Boeing’s former Chairman, David Calhoun, once served as Welch’s deputy. Calhoun is focused on maximizing profits for his shareholders, just like many CEOs in corporate America. It’s probably no surprise that CEO pay increased by 1,322% from 1978 to 2020. This diagram shows Boeing’s top 10 failures.

Poor design process in Corporate America

The design process in Corporate America has been criticized for its shortcomings. It lacks critical elements that affect safety, accountability, transparency, integrity, and empathy.  Examples of bad designs include Elon Musk’s $3 billion Mars rocket failure, Boeing’s 737 Max airplane disasters, the doomed Titan sub tragedy, Citibank’s loss of $500 million due to an unfriendly loan management tool, and the $2 trillion F-35 project. According to my article “Why OceanGate’s Design Approach Sucks,” these bad designs are mainly due to a lack of critical thinking skills, personal integrity, empathy, resilience, and creativity on the part of the designer, lack of a holistic design model, no sustainable design tools, and mental absence of the designers. I have also written an article titled “Top-10 Causes of Bad Designs”.

Boeing puts profits over planes. Is it time for Boeing to change its culture that values profit and DEI into a purpose-driven and design-driven culture. Read my article how: “Building a Purpose-Driven and Design-Driven Culture in Tech Companies”.

We Need a New Generation of Brilliant Engineers

We also need a new generation of brilliant engineers with a new mindset to design a better world and create a vibrant future. Colleges and universities today do not commonly teach the skills that future engineers will need. Engineers must possess skills like creativity, imagination, agility, critical thinking, and sustainability to become visionary and innovative entrepreneurial leaders or to design innovative products. These skills are not typically associated with engineering, but the rapid rate of technological change has made most college and university courses obsolete by the time students graduate. Read my related article: “We Need a New Generation of Brilliant Engineers.”

STEM programs give engineers insights into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, they often fail to nurture the holistic, authentic, and imaginative qualities essential for tomorrow’s engineers. Please read “Things About Sustainability, Innovation, and Creativity You Don’t Learn at Universities.”

and “How STEM Education is Failing in the Age of AI.”

We Need a New Design Method

The era of design thinking has ended; Read my article “The End of Design Thinking: Cultivating a Purpose-Driven Design Culture to Fix the World”. Eco-design thinking goes beyond traditional design thinking. It is based on my latest book, “Eco-Design Thinking for Personal, Corporate, and Social Innovation.” I suggest checking out this excerpt for further insights. The eco-design thinking model is depicted in the figure below and consists of four stages: Explore, Ideate, Prototype, and Execute. It is an iterative, incremental, cyclic, and concentric process of exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing. 

The process of eco-design thinking involves exploring, ideating, prototyping, and executing different aspects of a design. Each iteration is then reviewed to identify additional requirements, and the process is repeated to produce a new and improved version of the invention. The model involves creating a rough product in one iteration, reviewing it, and then improving it in the next iteration until it is complete. Based on the results of incremental prototyping and execution, changes and refinements are made to the most recent iteration of the design.

The eco-design thinking model comprises multiple stages that create iterative loops, each bringing new insights. It is recommended that this process be repeated until the issues of the designer and end-user reach an acceptable level. Eco-design thinking is a continuous and circular process that requires testing and refining the design while empathizing with yourself, the users, and the environment.

The first step in this design methodology is Personal disruptive innovation to empathize with yourself, examine and redesign your life, and reinvent yourself before tackling the design problem. This will give you a better understanding of yourself and the design challenge. This first stage aims to transform the designer into an innovative and empathetic disruptor. To create a good design, it’s essential first to explore your life, empathize with the end users, and research the environment. Once you’ve identified the design problem and user needs, you can generate ideas to meet those needs. From there, you’ll develop a prototype of the finished product and test it to ensure it’s fulfilling the requirements in the best possible way. This first stage enhances and strengthens leaders’ and employees’ mental capacity, self-awareness, and critical thinking skills, improving their accountability, transparency, integrity, and empathy. Read how in my article “Cultivating Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.”

Considering the Boeing tragedies, looking at the four stages of the eco-design thinking model would be beneficial, as outlined below. This design model applies to all Boeing employees, not only designers. Read also “How SDGs, ESG, and Purpose Fuel Design For Sustainability”.

Design stage 1: EXPLORE

Before approaching the design problem, it is essential to take two critical steps. Firstly, you must reflect on and revamp your life to reinvent yourself. Secondly, you must develop a compassionate understanding of the end user and the issue that requires resolution. This empathetic approach will aid in creating an effective design solution. This task will help you better understand yourself and the underlying design challenge. The exploration phase includes three sub-phases:

• Personal disruptive innovation: Personal disruptive innovation refers to a  framework and roadmap that helps you explore your life, develop resilience, reinvent and redesign your life, and uphold personal integrity. It’s about designing the designer’s life. Read “Crafting Your Authentic Personal Brand: A 5-Step Guide”. By unlocking your creative potential, personal disruptive innovation allows you to disrupt the usual course of your life. Before exploring the design problem, it’s essential to understand yourself and the end users empathetically. In every design process, prioritizing personal disruptive innovation as the first step is crucial. This first stage enhances and strengthens designers’ mental capacity, self-awareness, and critical thinking skills, improving their accountability, transparency, integrity, and empathy. Boeing ignores this crucial first design step entirely. 
• Empathize: Before moving forward, gaining a compassionate understanding of the end users and the issue that needs to be resolved is essential. This can be achieved by listening to their stories, observing their behavior, and engaging with them. By empathizing with the customers, we can better understand their experiences and develop a personal connection with the design problem.
• Define: During this stage, you will compile the information that was collected during your empathetic research, analyze your observations, interpret the empirical findings, and define the problem in a way that is centered around the customers. The end result should be a problem statement that is customer-focused and human-centered.

Design stage 2: IDEATE

The ideate phase is composed of three sub-phases, which are:

• Initiate: Choose a facilitator who can effectively initiate and manage discussions, revisit the problem, and establish guidelines for using design tools. It is essential that the chosen facilitator has experience with the personal disruptive innovation method and has applied it to himself.
• Think: Engaging in divergent and convergent thinking is essential to develop innovative design ideas. Begin by spending approximately one-third of the allotted time on divergent thinking, which involves generating multiple solutions to a problem without being constrained by traditional approaches. Then, allocate around one-sixth of the time to convergent thinking, which entails refining and strengthening ideas by combining and building upon them.
• Synthesize: To create a coherent whole, it is essential to combine various product ideas. Use one-third of the allocated time to synthesize your ideas. Analyze and connect your thoughts, and choose the strongest to create themes. Cluster similar ideas together and select the best clusters. Assign a group to each set to evaluate the ideas, and hold separate follow-up meetings to eliminate any unusable ideas based on selection criteria.

Design stage 3: PROTOTYPE

The prototype phase is made up of three sub-phases, which are:

• Create an experience: After implementing solutions into the prototypes, they are evaluated based on user experiences. It is essential to guide the customers through the prototype to allow them to experience it firsthand. Use product storyboards to visualize the design concept from start to finish.
• Feedback: You can improve your solution by listening to customer feedback. It may be helpful to utilize storytelling once again to gather feedback. Generative AI can aid in accepting new ideas from the user, while Stable Diffusion can help design a better solution. 
• Iterate: If the customer disapproves of the solution and provides negative feedback, you must make adjustments and repeat the process. This involves modifying the prototype based on the feedback received. If the customers are not content with the results, redefining the issue and empathizing with them more effectively is essential.

Design stage 4: EXECUTE

The execute phase is made up of three sub-phases:

• Test: When presenting the prototype, it is essential to allow the end users to experience it fully. Through testing, you can determine whether the solution is effective or not.
• Refine: If the testing phase doesn’t yield positive results, it will be necessary to go through another round of iteration to refine the design. After testing, the process can be repeated to improve the solution or move on to the implementation stage if the end-user approves.
• Implement: Once the final solution has been approved, it will be implemented, realized, and communicated. Take pleasure in the eco-design thinking experience and note what you have learned and unlearned throughout the design process. Celebrate any accomplishments and move forward to the next project. Boeing does not execute this design step effectively. Read “We now have more details on what happened with the Alaska Airlines door plug — and how Boeing plans to address quality issues.” It was due to mismanagement, poor culture, and stupidity in the assembly process at Boeing. When National Transportation Safety Board investigators recovered the door plug, they learned four bolts designed to secure it were missing. The Wall Street Journal reported that those bolts weren’t in place when the plane left Boeing’s factory. Two anonymous sources, a Renton mechanic and a former 737 Max production line manager, gave the same description regarding Boeing’s two internal systems, with one source describing the informal log as a place to flag defects and bring more eyes to what the problem is. According to the unnamed sources, the problem with Boeing’s multiple logs is they don’t always talk to each other. Bloomberg reported that the work could be discussed in the informal system but never logged in the official one, meaning nothing would trigger further quality-control inspections on performed actions.

Mismanagement, poor culture, and stupidity could have been avoided by applying the personal disruptive innovation system to develop critical thinking and reduce the mental absence of the assembly workers at Boeing. This is caused by the lack of effective leadership skills of operational managers and a poor HR system focused on corrupt DEI policies instead of focusing on working smarter with a motivated and actively engaged workforce in a learning culture. Boeing’s CEO says the company will reward employees who call out problems with its production processes. This is the proof that Boeing’s culture sucks.

Boeing needs a new culture and HRM system to reduce mental absence due to disengagement.

Mental absenteeism refers to an employee not fully engaged at work due to a mismatch between his personal ambition and the company’s. This can be remedied by helping the employee work brighter, better, and faster with more passion, commitment, and inner involvement. This could have prevented the problem with the bolds at Boeing. I encourage leaders, managers, and employees at Boeing to formulate their personal ambitions and reflect on the match between their personal ambitions and Boeing’s ambition, as shown in this Figure. The managers must communicate their personal ambition to their employees and coach them in this alignment process.

Boeing’s ambition statement entails its mission statement (to connect, protect, explore, and inspire the world through aerospace innovation), vision statement (people working together as a global enterprise for aerospace industry leadership), and core values (Respect one another and advance a global international, diverse team; Apply Lean principles; Impacting society and not the environment; Accountability; Engineering Excellence for a better future; Quality and safety for everyone). This statement is being affected by  Boeing’s corrupt DEI policy. Read “Why DEI Sucks, How to Fix It“.

Your personal ambition statement entails your personal mission, vision, and key roles. By writing it down, you’ll gain insights into your life and acquire self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-regulation, which are the building blocks of authenticity, empathy, trustworthiness, integrity, creativity, imagination, and critical thinking, as described in this article. Your personal ambition statement also serves as the foundation of an innovative, creative, imaginative mindset. The words of Galileo Galilei may also be recalled here—“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.”  Remember, the more you want to be innovative, the more you should develop self-knowledge. Read “How Mindful Meditation Boosts Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.” You can click on this link to view my personal ambition statement. Elon Musk’s vision is to create an inspiring and appealing future for humanity. The thing that drives him is vision. He said, “I think having an inspiring and appealing future is important. There must be reasons you get up in the morning and want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future?”

By unifying Boeing’s ambition with the employee’s ambition, you will create a strong foundation of peace, integrity, engagement, and learning upon which creativity and growth can flourish, and life within Boeing will become a more harmonious experience. It’s about getting the optimal fit and balance between these two activities to enhance productivity, create a climate of trust, and stimulate the organization’s engagement, commitment, integrity, and passion. This process is needed because staff members don’t work passionately or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. If there is an effective match between their interests and those of Boeing, and if their values and Boeing’s values align, they will be engaged. They will work with more outstanding commitment and dedication toward realizing Boeing’s objectives. When the personnel’s personal ambition is in harmony with Boeing’s (are compatible) and combined in the best interest of both parties, the results will be higher productivity and better quality. Employees are stimulated to commit, act ethically, and focus on those activities that create customer value.

I recommend introducing an ambition meeting between leaders/managers and their employees to build a sustainable learning culture at Boeing. The ambition meeting is a periodical, informal, voluntary, and confidential meeting of half an hour between the parties, aligning the employee’s personal ambition with the shared Boeing ambition as topics and aligning the employee’s ambition with his/her behavior. It is recommended to be held structurally at least once every two months. The outcome of these informal meetings should be highly confidential and kept out of the personnel file. The leader/manager plays a crucial role in this process. He/she should be a trusted person, coach, mentor, and role model. One needs a confidential, informal, and friendly atmosphere of trust and open communication to talk about the individual’s personal ambition.

A study by Towers Perrin found that instead of matching the right employee to the correct position for long-term success, most US companies and human resource departments emphasize simply filling the job as quickly as possible. As a result, American businesses are losing money as fast as they lose employees. They do not understand that their employees do not work passionately or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. They do not know that clarity and uniformity of personal and organizational values and principles are essential for the active involvement of their employees. Getting the optimal fit between personal and corporate ambition has become necessary to enhance workforce productivity and product quality, and stimulate creativity, learning, engagement, commitment, and passion.

Boeing’s struggles may persist because the company is not learning and is not addressing the root causes of its problems and instead is only treating the symptoms. This approach may not be effective in the long run, and the company may continue to face challenges as a result. Hopefully the company will focus on “Building a Purpose-Driven and Design-Driven Culture“. 

These “10 Ways to Kill Creativity, Sustainability, and Innovation” apply to Boeing.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D. 

If you’re interested in gaining more knowledge about this subject, you may want to consider attending his Orlando-Tampa Live Events:

Building a Purpose-Driven and Design-Driven Culture in Tech Companies

“How Sustainability and Generative AI Fuel Design Innovation.”

Purpose-Driven and Human-Centered AI

Cultivating Authenticity, Integrity, Empathy, and Critical Thinking in the Age of AI.

How to Measure and Fix DEI

We also offer the Certified Authentic Leadership Coaching program. This program is appropriate for leaders, managers, and professionals who wish to strengthen their critical thinking skills, drive their purpose and human-centeredness, and coach their employees and team members to realize the same.

You may also want to consider becoming a Certified ECO-DEI Practitioner.

Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., founded the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered and Purpose-Driven AI Innovation in Orlando. He is a Dutch-American visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, human-centered and purpose-driven AI, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a senior design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm“.

   

Orlando, Florida |  tpsi@live.com |  Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116