Boeing is in bad shape as a company. Mostly this is due to their management and workforce practices, but the problems run much deeper.
First the workforce issues. Like all aerospace companies Boeing has a problem with an aging workforce. But the way they handle it is incredible. Instead of trying to pair off younger and older workers to transfer knowledge and experience, or to have subject matter experts teach or give seminars to help the younger employees, their answer is to force the older workers into retirement or layoff and hire college graduates but give them no direction. And the almost religious belief of management is that all they need to do is write better processes. The result is massive amounts of critical knowledge flying out of the door while at the same time young employees are floundering. The defense side has lost so much capability that they can hardly execute on existing programs to say nothing of winning new work. In five years time, Boeing Defense Systems will likely be unable to execute even the most basic efforts.
Second is the management practices. Like all large companies, Boeing prides itself on saying all the right things. Ethics, Safety, Diversity, Execution, Innovation are all words that spill from senior management mouths every time they talk. But that's all it is; talk. Boeing encourages deceptive and unethical management practices, not through its words, but through it actions. The micro management pressure brought down on lower level managers is intense. As such, they quickly learn that the way to survive is to ONLY say what the upper levels want to hear. After a while this "selective disclosure" becomes second nature. Those that do it best, and those that learn to deflect any bad news to some other manager, quickly get promoted. At each level the problem gets worse. By the time a manager makes Executive level they are almost physically incapable of telling the truth. Everything that comes out of a Boeing Executive's mouth has been filtered to such an extent that none of it can be believed. And the worst part is the Executives don't even seem to realize that it's happening. Or they are just so accomplished that they hide it well. As an employee at Boeing you cannot believe a single word which come out of a Manager's mouth. It's sad but true. A manager will lie to an Engineer with a straight face and zero remorse. They will tell you things that they know to be untrue, and they will throw you to the wolves to advance their career. They cannot be trusted.
