What is the cost of a High Reliability Organization losing its way? One of the world’s most respected companies continues a troubling and potentially fatal downward spiral. Boeing, which turned it’s back on it’s multi-decade HRO culture (see here) in 1999 is once again making headlines that put a huge spotlight on crippling internal issues.
While the grounding of the 737Max late last year has lead to a steady drip of problems, issues, and crises that are making headlines, these are just the results of changes that took place in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. A series of poor leaders, bad leadership decisions, and an emphasis on money rather than what had lead to nearly 100 years of success set the stage for the slow speed derailment of a corporate titan.
No one on the outside looking in need to imagine what was going on and how this culture was failing, we can find it in the employee’s own voices. The more than 100 pages of internal communication provide haunting, troubling insight into the problems, efforts and most importantly, fears of the employees.
