How do you personally feel about the continuity of management at Boeing during these difficult times? Should some heads have rolled? What criteria would you use in your judgment of whether to roll heads or not?

Management shake-ups during adversity can range from practically none to widespread head-rolling. In the first scenario, a cooperative board is usually necessary, and it helps if the top executive(s) controls a lot of stock. But the company’s problems will probably continue. In the second scenario, at the extreme, wielding a mean axe with excessive worker and management layoffs can wreck havoc on a company’s morale and longer-term prospects.
In general, neither extreme—complacency or upheaval—is good. A sick company usually needs drastic changes, but not necessarily widespread bloodletting that leaves the entire organization cringing and sending out résumés. But we need to further define sick. At what point is a company so bad off it needs a drastic overhaul? Was Boeing such a sick company? Would a drastic overhaul have quickly changed things? Certainly Boeing management had made some miscalculations, mostly in the area of too much optimism and too much complacency, but these were finally recognized.
Major competitor Airbus was finally aggressively attacking, and that certainly had something to do with Boeing’s problems. Major executive changes and resignations might not have helped.