During a call with analysts and investors, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was asked, “How do you change the culture as a big organization?” He responded that it was a tough question. The Boeing workforce was demoralized due to media attention to text messages and emails saying that employees joked about safety, bragged about deceiving safety regulators, and described the flawed 737 MAX aircraft as follows: “This airplane [the 737 MAX] is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.” It is a bad look. The failure of Boeing’s 737 Max Aircraft model resulted in the tragic deaths of 346 people in two crashes. For Boeing, this triggered significant financial losses in the billions of dollars, plus at least $1.2 million for the families of each crash victim. Industry experts are calling for an examination of Boeing’s company culture. The company’s safety-first culture started shifting to profit maximization after Boeing bought their rival, McDonnell Douglas, in 1997 and worsened in the last decade, according to Cynthia Cole, who worked for Boeing as an engineer for 32 years. Carnegie Mellon University professor Brandy Aven says, “There’s often tension between ensuring safety and increasing profits, but when times are good, [employees] can feel enormous pressure to stay quiet about safety concerns.” This resulted in a toxic culture at Boeing, where employees who voiced safety concerns were not heard, according to Cole.....

Discussion Questions

1. Do some additional research and explain why cultures change when one acquires another company, as was the case with Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. How did this affect the culture at Boeing?

2. Explain why employees at Boeing did not speak out about safety concerns with the 737 MAX. Why does this result in a toxic organizational culture?

3. Evaluate the steps proposed to change the culture at Boeing—integrity, excellence, and safety. Do you feel this will succeed? What else should the company be doing to change the culture, if anything?