Describe a common story in your organization and discuss
its implications on the organization. Does this story promote the goals and
ideals of the organization? Does it help describe "who we are and what we
stand for?" What is the story's impact on the culture of the organization?
I work for Boeing Commercial Airplanes and
we have many, many stories in our organization. This year we are celebrating
100 years in business. One. Hundred. Years. Think about that for a minute. 1916
– 2016. The world is a completely different place and a lot of that has to do
with technological advances and a lot of those advances came from engineers and
techs working at Boeing…or McDonnell-Douglas...people working in aerospace. This
anniversary has opened up the vaults containing generations of stories about
Boeing – from its infancy, through the “space race,” and continuing on through
today and what the future (or the next 100 years) will look like for Boeing. I’m
not going to pretend like it’s not a completely exciting time to be working for
this company!
To pin-point one major story that resonates
across all major business units (MBU) at Boeing, it would have to be a story of
legacy. The legacy that the current generation of employees has been left and
the legacy that we will leave. Recently, Boeing paired with the Museum of Flight
and the Discovery Channel to present a five episode series called, “The Age of
Aerospace.” This was not only Boeing’s story but the story of American
aviation. “Stories excite the imagination of the listener and create
consecutive states of tension…and tension release. Thus, the listener is not a
passive receiver of information but is triggered into a state of active
thinking.” (Denning, 2011) It was very inspiring and made me very proud to be
part of this organization.
When the series aired, I was working in
fabrication and we worked primarily with raw materials building wing
structures. It was easy to forget that what we did actually helped build
airplanes…and pretty awesome airplanes at that. Now that I work in Final
Assembly and there are always several 787 Dreamliners in the factory at any
given time, I sometimes take time to go up to the third or fourth floor
balconies and just watch the activity for a few minutes. I get to eat my lunch
while these majestic airplanes are being assembled not even 50 feet away from
me. This is part of the legacy that the Boeing stories talk about. This
communing with the noises and movements of the factory is the thread that binds
us all together, from Everett, WA to Charleston, SC and all over the globe. It’s
pretty amazing when I stop and think about it. “Communication takes place in
the mind of the other person, not in yours.” (Whalen, 2007) Whatever our predecessors
wanted us to glean from their stories, we, the listeners and receivers, put it
into terms that apply to us now. Just as our stories will take on different
meanings to the generation after us. That’s how it is in business and in life. The stories of an organization always start and end with the people of that organization. Boeing is no different.
Resources:
Denning, S. (2011). The Leader's Guide to
Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Whalen, J. D. (2007). The Professional
Communications Toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
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