A633.3.4.RB -
Complexity Science
Reflect on your own
organizations strategy and how it has evolved over time. Discussing each stage
of development and how feedback and strategy formulation have evolved. Consider
the next stages in your company's evolution and describe what it will look like
in 10 years and where will you be?
I have been thinking a lot about organizational evolution
this week…not only because of this week’s readings but also because it is
Boeing’s 100th anniversary this year. I have been thinking about how
this organization has evolved over those years, some of it intentional (Bill Boeing wanted to build airplanes), some of it reactive (World War II and the
Space Race of the Cold War), and some of it was just pure genius (Joe Sutter –
father of the 747). The stages of development: metaphor, Taoism, management theory,
feedback, and strategy development all played a part in making the company what
it is today – for better or worse.
Boeing has a hierarchy in place that, over time, has
perpetuated the metaphor of the “Lazy B” or the idea that when someone gets
hired into Boeing that they won’t have to work hard for premium pay anymore.
Since I was a child during the development of this hierarchy and metaphor building,
I can’t comment on how it came to be. But now that I’m an adult and have been
with this organization for a few years, I can see that while the desire to
evolve is there…the hierarchy is so ingrained that no matter how many levels of
management are “flattened” to reduce the bureaucracy or how many posters
telling us “People First” – the culture will not change. The current culture at
my organization has been created over 100 years, many wars, national tragedies,
and the inevitable changes that come with time. Ultimately though, in 2016, it
is still largely a “good ol’ boys club.” I’m not saying that out of bitterness
or malice...it’s just a matter of fact. And the fact is that 100 years of a
culture does not change over-night. Sometimes I wish that the CEO or VP of
Boeing would go on Undercover Bosses. I wish they could see and experience how
hard most of the people work to meet increasingly ridiculous deadlines without
risking their personal safety. I think they would discover that most people
take a lot of pride in what they do.
Taoism is the balancing of the old with the new. Obolensky
explains that, “At each stage that which is useful is kept and that which is
not is discarded. That is different from a revolutionary process where at each
stage there is an ‘overthrow’.” (Obolensky, 2015) In my organization, I can see
bits and pieces of that with the implementation of the Lean practices, Theory
of Constraints, and Employee Involvement teams. It’s not a total overthrow of a
process or team, but it is more of a reimaging. It seems to me that we can’t
continue to do business tomorrow exactly as it was done yesterday…or even
today. That doesn’t mean everything that isn’t a new process or idea is bad.
Part of Boeing’s Taoism is that 100 year old culture of how business has been
done…that history from which we can keep the good and effective and learn from
the bad and useless.
Management theory is where I think Boeing has a lot of
opportunities for improvement. I talked about how the company, at its core, is
still a patriarchal organization. When I step back though, I can see that the
more senior leaders and superintendents are being exposed to more and more
evolutionary management theories – I hate to use the buzzword empowerment but I
can see where Boeing really does want to evolve to be competitive in the future
and that it knows its biggest and best chance at that is by hiring people who
are willing to rock the boat and have new ideas. Their greatest resource and
asset is their people. There is a large roadblock between senior leadership and
the first line managers; and I’m not totally sure who built it. These managers
are over worked, underestimated, and micromanaged by metrics that are
unrealistic and have nothing to do with the actual work. They need to have some
reigns loosened, some real management development classes, and the opportunity
to actually work with their teams instead of just babysitting adults. (I
actually asked a new manager once what they learned in their three week manager’s
class and he said simply, “How to stay out of HR.”) I sit in a daily meeting
with at least seven first line managers who are all there to report their attendance,
daily commits, and help needs. This meeting is supposed to be 45 minutes long.
It regularly starts between 10-15 minutes late and goes on for at least an hour
– but usually longer. 90% of the information they exchange could either be entered
themselves in a shared document or at the very
least, e-mailed to the senior manager prior to the meeting. This meeting should
be 30 minutes and should ONLY be for the help needs. I think it is valuable for
the managers to all see each other face-to-face at least once a day…build those
relationships and networks. But to sit there for what seems to be an eternity
for their five minutes of information seems like a serious waste of their time
and talents. The first line managers should be at this meeting letting senior
management know what roadblocks they need help with. Senior management should take
those action items and then come to the support departments for the data they
need. It is mindboggling how much time I spend on Pinterest when I’m in that
meeting. I’m not proud of that and I do pay attention when my team is being
discussed but really…most of the meeting is talking about last night’s football
game or their personal golf game. I feel like I’m digressing from the point but
if Boeing wants to have a diverse (not just culturally but intellectually)
workforce and management team then they really need to give them the tools and
the training…and trust them.
Feedback. Every year, Boeing does an employee survey. We all
log on anonymously to a website and answer questions honestly. These surveys
are tallied and then shared with the management teams who then devote an entire
staff meeting to going over the results specific to their teams. There are
action items and Kaizen newspapers that come out of these meetings and we’re all
super enthusiastic about it for a couple weeks until something new and urgent
comes and bumps this opportunity for growth and development until the next
year. Personally, I do not hold back when I’m answering questions and definitely
give them my opinion…and possible solutions that I’ve thought about a lot. I
honestly have no idea what really happens up at the top of the leadership
chain. Maybe they all take turns reading the especially juicy feedback comments
and laugh about how meaningless us workers are all while toasting to themselves
with 18 year old scotch and patting each other on the back. (I know that seems
ridiculous…that probably isn’t the scenario and I’ve probably watched too much
Mad Men…but one never knows…)
Strategy development – this is something I struggle with
because after looking on the Boeing website last week and seeing that their
strategies actually incited more questions than anything else makes me
concerned. How do we move forward in this highly innovative industry in a meaningful
and competitive way if we aren’t even clear on what a strategy actually is? “The
extent to which the strategy is clear across the organization is often a
headache for many top executives. Clarity means that everyone in the
organization understands the overall big picture strategy and how they fit
within it.” (Obolensky, 2015) Each year we have our Performance Management (PM)
reviews. The points that we are reviewed on are supposed to be things that
align with the organization’s BG&O’s (Boeing Goals and Objectives – or some
such). So the attributes and performance that we review with our managers is
arbitrary and isn’t meaningful because our managers don’t understand the
BG&Os, they’ve just copy and pasted them into the right section, and we don’t
understand how our jobs impact these BG&Os because our questions for clarification
are met with either apathy or equally confusing politically correct answers. I
would love to know how my job directly impacts the Boeing strategy. I basically
make charts and monitor schedules so that we stay on schedule and each area
gets their kits on time. I can make an educated guess about this impacting the overall
Boeing strategy but it isn’t what my PM document looks like. There is a
disconnect that can be repaired but I
think part of that strategy development needs to start with the management
theory strategy and how that should look and work.
In the next 40 years, I think that Boeing will have to
downsize in some areas but grow in others. The strategy might be to move
critical personnel to the more lucrative legacy programs like the 737 and
possibly the military aspects of the 767 and relocate the displaced over to the
newer technology found in 787 family and satellite/space programs. I know that
there have been plans and even models built for a gigantic fused wing airplane
that Boeing once thought to be the future of aviation…a virtual flying city…but I think that
the vision for the future needs to be smaller in scale, larger in sustainable
sourcing of materials, lighter, faster, and better production, performance, and
customer service. The Boeing of 2056 is still an industry leader but maybe not
as arrogant…maybe just leaner and stronger. The hierarchy of the 1900’s will
need to go away and as the generational changes happen, I think the natural
evolution of business and leadership will happen. I don’t want to
discredit the backs upon which the future Boeing will be built upon because
they are strong and proud backs, but we have to learn from them and base the future
off of what works as well as taking some risks.
This post is super long, I’m
sorry about that…but I am truly passionate about the future of this company. I
am equally excited and terrified of ever being part of the management team at Boeing
because I see so many people beaten down…so many people who started out so full
of hope and optimism end up angry and disillusioned. I don’t want that to
happen to me…but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to face it head to head
either. But, that's a big reason why I'm in this degree field; to be part of the solution. (Besides…40 years from now I’ll be 82…and I hope to all the higher
powers I will still be alive and flying on Boeing jets to exotic locations in
my retirement!)
References:
Obolensky, N. (2015). Complex Adaptive Leadership. Farnham,
Surrey, England: Gower Publishing Limited.
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