Boeing’s Culture Crash

Boeing’s culture crashed before the planes did

This is a three part series. It is followed by the nightmare of the 787 Dreamliner and finally the 737 MAX going down.

Before Boeing planes began crashing, their culture did. You can see it all in their logo.

Boeing’s logo was once just BOEING, in a bold, stolid font. In 1997, however, they ‘acquired’ McDonnell Douglass. ‘Acquired’ in the sense that a host acquires a virus. You can see the McDonnell logo crash into Boeing and insert its DNA. Today, Boeing has the McDonnell Douglas logo in front of it. It was symbolic of the cultural lobotomy that was to come.

Harry Stonecipher from McDonnell Douglass effectively took over Boeing

The failing McDonnell inserted their CEO, Henry Stonecipher, as Boeing’s President and eventual CEO. He took an axe to Boeing’s company culture.

As Stonecipher said:

“When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so that it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm,” he…