Boeing: What could possibly go wrong?

For years, one of the huge problems with Boeing was that it was run by people who knew how to build planes. While this "engineering-first" approach produced excellent planes that didn't fall out of the sky, it lacked the soft-skills that professional managers bring to an organisation. Then, about 30 years ago, things started to change. Boeing replaced its management, swapping out old-style engineer managers with MBA-graduate managers who know how to write convincing PowerPoint decks with nifty values statements and purpose statements and mission statements. For a while, it seemed like a genius move. The catch? Boeing's planes started to fall out of the sky. This is the story of how one company decided to embrace the wisdom of management theory, and in doing so became the ultimate case-study in management theory.

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