From what I understand, a big part of what’s happening with Boeing, is that Boeing is run by Business person who want to maximize return of stock-owner rather than by people wanting to make a good product. The gained flexibility/nicer budget from massive sub-contracting led to “loss of knowledge”, and cutting-down quality control steps which “never catch anything” led to issue being missed-out.
Do you think that MBA program will take this reality into account ? or would they keep focusing on maximizing short-term profit even if it jeopardize the company’s future ?
I’m a recent MBA grad and I can attest that stuff like this was an important part of the curriculum re: sustainable growth. Cutting corners, focusing on short term profits is always a dead end. When leaders get lazy and don’t drive a culture that is aligned with the company’s mission, values, and obligations, decay is inevitable. The Boeing board of directors is as complicit in all of this as their executives are.
I don’t necessarily believe you have to have deep expertise in a given field to govern a business in said field. Often it’s even an advantage to come in with a fresh set of eyes. But you need to at least RESPECT that field and its experts and be forthright about taking responsibility when you take action intended to eliminate waste. If the only metric you are using is revenue, or operating profit, or whatever, you are creating an organization that is incentivized to maximize those at the expense of other, core-business-critical factors. If you’re making something inconsequential, by all means take those risks and race to the bottom. But when people’s lives are at stake, you need to have reverence for what your business actually does.
It’s a natural thing that occurs when your pay is based on stocks that respond heavily to quarterly results. Stay in for 2 - 3 years, drive stock prices up, get out, and leave the mess for the next leadership team.
You can’t educate your way out of the logic of capitalism. These folks are optimizing return on investment, not human utility. The system is working as intended, why would they change it?
Yes it will be a case study.
In the required (but generally ignored) Business Ethics 101 course, lol
hahahahahahaahahaha
no
Edit: Rather than being full snark (it was a genuinely funny question though), I’ll give a more thoughtful answer. The reason the answer is no, is because MBAs tend to attract narcissistic sociopaths. And the first thing they do in this situation, is blame someone else, not the degree, but the specific person.
“If only he was a better MBA he would have kept the company focused on its core values”. That sort of thing.
The thing a degree that’s held by the majority of Narcissists and Sociopaths in the world absolutely won’t do, is inflect.
This is a very uninformed response that seems to be based on nothing more than “I don’t like business people.”
This was literally an “Ask Lemmy” question, which pulls on individual personal experience for responses, so I’m not sure what else you would have been expecting.
I work with MBAs all day every day. Nonstop. They’re the vast majority of my touchpoints as a lifelong software engineer/DBA that manages several teams. I’ve been in the industry for 25+ years and have worked for multiple large (enterprise tier) medium, and small (startup) companies across multiple states including owning my own consulting company and interfaced directly with C-types that held nothing but MBAs.
So, not uninformed, but it is anecdotal. In the sense that this matches my life experience for 25+ years of working closely with MBA types on hundreds of projects during that time. Someone else might have different experiences. But I’m here answering their question so I’m going to talk about my experiences.
There’s plenty of MBA holders that are pragmatic and “normal”. However, at the top level, MBAs either attract, or turn people into narcissistic sociopaths, because the majority of narcissistic sociopaths I know and have worked with, hold MBAs.
Take from that what you will.
Absolutely not.
If they learn anything from this, it will be to better find the boundaries of what kind of grift they can or can’t get away with. The criminals will get smarter and barely a slap on the wrist. Worst case scenario, an entirely new flock of shitbirds will replace them and keep doing the same or worse.
As long as no one at the top goes to jail or completely personally bankrupt, there is 0 incentive for the system to change in the slightest.
You’ve got the wrong idea about what the shareholders prioritize. They got sued by the shareholders for lying about being committed to safety and instead maximizing short term profits.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/boeing-is-sued-by-shareholders-following-max-9-blowout-2024-01-31/
TIL, thanks
