Word: lessons
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...made in a completely new system, has also remade Boeing. The top-down, we-know-everything assembler had to evolve into a more cooperative, power-sharing systems integrator. Opening its eyes and ears to client partners is one lesson that Boeing (now based in Chicago) has learned. And it wasn't an easy one. Not long ago, the company was under fire for losing ground to Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, the competitor that had just primed its ascendancy by investing $10 billion in a modern-day Spruce Goose, the 555-seat A380. In 2003 a paper by two professors...
Clearly, Boeing learned by asking. "They went out there and had to come up with a winner," says Ray Neidl, U.S. director of Calyon Securities. "That aircraft would have to be a mainstay in the international, wide-bodied, long-distance competition for years to come." The lesson was kicked off by Airbus' announcement of the giant A380 in 2000, when it was still called the A3XX program. Boeing initially parried with plans for the Sonic Cruiser, to travel nearly the speed of sound, or 20% faster than the Mach 0.85 of conventional jets. "It would have been great for North...
...airplane, going to a more standard aircraft and having the ability to switch engine manufacturers," says Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing. The payoff: higher residual value of the airplane. Aboulafia says getting that kind of endorsement probably took a lot of hand holding and diplomacy, but the lesson is to get out there with the best business case you can offer: "Any doubts that the partners have are gone, of course, because this is the most successful launch in the history of any aircraft...
...there is a lesson to be learned from the disgrace of Alberto Gonzales, it is that placing loyalty above judgment can be a hazardous thing. When newly elected Texas Governor George W. Bush pulled Gonzales from a Houston law firm in 1994 to make him general counsel, the future President was looking for a legal bodyguard. He got one who would protect his interests for the next 13 years. In 1996, Gonzales helped get Bush excused from the jury in a drunk-driving case that could have forced the Governor to disclose a 1976 DUI arrest. From...
...record can be seen as part of the historic lesson, demonstrated from Nixon onward, that what a President really needs is not a fixer but a true legal counselor. Gonzales' excessive loyalty has led to congressional investigations, repeated rebukes by the Supreme Court and showdowns with Congress over the extent of Executive power. Those battles will continue to rage even after Gonzales has returned to Texas and hung his souvenir pictures on the wall...