Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun Expresses Regret Over Criticisms of Leadership and Predecessor
March 07 2020 - 6:10PM
Dow Jones News
By Alison Sider and Andrew Tangel
Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told executives that he
regretted voicing criticisms of the company's leadership and former
CEO in an interview with the New York Times this past week.
Mr. Calhoun, who started as CEO in January, is dealing with the
fallout of his candid assessment of Boeing's problems, telling
executives they have his support despite sometimes harsh comments
published in the article.
"I am both embarrassed and regretful about the article," Mr.
Calhoun wrote in a message addressed to Boeing senior leaders,
reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "It suggests I broke my
promise to former CEO Dennis Muilenburg, the executive team and our
people that I would have their back when it counted most. I want to
reassure you that my promise remains intact."
Mr. Calhoun, who served on Boeing's board about a decade before
being appointed CEO, had vowed to make a fresh start for the
beleaguered company. He has said he planned to focus on rebuilding
trust in the company and being more transparent.
Boeing has been in crisis since two of its 737 MAX planes
crashed within a five-month period, killing 346 people. The MAX has
been grounded world-wide since last March and Boeing had to shut
down production of the plane earlier this year. The crashes have
drawn scrutiny of the plane maker's engineering culture, and
damaged the company's relationships with suppliers, customers, and
regulators.
In a preliminary report released Friday, House investigators
said production pressures, faulty assumptions, and a "culture of
concealment, " combined with insufficient federal safety oversight,
led to the two crashes. Separately, in Boeing's latest reported
production lapse, the FAA on Friday proposed a $19.7 million
penalty against the company for installing unapproved sensors on
hundreds of planes, including some MAX jets. A Boeing spokesman
said the company has done a thorough internal review and
implemented changes to address the FAA's concerns.
Mr. Calhoun told the New York Times that the challenges he is
facing are more than he'd anticipated, according to the March 5
article.
"And it speaks to the weaknesses of our leadership," he
said.
He said his predecessor, Mr. Muilenburg, may have increased
production of the 737 MAX too quickly at the expense of quality.
Mr. Calhoun suggested that Mr. Muilenburg had been chasing a higher
share price, according to the article.
"I'll never be able to judge what motivated Dennis, whether it
was a stock price that was going to continue to go up and up, or
whether it was just beating the other guy to the next rate
increase," Mr. Calhoun said, adding that the board had trusted Mr.
Muilenburg and his proven record of taking risks that had paid
off.
Mr. Muilenburg couldn't be reached for comment.
Mr. Calhoun publicly expressed support for Mr. Muilenburg in the
months leading up to his removal in December, but the board
eventually became frustrated with Mr. Muilenburg's overly
optimistic projections and convinced that he had mismanaged the
company's relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration,
potentially complicating the plane's return to service, people
familiar with the matter have said.
Mr. Calhoun had become more engaged in managing the company
after being made chairman in October, when the board stripped Mr.
Muilenburg of that role, but has sought to draw a clean break from
the company's past missteps.
"I watched the same movie you did -- I think I was in the
front-row seat, and I might come to exactly the same conclusions
you do," Mr. Calhoun said in a call with reporters in January. "My
leadership role here at Boeing is intended to make changes that
correct a lot of those situations."
A Boeing spokesman said Mr. Calhoun wanted to provide Boeing
executives with more context about what he had said in the
interview.
"It is important to Dave that his teammates have a full
understanding of his views and the context they were given in," a
Boeing spokesman said. "And like many interviews, not everything
makes it into the story, and Dave wanted to share some of the
points he made about the good work of our team and the strength of
our portfolio of products and services."
In the message Friday, Mr. Calhoun said that he had wanted to
speak candidly about the company's challenges, but hadn't intended
to undermine its current leadership team. He said that he was
invested in Mr. Muilenburg's success, and that the disappointments
he discussed in the interview mostly related to the company's
failure to return the plane to service going into the fourth
quarter.
"Now is not the time to look behind us. I regret doing it. Now
is the time to look forward and build on our foundation," he
wrote.
Mr. Calhoun said he maintained his commitment to being more
transparent.
"I have said that transparency is a messy process but worth it
in the end, and I still believe it."
Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel
at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 07, 2020 17:55 ET (22:55 GMT)
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