[閒聊] 早被遺忘的那班使波音偏離航線的航班

[prussian (prussian)]

  ※警語: 以下為不專業翻譯

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/

The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course
A company once driven by engineers became driven by finance.

早被遺忘的那班使波音偏離航線的航班
曾經由工程師驅動的公司現在變成財務導向

NOVEMBER 20, 2019
2019/11/20

The flight that put the Boeing Company on course for disaster lifted
off a few hours after sunrise. It was good flying weather-temperatures
in the mid-40s with a slight breeze out of the southeast-but oddly, no
one knew where the 737 jetliner was headed. The crew had prepared
three flight plans: one to Denver. One to Dallas. And one to Chicago.

這班將波音帶向災難的航班在日出後幾小時起飛。天候狀況適合飛行 - 氣溫四
十幾度，微東南風 - 但奇怪地是，沒人知道這架737要飛往何方。組員有三份飛
行計劃: 丹佛、達拉斯，和一份飛往芝加哥的。

In the plane's trailing vortices was greater Seattle, where the
company's famed engineering culture had taken root; where the bulk of
its 40,000-plus engineers lived and worked; indeed, where the jet
itself had been assembled. But it was May 2001. And Boeing's leaders,
CEO Phil Condit and President Harry Stonecipher, had decided it was
time to put some distance between themselves and the people actually
making the company's planes. How much distance? This flight-a PR stunt
to end the two-month contest for Boeing's new headquarters-would
reveal the answer. Once the plane was airborne, Boeing announced it
would be landing at Chicago's Midway International Airport.

留在這飛機尾流裡的，是大西雅圖地區，這公司著名工程文化的發源地；四萬多
名工程師工作和生活的地方；事實上也是這架飛機組裝的地方。但那時是2001年
5月。波音領導者 CEO Phil Condit 和 董事長 Harry Stonecipher 決定是時候
在他們和實際製造這些飛機的人之間拉開些距離。多少距離? 航班 - 一場結束
兩個月來波音新總部地點爭奪戰的公關噱頭 - 將揭曉答案。飛機升空之後，波
音宣布它將會降落在芝加哥的中途國際機場。

On the tarmac, Condit stepped out of the jet, made a brief speech,
then boarded a helicopter for an aerial tour of Boeing's new corporate
home: the Morton Salt building, a skyscraper sitting just out of the
Loop in downtown Chicago. Boeing's top management plus staff-roughly
500 people in all-would work here. They could see the boats plying the
Chicago River and the trains rumbling over it. Condit, an opera lover,
would have an easy walk to the Lyric Opera building. But the nearest
Boeing commercial-airplane assembly facility would be 1,700 miles
away.

Condit 步出機艙，在柏油道面上發表了簡短的演講，然後登上一架直昇機，來
上一場波音新總部的空中導覽: Morton Salt 大樓，就在芝加哥市中心 Loop 旁
。波音的高層和員工，總數大約500人，將會在這工作。他們可以看到芝加哥河
上往返的船和河上隆隆的火車。歌劇愛好者 Condit 可以輕鬆地走到 Lyric
Opera building。但最近的波音客機組裝廠在1700哩外。

The isolation was deliberate. "When the headquarters is located in
proximity to a principal business-as ours was in Seattle-the corporate
center is inevitably drawn into day-to-day business operations,"
Condit explained at the time. And that statement, more than anything,
captures a cardinal truth about the aerospace giant. The present 737
Max disaster can be traced back two decades-to the moment Boeing's
leadership decided to divorce itself from the firm's own culture.

分離是故意的。「當總部離本業太近- 我們的在西雅圖- 企業中心不可避免地會
被拖進日常營運業務中。」Condit 當時解釋道。這份聲明最重要的是，呈現了
這家航太巨擘的根本事實。當下 737 MAX 的災難可追溯回20年前，波音領導層
決定和這家企業自身文化脫節之時。

For about 80 years, Boeing basically functioned as an association of
engineers. Its executives held patents, designed wings, spoke the
language of engineering and safety as a mother tongue. Finance wasn't
a primary language. Even Boeing's bean counters didn't act the part.
As late as the mid-'90s, the company's chief financial officer had
minimal contact with Wall Street and answered colleagues' requests for
basic financial data with a curt "Tell them not to worry."

80 幾年來，波音基本上以工程師協會的方式運作著。高層擁有專利，設計機翼
，工程和安全是他們的母語。財務不是主要語言。就連會計也不這麼運作。一直
到90年代晚期，公司的財務長和華爾街只有少少的聯繫，並且對同事要求的基本
財務數字，也只是以「叫他們別擔心」的口吻回答。

By the time I visited the company-for Fortune, in 2000-that had begun
to change. In Condit's office, overlooking Boeing Field, were 54 white
roses to celebrate the day's closing stock price. The shift had
started three years earlier, with Boeing's "reverse takeover" of
McDonnell Douglas-so-called because it was McDonnell executives who
perversely ended up in charge of the combined entity, and it was
McDonnell's culture that became ascendant. "McDonnell Douglas bought
Boeing with Boeing's money," went the joke around Seattle. Condit was
still in charge, yes, and told me to ignore the talk that somebody had
"captured" him and was holding him "hostage" in his own office. But
Stonecipher was cutting a Dick Cheney–like figure, blasting the
company's engineers as "arrogant" and spouting Harry Trumanisms ("I
don't give 'em hell; I just tell the truth and they think it's hell")
when they shot back that he was the problem.

當我2000年代表財富雜誌到訪時，這家公司已開始改變。在Condit 俯瞰波音機
場的辦公室裡，54朵白玫瑰慶祝著當天的收盤價。轉變在三年前波音的「逆向收
購」麥道時就已開始。這麼說是因為最終麥道的主管主導了合併後的實體，而麥
道的文化興起。當時西雅圖流傳著「麥道用波音的錢買了波音」的笑話。Condit
叫我別理會那些關於他被俘虜並關在自己辦公室當人質的說法。但當
Stonecipher 正在削減錢尼一般臃腫的身形，並大肆抨擊工程師傲慢與吹捧杜魯
門主義(“我沒有帶來地獄，我只是說了事實而他們認為那就是地獄”)時，他們
說他才是問題。

McDonnell's stock price had risen fourfold under Stonecipher as he
went on a cost-cutting tear, but many analysts feared that this came
at the cost of the company's future competitiveness. "There was a
little surprise that a guy running a failing company ended up with so
much power," the former Boeing executive vice president Dick Albrecht
told me at the time. Post-merger, Stonecipher brought his chain saw to
Seattle. "A passion for affordability" became one of the company's
new, unloved slogans, as did "Less family, more team." It was enough
to drive the white-collar engineering union, which had historically
functioned as a professional debating society, into acting more like
organized labor. "We weren't fighting against Boeing," one union
leader told me of the 40-day strike that shut down production in 2000.
"We were fighting to save Boeing."

麥道的股價自從 Stonecipher 開始削減成本之後上漲了四倍，但許多分析師認
為這恐怕是以未來的競爭力作為代價。一個營運下滑中公司的人最終擁有了這麼
大的權力，讓人驚訝。前波音執行副總 Dick Albrecht 當時這麼告訴我。合併
之後，Stonecipher 帶著他的鏈鋸來到西雅圖。這家公司最新的顧人怨口號是「
對於可負擔性的熱情」。「少點家庭，多點團隊」也是。這足以把先前作為專業
辯論社群的白領職業工會，轉變為組織勞工。「我們不是在和波音對抗。我們在
拯救波音。」一個工會負責人這麼對我形容2000年那場讓波音停工40天的罷工。

Engineers were all too happy to share such views with executives,
which made for plenty of awkward encounters in the still-smallish city
that was Seattle in the '90s. It was, top brass felt, an undue amount
of contact for executives of a modern, diversified corporation.

工程師們對於無法與高管們分享這樣的觀點感到不快，這使得在90年代仍是一個
小城市的西雅圖發生了許多尷尬的遭遇。 對於一家現代化，多元化企業的高管
來說，這些尷尬遭遇太多了。

One of the most successful engineering cultures of all time was
quickly giving way to the McDonnell mind-set. Another McDonnell
executive had recently been elevated to chief financial officer. ("A
further indication of who in the hell was controlling this company," a
union leader told me.) That, in turn, contributed to the company's
extraordinary decision to move its headquarters to Chicago, where it
strangely remains-in the historical capital of printing, Pullman cars,
and meatpacking-to this day.

史上最成功的工程文化之一很快就讓道給了麥道思維。另一個麥道高層被提拔為
首席財務長。(更明白顯示到底誰掌控了這家公司。一個工會領導者這麼告訴我
。) 由此又更突顯了這家公司將總部搬到芝加哥的反常決定。它反常地留在這個
印刷、火車臥舖車廂、和肉品加工之都，直到今日。

If Andrew Carnegie's advice-"Put all your eggs in one basket, and then
watch that basket"-had guided Boeing before, these decisions
accomplished roughly the opposite. The company would put its eggs in
three baskets: military in St. Louis. Space in Long Beach. Passenger
jets in Seattle. And it would watch that basket from Chicago. Never
mind that the majority of its revenues and real estate were and are in
basket three. Or that Boeing's managers would now have the added
challenge of flying all this blind-or by instrument, as it
were-relying on remote readouts of the situation in Chicago instead of
eyeballing it directly (as good pilots are incidentally trained to
do). The goal was to change Boeing's culture.

如果卡內基的銘言「將蛋放在一個籃子裡，並看好它」指引過波音，這個決策作
的差不多是相反的事。這家公司把蛋放在三個籃子裡: 軍武在聖路易斯，太空在
長灘。客機在西雅圖。而它將從芝加哥看著他們 。別在意它主要的營收和地產
都在三號籃，否則波音經理人的盲目飛行-或說是儀器飛行，因為它將依靠在芝
加哥看到的讀數，而不是現場親眼所見，就像好飛行員被訓練的那樣-又會增加
更多挑戰。目標是改變波音的文化。

And in that, Condit and Stonecipher clearly succeeded. In the next
four years, Boeing's detail-oriented, conservative culture became
embroiled in a series of scandals. Its rocket division was found to be
in possession of 25,000 pages of stolen Lockheed Martin documents. Its
CFO (ex-McDonnell) was caught violating government procurement laws
and went to jail. With ethics now front and center, Condit was forced
out and replaced with Stonecipher, who promptly affirmed: "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." A General
Electric alum, he built a virtual replica of GE's famed Crotonville
leadership center for Boeing managers to cycle through. And when
Stonecipher had his own career-ending scandal (an affair with an
employee), it was another GE alum-James McNerney-who came in from the
outside to replace him.

而在這方面，Condit 和 Stonecipher 顯然成功了。接下來四年，波音原本注重
細節的保守文化，陷入了一連串的醜聞。它的火箭部門被發現持有25000頁洛馬
失竊的文件。它的財務長(來自前麥道)被抓到違反政府採購法律進了監獄。隨著
道德問題浮上枱面，Condit 被迫下台由 Stonecipher 取代。他很快肯定地說:人
們說我改變了波音的文化。這就是我要的，這樣波音才能像個偉大的企業營運，
而不是個偉大的工程公司。身為一個前 GE 人，他建立了個 GE 克勞頓管理學院
的複製品，好讓波音的經理人可以去上。當 Stonecipher 自己遇上終結他職涯
的那個醜聞(和一位員工有染)時， 另一個前 GE 人James McNerney從外部進來
取代了他。

As the aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia recently told me, "You had
this weird combination of a distant building with a few hundred people
in it and a non-engineer with no technical skills whatsoever at the
helm." Even that might have worked-had the commercial-jet business
stayed in the hands of an experienced engineer steeped in STEM
disciplines. Instead McNerney installed an M.B.A. with a varied
background in sales, marketing, and supply-chain management. Said
Aboulafia, "We were like, ‘What?'''

就像航太分析師 Richard Aboulafia 最近告訴我的，「遙遠的一棟大樓裡幾百
個人和一個非工程師掌舵這家公司，沒有比這更奇怪的組合了」只要客機事務是
掌握在一個有理工素養的老練工程師手上，即使這樣可能也行。相反地，麥肯錫
安排了一個有銷售、行銷、和供應鍊管理經驗的 MBA。Aboulafia 說「我們當時
一臉『三小!??』」

The company that once didn't speak finance was now, at the top, losing
its ability to converse in engineering.

曾經不講財務語言的這家公司，這時從上層開始失去了用工程交談的能力。

It wasn't just technical knowledge that was lost, Aboulafia said. "It
was the ability to comfortably interact with an engineer who in turn
feels comfortable telling you their reservations, versus calling a
manager [more than] 1,500 miles away who you know has a reputation for
wanting to take your pension away. It's a very different dynamic. As a
recipe for disempowering engineers in particular, you couldn't come up
with a better format."

不單是技術知識流失了，Aboulafia 說。自在地和工程師互動，讓他們自在地說
出他們有所保留的事的能力也是。而不是打給遠在一千五百哩外那個一直想砍你
退休金的壞名聲主管。這是完全不同的動力。你找不到比這更能打擊工程師的方
法了。

And in some of the internal exchanges now coming to light, you can see
the level of estrangement among engineers, operators, and executives
that resulted. A Boeing vice president, Mike Sinnett, told American
Airlines pilots that the MCAS software system implicated in the 737
Max crashes didn't have "a single-point failure," as
reported-asserting that the pilots themselves constituted a second
point of backup-showing both a misunderstanding of the term and a
sharp break from Boeing's long-standing practice of having multiple
backups for every flight system. Meanwhile, experienced Boeing
engineers rolled their eyes as some software-development tasks (not
specific to MCAS) were outsourced to recent college grads earning as
little as $9 an hour, who were employed by an Indian subcontractor set
up across from Seattle's Boeing Field.

在已公開的一些內部往來之中，可以看到因此造成的工程師，作業員和高層間的
疏遠程度。波音副總 Mike Sinnett 告訴美國航空的飛行員說，牽連到 737 墜
機事件的 MCAS 軟體系統「沒有單點故障」。如同報告指出的，把飛行員當成備
用的第二份，既顯示出對名詞的誤解， 也表示波音一直以來在每個飛行系統擁
有多重後備的長久慣例不再。同時，部份軟體開發任務外包給波音西雅圖機場對
面開設的印度下包商聘用的，剛大學畢業時薪九鎂的新鮮人。這也讓老練的波音
工程師大翻白眼。

The current Boeing CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, is being pilloried for his
handling of the disaster, and accused of harming the company by
prioritizing profit. But the criticism misses the point, Aboulafia
told me. "The difference between doing MCAS right and MCAS wrong was
not an economic thing. It's a culture thing."

現任波音CEO Dennis Muilenburg 因他處理這場災難的方式備受嘲諷，被指控獲
利至上傷害了這家公司。但 Aboulafia 告訴我這些批評沒抓到重點。將 MCAS作
對和作錯的差別不在經濟上，這是文化上的事情。

Some errors you see only with the magnifier of hindsight. Others are
visible at the time, in plain sight. "If in fact there's a reverse
takeover, with the McDonnell ethos permeating Boeing, then Boeing is
doomed to mediocrity," the business scholar Jim Collins told me back
in 2000. "There's one thing that made Boeing really great all the way
along. They always understood that they were an engineering-driven
company, not a financially driven company . If they're no longer
honoring that as their central mission, then over time they'll just
become another company."

有些錯誤你只能事後透過放大鏡看到。有些則一直都很明顯，一眼就看得到。
2000年時商業學者吉姆柯林斯這麼告訴我「如果這真的是一場逆收購，讓麥道的
精神滲透到波音之中，那麼波音註定將變得平庸。」有一件事讓波音一路以來變
得偉大。他們一直理解到他們是一家工程驅動的公司，不是財務驅動的公司。如
果他們不再將這奉為核心任務，隨著時間流逝他們只會變成另一家平凡的公司。

It's now clear that long before the software lost track of its planes'
true bearings, Boeing lost track of its own.

現在清楚的是，在軟體搞丟飛機的真北之前，波音早已迷失了它自己的足跡。


JERRY USEEM is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and has covered
business and economics for The New York Times, Fortune, and other
publications.

JERRY USEEM 是大西洋雜誌的特約作者，也為紐約時報、財富雜誌和其他書報報
導商務和經濟。


--
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※ 文章網址: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Aviation/M.1574956247.A.17B.html
↓改錯字
※ 編輯: prussian (220.132.8.250 臺灣), 11/28/2019 23:58:30
推 QuentinHu: 推分享 而且這篇文好酸 XD
推 donkilu: 寫得真好 當初護航的人大概都沒注意到波音早已質變
→ donkilu: 第一時間跳出來怪飛行員真的很可惡
推 yafayu: 很多大公司現在都變成這樣，真的很可惜，一切都以錢為主發
→ yafayu: 點
→ yafayu: 不過波音不太可能倒閉，他是世界軍用承包第二大的公司，美
→ yafayu: 國給它的國防預算遠遠超出這次max的損傷...
推 jk189: 這是每個工商業財團的必經之路
↓改錯字
※ 編輯: prussian (220.132.8.250 臺灣), 11/29/2019 00:36:55
推 g3sg1: 看看前面的777X事件 原始777在這些改變前出廠的 該不會新的
→ g3sg1: 都不如舊的吧?
推 brianzzy: 酸的很有料在某方面也是恨鐵不成鋼吧
推 Qpera: 早說爛到根了，當初還有波音粉死命護航
推 feybear: 夠資深和用功的記者寫出來的東西就不一樣
推 dbdudsorj: 好文
推 michael1989: 推文章跟翻譯
推 laleli: 推好文和翻譯
推 taxlaw1991: 原來是麥道啊 我還以為是波音呢
↓錯字 ><
※ 編輯: prussian (220.132.8.250 臺灣), 11/30/2019 01:18:36
推 skyteam55535: 推
推 yuinghoooo: 蘋果也是被庫克搞成賺錢機器