※警语: 以下为不专业翻译
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.
早被遗忘的那班使波音偏离航线的航班
曾经由工程师驱动的公司现在变成财务导向
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.
这班将波音带向灾难的航班在日出后几小时起飞。天候状况适合飞行 - 气温四
十几度，微东南风 - 但奇怪地是，没人知道这架737要飞往何方。组员有三份飞
行计划: 丹佛、达拉斯，和一份飞往芝加哥的。
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.
留在这飞机尾流里的，是大西雅图地区，这公司著名工程文化的发源地；四万多
名工程师工作和生活的地方；事实上也是这架飞机组装的地方。但那时是2001年
5月。波音领导者 CEO Phil Condit 和 董事长 Harry Stonecipher 决定是时候
在他们和实际制造这些飞机的人之间拉开些距离。多少距离? 航班 - 一场结束
两个月来波音新总部地点争夺战的公关噱头 - 将揭晓答案。飞机升空之后，波
音宣布它将会降落在芝加哥的中途国际机场。
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 步出机舱，在柏油道面上发表了简短的演讲，然后登上一架直升机，来
上一场波音新总部的空中导览: Morton Salt 大楼，就在芝加哥市中心 Loop 旁
。波音的高层和员工，总数大约500人，将会在这工作。他们可以看到芝加哥河
上往返的船和河上隆隆的火车。歌剧爱好者 Condit 可以轻松地走到 Lyric
Opera building。但最近的波音客机组装厂在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.
分离是故意的。“当总部离本业太近- 我们的在西雅图- 企业中心不可避免地会
被拖进日常营运业务中。”Condit 当时解释道。这份声明最重要的是，呈现了
这家航太巨擘的根本事实。当下 737 MAX 的灾难可追溯回20年前，波音领导层
决定和这家企业自身文化脱节之时。
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 几年来，波音基本上以工程师协会的方式运作著。高层拥有专利，设计机翼
，工程和安全是他们的母语。财务不是主要语言。就连会计也不这么运作。一直
到90年代晚期，公司的财务长和华尔街只有少少的联系，并且对同事要求的基本
财务数字，也只是以“叫他们别担心”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.
当我2000年代表财富杂志到访时，这家公司已开始改变。在Condit 俯瞰波音机
场的办公室里，54朵白玫瑰庆祝著当天的收盘价。转变在三年前波音的“逆向收
购”麦道时就已开始。这么说是因为最终麦道的主管主导了合并后的实体，而麦
道的文化兴起。当时西雅图流传着“麦道用波音的钱买了波音”的笑话。Condit
叫我别理会那些关于他被俘虏并关在自己办公室当人质的说法。但当
Stonecipher 正在削减钱尼一般臃肿的身形，并大肆抨击工程师傲慢与吹捧杜鲁
门主义(“我没有带来地狱，我只是说了事实而他们认为那就是地狱”)时，他们
说他才是问题。
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."
麦道的股价自从 Stonecipher 开始削减成本之后上涨了四倍，但许多分析师认
为这恐怕是以未来的竞争力作为代价。一个营运下滑中公司的人最终拥有了这么
大的权力，让人惊讶。前波音执行副总 Dick Albrecht 当时这么告诉我。合并
之后，Stonecipher 带着他的链锯来到西雅图。这家公司最新的顾人怨口号是“
对于可负担性的热情”。“少点家庭，多点团队”也是。这足以把先前作为专业
辩论社群的白领职业工会，转变为组织劳工。“我们不是在和波音对抗。我们在
拯救波音。”一个工会负责人这么对我形容2000年那场让波音停工40天的罢工。
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.
工程师们对于无法与高管们分享这样的观点感到不快，这使得在90年代仍是一个
小城市的西雅图发生了许多尴尬的遭遇。 对于一家现代化，多元化企业的高管
来说，这些尴尬遭遇太多了。
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让道给了麦道思维。另一个麦道高层被提拔为
首席财务长。(更明白显示到底谁掌控了这家公司。一个工会领导者这么告诉我
。) 由此又更突显了这家公司将总部搬到芝加哥的反常决定。它反常地留在这个
印刷、火车卧舖车厢、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.
如果卡内基的铭言“将蛋放在一个篮子里，并看好它”指引过波音，这个决策作
的差不多是相反的事。这家公司把蛋放在三个篮子里: 军武在圣路易斯，太空在
长滩。客机在西雅图。而它将从芝加哥看着他们 。别在意它主要的营收和地产
都在三号篮，否则波音经理人的盲目飞行-或说是仪器飞行，因为它将依靠在芝
加哥看到的读数，而不是现场亲眼所见，就像好飞行员被训练的那样-又会增加
更多挑战。目标是改变波音的文化。
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.
而在这方面，Condit 和 Stonecipher 显然成功了。接下来四年，波音原本注重
细节的保守文化，陷入了一连串的丑闻。它的火箭部门被发现持有25000页洛马
失窃的文件。它的财务长(来自前麦道)被抓到违反政府采购法律进了监狱。随着
道德问题浮上枱面，Condit 被迫下台由 Stonecipher 取代。他很快肯定地说:人
们说我改变了波音的文化。这就是我要的，这样波音才能像个伟大的企业营运，
而不是个伟大的工程公司。身为一个前 GE 人，他建立了个 GE 克劳顿管理学院
的复制品，好让波音的经理人可以去上。当 Stonecipher 自己遇上终结他职涯
的那个丑闻(和一位员工有染)时， 另一个前 GE 人James McNerney从外部进来
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?'''
就像航太分析师 Richard Aboulafia 最近告诉我的，“遥远的一栋大楼里几百
个人和一个非工程师掌舵这家公司，没有比这更奇怪的组合了”只要客机事务是
掌握在一个有理工素养的老练工程师手上，即使这样可能也行。相反地，麦肯锡
安排了一个有销售、行销、和供应炼管理经验的 MBA。Aboulafia 说“我们当时
一脸‘三小!??’”
The company that once didn't speak finance was now, at the top, losing
its ability to converse in engineering.
曾经不讲财务语言的这家公司，这时从上层开始失去了用工程交谈的能力。
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."
不单是技术知识流失了，Aboulafia 说。自在地和工程师互动，让他们自在地说
出他们有所保留的事的能力也是。而不是打给远在一千五百哩外那个一直想砍你
退休金的坏名声主管。这是完全不同的动力。你找不到比这更能打击工程师的方
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.
在已公开的一些内部往来之中，可以看到因此造成的工程师，作业员和高层间的
疏远程度。波音副总 Mike Sinnett 告诉美国航空的飞行员说，牵连到 737 坠
机事件的 MCAS 软件系统“没有单点故障”。如同报告指出的，把飞行员当成备
用的第二份，既显示出对名词的误解， 也表示波音一直以来在每个飞行系统拥
有多重后备的长久惯例不再。同时，部份软件开发任务外包给波音西雅图机场对
面开设的印度下包商聘用的，刚大学毕业时薪九镁的新鲜人。这也让老练的波音
工程师大翻白眼。
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."
现任波音CEO Dennis Muilenburg 因他处理这场灾难的方式备受嘲讽，被指控获
利至上伤害了这家公司。但 Aboulafia 告诉我这些批评没抓到重点。将 MCAS作
对和作错的差别不在经济上，这是文化上的事情。
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."
有些错误你只能事后透过放大镜看到。有些则一直都很明显，一眼就看得到。
2000年时商业学者吉姆柯林斯这么告诉我“如果这真的是一场逆收购，让麦道的
精神渗透到波音之中，那么波音注定将变得平庸。”有一件事让波音一路以来变
得伟大。他们一直理解到他们是一家工程驱动的公司，不是财务驱动的公司。如
果他们不再将这奉为核心任务，随着时间流逝他们只会变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.
现在清楚的是，在软件搞丢飞机的真北之前，波音早已迷失了它自己的足迹。
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 是大西洋杂志的特约作者，也为纽约时报、财富杂志和其他书报报
导商务和经济。