Dave, meet Bill.

So - let's get you up to speed. If you haven’t seen the news, the CEO of Boeing, Dave Calhoun, has announced he is leaving his position and retiring.

This is the least shocking news since we discovered it’s cold in the Arctic.
The investment and aviation industries have been waiting on this announcement for months. It’s a classic, stereotypical example of “Jump, or we’ll push.” Either Calhoun steps aside, or the board of directors will do it for him.

Why the push? This is photocopied straight out of the “Stop the Negative Headlines” playbook. Boeing’s shareholders have gotten sick and tired of earnings taking a hit, and someone needs to be fired.

Calhoun is not the first CEO to get volun-told to leave, and won’t be the last. The average CEO’s tenure for a Fortune 500 company is roughly seven years.

What’s fascinating is WHY earnings are taking a hit. After all, Boeing suffered back-to-back fatal 737-Max crashes five years ago, and the company was fine. Sure, there were some cancellations, but for the most part, airline CEO’s praised Boeing ‘despite the trouble.’

So why now?

Boeing’s share price will give you one clue. Here’s a chart showing the stock price since a Boeing jet lost a door on an Alaska Airlines flight in early January...

When the door flew off an Alaska Airlines flight, the wheels fell off of Boeing.

I dare say Boeing committed two cardinal sins.

1/ When there’s smoke, don’t give them fire.

Everyone was looking at Boeing. The Max series jet was the most heavily scrutinized airplane in decades. There wasn’t room for a single rivet to fail… yet fail it did.

2/ Don’t screw with Americans. (Politically correct? No. Accurate? Yes.)

When the Max Series jets crashed in 2019, they crashed on the other side of the world. Most Americans couldn’t locate Indonesia on a map. You can’t say that about Alaska.

The door flies off, and immediately investigators jump into the fray. To top it all off, just before a Boeing whistleblower was due to testify, he turns up dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It’s a tragic story, but it’s also just too darn convenient. It screams of Jeffrey Espstein, and drags Boeing into ‘National Enquirer’ level of public discourse.

When your brand is being discussed by the tabloids, something needs to change. So change they did.

It’s very similar to the story Conway Fraser and I shared in our best-selling book ‘Leaders Under Fire.’ In that parable, the CEO of a mining company, a fictional character named Bill, was volun-told to exit the company in an effort to stop the headlines.

Dave, meet Bill. Enjoy retirement.

Let's talk about it.

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Go here and grab a meeting spot. That page will take you to my booking calendar. We’ll look at your situation, and I’ll brainstorm some helpful advice that you can implement right away.

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PS - I don't send out a lot of emails. I only email when I have something actually WORTH reading.

Dave, meet Bill.

1/ When there’s smoke, don’t give them fire.

2/ Don’t screw with Americans. (Politically correct? No. Accurate? Yes.)

When your brand is being discussed by the tabloids, something needs to change. So change they did.

Let's talk about it.

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