Happy 100th Birthday Boeing

The original Pacific Aero Products Company celebrates turning 100 today. Boeing is now a huge international company known worldwide. It was originally a few men who believed they could make better airplanes, and they did. From the original B&W Model 1 to the Clipper to WW2’s B-17 to B-52 to 707’s original jet age to 727 to the iconic 747 to the great F-15 to the amazing C-17 and F-18 to today’s 787, Boeing makes wonderful airplanes.

Boeing is the 3^rd company I have worked for with over 100 years of history. Celebrated Colt Firearms 150^th anniversary, and Sargent and Company dated back to 1864 making builders hardware.

What do these companies have in common?

• ·      Innovate great products and services.
• ·      Look out for their customers & end users. They care.
• ·      Always becoming more productive.
• ·      Adapt and adjust to market conditions.
• ·      Always learning, especially from failures.
• ·      Hire and develop great people.

Boeing has “The Incredibles” who built the first 747 in ~16 months while the factory was built around them. Supervisors would sometimes have to walk people out to their cars and watch them leave to make sure they went home for a break. (You cannot pay for performance like that.)

A lot of people will honor Boeing today and it is well deserved. Boeing people “Enthusiastically Tackle Challenges” through the decades, and do so today.

This is the best company ever worked for. What took me so long to get here?

Get Your Satisfaction

Being Unsatisfied is our normal state. Actually it is a good thing we are not satisfied with the way our situation is. This motivates us to make changes for the better.

Something that doesn’t work motivates me to fix it or replace it. It is why we invent new tools and come up with new solutions. It is how the human race grows.

Still it is not easy. You don’t feel good. How do you stay motivated? How do you relax?

For example every job gets repetitive, boring, co-workers complain, something does not work, and life gets frustrating. What do you do? Find something about you job you like.

I worked for lock companies, which sounds boring after aerospace. What motivated me for years was the mission. We were protecting people and their businesses. Would dive deeper into problems, learn more and think of creative ways to improve our products and services.

My current position does not use all my skills. My position is in a bit of a silo. My motivation is helping mechanics by simplifying their instructions, removing obstacles and providing better tools to be productive.

Get comfortable with being a little uncomfortable. Try something new outside your strengths. Introduce yourself to strangers. Ask awkward questions. Go somewhere you aren’t sure you belong. See what is like and who you meet there.

Along the way you will grow.

  

Eating Like a Kid

I eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a minimum of peanut butter and ‘no such thing as too much jelly’. It is the way I like them, health benefits lost be dammed.

You might not think I am a kid being 6’ 3”, gray haired, glasses and well past 50. But that is how I chose to bring my daily lunch.

You wouldn’t know my choice from my sister likes triple peanut butter. She would have liked the way my wife who made them for me putting peanut butter on both sides, which I hated.

My dad loved open-faced peanut and butter sandwiches he grew up with in NJ. His open-faced sandwiches had a normal amount of peanut butter and jelly on one slice of bread.

The point you don’t know what any customer will want. Which peanut and butter mix are you going to offer? Typically we offer others what we like. Instead be prepared to adjust.

Understand your customer’s needs, desires, and fears as well as you can. Listen for complaints and idea. Offer great products and services.  Find customers who want what you do well.

To succeed, really LOVE your customers. Find people who want what you offer and take great care of them. Leads to much more success than being $.01 cheaper.