The Exchanges

Q And the working together management system isn't just for organizations. I believe you and your wife use a version of this at home. Can you, can you tell me more about this? How, how does it apply at home?

A My wife just walked by and, and, uh, but she walked by. So I, they, they all, the kids, they all, um, they all think this is so, so fun, but, uh, Nikki and I have been married, I've mentioned, for 52 years, and we have five darling children, and when they started to come along, I was at Boeing, and I'm, I'm program management, and, and lots of people, and I'm watching these seven people now, and so I said to Nikki, uh, I mean, you know, we're, this is in very, uh, we're complicated with our size of our family. We need to do a business plan review every week. And Shane, she goes, Alan, this is not Boeing. This is our family. I waited for a week to, to reflect on this, and that all made sense. And then, so I said the next week, okay, what if we have a family meeting every week? And she said, well, what would we do in a family meeting? I said, well, my suggestions, and I welcome yours, would be after we come back from Mass, On Sunday morning that we have an agenda, uh, for our family meeting. The first agenda I would propose is that all of us, including you and me, we go around the house, we pick up all of our stuff, we take them back to our cubby or back to our room, because after a week with seven people living lives, it looks like a bomb's gone off in the house. And I didn't sign up for a compelling vision of picking up the house every, every week. And neither did any of the pa…

AI assessment note: “On Sunday morning that we have an agenda, uh, for our family meeting.”

Q And the working together management system isn't just for organizations. I believe you and your wife use a version of this at home. Can you, can you tell me more about this? How, how does it apply at home?

A My wife just walked by and, and, uh, but she walked by. So I, they, they all, the kids, they all, um, they all think this is so, so fun, but, uh, Nikki and I have been married, I've mentioned, for 52 years, and we have five darling children, and when they started to come along, I was at Boeing, and I'm, I'm program management, and, and lots of people, and I'm watching these seven people now, and so I said to Nikki, uh, I mean, you know, this is in very, uh, we're complicated with our size of our family. We need to do a business plan review every week. And Shane, she goes, Alan, this is not Boeing. This is our family. I waited for a week to, to reflect on this, and that all made sense, and then, so I said the next week, okay, what if we have a family meeting every week? And she said, well, what would we do in a family meeting? I said, well, my suggestions, and I welcome yours, would be after we come back from Mass, On Sunday morning, that we have an agenda for our family meeting. The first agenda I would propose is that all of us, including you and me, we go around the house, we pick up all of our stuff, we take them back to our cubby or back to our room, because after a week with seven people living lives, it looks like a bomb's gone off in the house. And I didn't sign up for a compelling vision of picking up the house every, every week. And neither did any of the participants.…

AI assessment note: “what if we have a family meeting every week?”

Q talk about the decision to join Ford because when we talked before, you said you originally were actually not going to join Ford. So can you walk us through that decision, how you ended up joining Ford and sort of some of the immediate cultural differences that you felt between Ford and Boeing? And then after that, we'll dive into some of the principles, uh, and working together management system.

A Oh, sure. Clearly I love, uh, I love for, I love Boeing and, and I always have, I was on the design team of every Boeing airplane. And I realized very quickly that at the time, the airplanes were the first internet, because we were actually connecting people around the world, and people could find out that we had more in common, they were different, and, and we then choose to work together for the greater good. And so I never thought I was going to ever leave Boeing, and I had a lot of opportunities along the way. One day, Bill Ford called. I'm going, Bill Ford? The great-grandson of Henry Ford? And, uh, I had a Ford vehicle when I was growing up, and I just, I followed Ford a lot, because as I learned more about history, and World War II, and Ford and Boeing working together, I'm just always very interested in it, so I, I knew I was in trouble when I was talking to Bill, because I wanted to know more. I kept asking him all these questions about why they were in the situation they were in, and he shared the whole story with me, and They'd become a house of brands, and, and purchased Aston Martin, and Jaguar, and Land Rover, and Volvo, and, uh, still, uh, 70, 80% of the business was Ford, and which, as you know, you can't be world-class too many things at the same time, and so they, uh, they were going to lose seventeen billion dollars, and he said that the biggest issue he had …

AI assessment note: “I initially, I called him back and said I was going to stay at Boeing”

Q he uses the system in his family, and so much more. This is one of my favorite conversations ever. It's time to listen and learn. Alan, let's just dive right into this. You've served your family, Boeing, Ford, and communities around the world in such a positive way over the years. How did you end up with this formation of leadership and can you share your service journey with us?

A Absolutely. Well, first of all, it's a pleasure to be with you, and I think that really is a good way to start. I grew up in the Midwest in Lawrence, Kansas, also where the University of Kansas is. We were, had pretty modest means, uh, but we had a lot of love in our family from our, starting with our parents, love of us. Over the years, I can remember, um, very clearly the lessons that they shared with me and who they were as a person in addition to what they, what they did. And so every morning in the same, one of my parents would say these lessons to me just to make sure that I was remembering them and understand them. So one day my mom would say, now remember, honey, the purpose of life is to love and be loved. I'd say, oh, mom, that's great. I remember. I think that's good. And she said, but remember in that order. Okay, thank you. Then the next day my mom or my dad would say again when I was getting ready to go to school, Well, now, to serve is to live, honey. Thank you, Dad. That's great. Then next day, one would say, seek to understand before you seek to be understood. I'd go, that's good, too. I remember that. And one that really stuck with me over the years is, uh, it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. Thanks, Dad. And then the one that probably impacted me the most, Shane, was when they said, by working together with others, You can make the …

AI assessment note: “I can remember, um, very clearly the lessons that they shared with me”

Q in history. I think they were on pace to lose seventeen billion when you took over. Uh, and nearly bankrupt, and then the transformation over the next decade was just astonishing. And in researching and talking to people who worked with you, you're known for these working together principles, practices, and a culture of, I hope I get this right, love by design. What specifically are those principles and practices?

A Super, super question. And it's the essence of working together in my life and service. There are a few of them and I'll, I want to touch on, on, on each of them. So these are To your point, these are principles and practices that create, ah, a culture of love by design, meaning that it's, it's demonstrating your love for what you're doing as an organization. It's also demonstrating your love of how you feel about all the participants and their contribution, and it's also by design. So you're creating not only the principles and practices, but also a reliable process, And expect the behaviors of all the participants as you work together to deliver your compelling vision, whether it's at Boeing or Ford or a specific airplane or a specific car. And so the first one, and these are written down, um, uh, people have them, uh, on the card. They, they carry around. They're in the offices. Uh, and one of them, the first one is, uh, people first. Love them up. And the reason, uh, Is that these are talented people that are, that are working on these programs. I'll just use the triple seven airplane as an example of a, of a major program project in business. Hundreds of thousands of people that are working on this airplane to design it all around the world. They're talented. They're motivated. They believe in the vision of getting people together so they can work together around the world…

AI assessment note: “the first one is, uh, people first. Love them up.”

Q I love it. It's, it's self-reinforcing. Uh, and there's natural feedback loops in it. What, What's the leader's role in that system?

A The most important thing is to hold the team themselves and the team, uh, responsible and kept and accountable for following this process. All five of those elements, we just got to follow the process. And so holding ourselves accountable for that. And the other is leading by example. I mean, I started out as an engineer working on, on commercial airplanes. And as you are asked to take more and more service, as you move in that direction, what I, what I found, just because of who I am and what I learned at Boeing on, on large scale projects and systems integration is, is that you're going to move to a place where you're facilitating and you're coaching, because somebody has to keep getting us aligned. Like if we have a new issue on the strategy, well, we need our special attention meeting to deal with that. And so, As you get to the place where you're on this leadership team at this level, you have responsibility for a large portion of the organization like engineering and manufacturing procurement, but you're really leading with aligning with the rest of the team, and you're facilitating and you're coaching with your team. I always have like maybe 12 or 13 people reporting to me, which a lot of people always wondered how I did that, but I had to have Every discipline need to be on that team, because if not, then if you have the haves and the have nots on the leadership team, y…

AI assessment note: “The most important thing is to hold the team themselves and the team, uh, responsible”

Q Two rabbit holes there. The people who stayed After, I love how you phrase it. You're choosing this behavior, and if you're choosing that behavior, you're choosing to opt out. The people that stayed, how quickly did that behavior change? Like, was the, I can't imagine in my head it's this overnight thing.

A Oh, yeah, because remember, just keep, remember, you're on the team, and every Thursday, You're sitting around a round table, and you're also looking at monitors inside the table of all the people that are around the world. And every member of the team's there. You've just gone through all your reds and yellows and greens the week before. You would never, you wouldn't possibly be able to, uh, have a red and say to the team, can you imagine saying, I know I was really busy this week, y'all. I didn't have time to work on that. To hell with all of you. I don't think so. Can you imagine what that conversation would be like out on the playground? Because they're not working for me now. They're working for what we're trying to accomplish. And so what we'd see is when a person made a decision to move in this positive direction, they'd be, first of all, they'd be a little more hesitant for offering their thoughts or questions, which is understandable because they're thinking this through. How do I, how do I do this when I do it in a respectful way? And then pretty soon, after two or three weeks, they, they're watching now the behaviors of other people, uh, that are doing this. They're getting comfortable with it, and then they just start moving in that direction. And every once in a while, because of the sorry thing, they'll say, can you imagine what happens when, when a person would s…

AI assessment note: “pretty soon, after two or three weeks, they, they're watching now the behaviors”

Q How much resistance did you get? How do you get the buy-in for people to actually trust the process? You're an outsider coming in, right? How, how do you corral the people to trust the process and then follow the process?

A This is a really good question, and everything you said, there's truth in that. Uh, absolutely. And so, what do you think the one piece of paper that I brought with me from Boeing to Ford was this piece of paper I just described to you? And I, and when, in the first meeting, when Bill introduced me to the team, I shared with them this one piece of paper, and the looks on their faces, Were phenomenal. They'd never seen words like this. People first love them up. If you, you know, if you make a mistake and you violate the process of behavior, just say you're sorry. And so, I could tell by the looks on their faces, and they're from all around the world, they, and I could tell on their faces that, wow, I'm going to have to, it's going to be really important, and I spend a lot of time sharing with them what these mean, and about that zero tolerance policy, and the commitment to commit to them. So, I spent a couple of hours a day for the first, uh, few weeks, uh, uh, making myself available, uh, to the entire team and individually as they, they wish to answer their questions about these principles and practices. And then I said, okay, uh, here we go. And we're going to learn about it because we're going to start. So we pulled together on the, on the business plan. We, we updated the creating value roadmap to it. Restructure ourselves to match our production to the real demand and, um…

AI assessment note: “I spent a couple of hours a day for the first, uh, few weeks”

Q And so the role of HR in my head, I would say the role of HR is changing, right? It's less about grievances and complaining. Now it's about hiring and attracting talent and unleashing them because people know when they're not fitting in and the culture is such that it just forces you out.

A Absolutely. And just another point about what you just said, part of the working together, um, system that we'll talk a bit more about is continuous improvement and like lifelong learning and continuous improvement. So our performance management, our three 60 process. You, you now know exactly what that's about. You're going to use all the stakeholders, all your colleagues around that round table, and every year, we ask them about how we're doing, including me, and what would be one or two things that if I, if I could improve that behavior, that character, or that skill, it would help us, help me individually, and also help our team and our business if I made an improvement on that. So every year, Every member of the team had their one or two items that everybody else knew about, to your point, everybody else is now supporting, and so very easy then to say, give somebody feedback, because we know what they're working on, and we can give them an example, and so people want the feedback now, because they can, they know it's facts that they're looking at. So, to your point, stakeholders that are coaching, well, you know, from Marshall, Uh, I didn't know what those words meant until I, I met Marshall, but I knew we were doing stakeholder center coaching with our work community of the management system, and he thought that was the coolest thing is that we had a whole company led by …

AI assessment note: “our performance management, our three 60 process”

Q There's something that you said earlier, I want to come back to, which is you said everyone is a leader just by being who they are. What did you mean by that?

A Well, it gets back to the be and the do, but especially you, the are, you see that with their behaviors. Like, let's just take humility, for example, like those three questions that, that we asked. So you can see that. You, you know, when you ask those three questions of yourself about who you're meeting, right away that tells you who that person really is and how they, and how they operate. That's why we've always started, always started, uh, with the behaviors And, but having a process that you're following where you have to, you have to exhibit those. You can't hide from them. You can't just not participate. So you have a mechanism now where you have to participate. And now your decision is, are you going to do it with these behaviors or not? And if you don't, um, you're going to meet some interesting people and you're going to get a chance to decide again. So I think it, the working and management system pulls together the be part and the do part. And everybody eventually gets to see both of those either aligned or not.

AI assessment note: “Well, it gets back to the be and the do, but especially you, the are”