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> Since Smith arrived in the fall of 2017, some employees have struggled with his leadership style and complained that he has acted too slowly, pushing Blue Ori
by avmich 6y ago
> Since Smith arrived in the fall of 2017, some employees have struggled with his leadership style and complained that he has acted too slowly, pushing Blue Origin to become more like a traditional aerospace company than a nimble new-space startup. But from Smith's perspective, he's trying to implement a culture transformation, from a hobby-shop atmosphere to that of a major aerospace contractor that can go out and win major NASA and Defense Department contracts.
If it's true, it looks like a complete failure of the leadership. The manager should first and foremost articulate what he's trying to do, and explain well why, and it's hard to imagine competent BO personnel not understanding - so the difference in positions means it wasn't explained well enough.
- sschueller 6y agoHow is this a failure if it makes flight safer? Look at what happened at Boeing when they stopped focusing on proper engineering and switches to systematically cutting corners in all departments. Would you feel safer on a space x rocket or a blue origin one?
- rbanffy 6y ago> How is this a failure if it makes flight safer? It is one possible way to make flight safer, but most likely not the only one. The same traditional aerospace approach also created the 737 MAX and the CST-100.
- avmich 6y agoI can't believe that Smith not explaining to his team that he's doing culture change leads to safer flights. Also I think that lately hobby shops - SpaceX was quite recently an extreme version of it - were producing more reliable results than many traditional organizations. I'm not sure about this particular case though, but I wouldn't discount hobby shops just so.