You Can’t Order Change:
Lessons from Jim McNerney’s Turnaround at Boeing
By Peter S. Cohan
Review by Jennifer Dawson
It is clear from the introduction to Peter Cohan’s book that we’re not getting a juicy Jim McNerney biography.
If the tables and figures in the intro don’t give it away, Cohan’s description of the eleven leadership challenges overcome by McNerney (which are reiterated in the chapter summaries at the end of the introduction and presented as “lessons” throughout the book) are inarguable evidence that readers are meant to have an educational experience right from page one. We are getting a crash course in the McNerney model.
Cohan has carefully dissected McNerney’s career and synthesized it into an instruction manual for corporate success. Bullet points and pithy summaries are backed up by examples from McNerney’s tenure at GE, 3M, and, most recently, as CEO of Boeing. The writing is earnest, the approach didactic and the impact soporific. My recommendation: don’t read this book in bed or with a glass of wine, unless you’re an insomniac.
What makes Cohan’s book a dry read also makes it a useful analysis of a successful approach to corporate leadership. The McNerney model is based on harmony, efficiency, strong leadership and growth from within. McNerney pays leaders based on performance measures they have control over. McNerney inspires cooperation among competing departments. McNerney believes that innovation and discipline are not mutually exclusive. McNerney puts the customer first. He invests in his company’s strengths and exploits his competitor’s weaknesses. He prefers to grow companies from inside, rather than through acquisitions. He tackles challenges quickly. He gives realistic feedback to employees and helps them improve. He uses process improvement tools like Six Sigma and Lean. He thinks globally to develop new markets and suppliers. And he views reducing the environmental footprint of his company’s products to confer a competitive advantage. Wanna know the how and why? Read Cohan’s book for all the details.
McNerney’s values- and ethics-oriented approach to leadership is a recurring theme in the book. He considers living company values, the most important of which is integrity, to be a leadership attribute. He ties pay to process as well as profit so that leaders will be less tempted to compromise ethics to make a fast buck. An entire chapter is devoted to the ethical scandal at Boeing prior to McNerney’s arrival and his strategy to regain investor and consumer confidence, including creating an Office of Internal Governance.
If you’re hoping for baby pics or golf course gossip from Cohan’s book, you’ll be sorely disappointed (although readers do get an at-times interesting peek at the internal workings of the aircraft industry). But if you admire the professional accomplishments of Jim McNerney and the performance of the companies he has led, there are some valuable “how to” lessons to be learned from Cohan’s presentation of the McNerney model.
