New leaders at Boeing, Starbucks and Nike face similar problems
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Massive cleanup operations recently kicked off inside three of America's most iconic companies: Boeing, Starbucks and Nike.
Why it matters: Each dominate vastly different industries, but they all have two main problems — focus and culture.
Driving the news: Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took over the job two months ago, told staffers Wednesday morning alongside earnings — and hours before a pivotal union vote by striking workers — that the company will be focused on "fundamentally changing the culture" and "getting back to the values that helped define [its] legacy."
- Starbucks' new CEO Brian Niccol, installed last month, said yesterday that "some customers" have told the company that it's moved away from its origins of being "a community coffee house."
- And Nike's new CEO (as of last week) Elliott Hill said in a post on Monday that the company's job is to "create the most innovative, coveted, beautiful, mind-blowing products and stories."
Between the lines: All three companies have strayed too far from their core missions. The start of Boeing's major problems date back to the late 90s when the company began focusing more on profits than engineering.
- Starbucks' woes over the past few years stemmed in part from a strategy set by Howard Schultz, before he vacated his CEO position for the third time, to accelerate global expansion.
- And Nike's popularity has been upset by sneaker-brand newcomers like On and Hoka, which have been focused on what consumers want now: the lifestyle aesthetics of fitness.
The big picture: Giant turnarounds are of course well-documented. And key to those examples (from Apple, General Motors and even Starbucks' own past history) is a leader's ability to restore employee confidence in themselves and one another first.
- "Turnarounds are when leadership matters most," Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor specializing in strategy, has written.
