Compound Mistakes—Vow to Never Make Them

Boeing’s CEO Dennis Muilenburg severely underestimated how much trouble the multinational aerospace and defense company faced. He severely underestimated that a “compound mistake” is by far worse than any single mistake. On Monday, those mistakes cost him his job. Muilenburg’s biggest mistake was not admitting his mistakes.

After a Lion Air 737 Max flight crashed in October 2018, signs quickly emerged that the safety system meant to stop the airplane from going into a stall was probably a significant factor in the accident. Boeing knew the problem. The company knew from other pilots the issue was causing the landing system to operate incorrectly. The software malfunction placed the onus of responsibility on Boeing. Yet Muilenburg did not acknowledge that single mistake. Instead, he procced to make more. Believing the mistake must be something else, was the conventional wisdom coming out of Muilenburg’s office. Better training, a few minor adjustments in the software, and all will be fine became the narrative. Even though Muilenburg knew that the day before the Lion Air crash, another 737 Max had difficulties landing, but the pilots worked around the problem. In two days, there could have been two major accidents. Yet, The Boeing Company, under Dennis Muilenburg’s insistence and leadership, had the problem controlled.

Boeing urged the Federal Aviation Administration to allow it to continue to fly. When Muilenburg testified to Congress, he expressed the company believed the plane was safe with additional pilot training and felt it would be premature to ground the aircraft until more facts about the crash were available. Yet, we know Muilenburg’s sole focus was the company’s stock price and bottom line. So instead of admitting a mistake, he compounded his mistake with justifications. It took Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft crashing and more casualties for the FAA to ground that model plane for the foreseeable future.

We all make mistakes in life. None of us are perfect. But as we can see from Dennis Muilenburg’s actions, the single mistake was catastrophic and cost lives. The second crash and mistake should have never occurred. Why? Because as leaders and educators, we need to embrace our errors. We need to look at our mistakes face on and use them as a learning lesson. We cannot allow our ego to get in the way of doing the right thing. Leadership means accountability and finding the truth. We lose more than followers when we do not admit a mistake and our wrongdoings.

As we approach the New Year, many of us vow to make adjustments in our life. We call them resolutions, as we resolve to make permanent changes. However, we all know nothing is permanent―from our diet to our ability to journal each day and practice self-discipline. We try, we fail, we try again, we fail, and we keep on trying, which is what we should always do.

This year devote time, energy, and self-mastery to cultivating a mindset that vows to embrace mistakes. Learn to love the process of overcoming and taking accountability for mistakes while never allowing compound mistakes to become part of your life.

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