Rebirth of the Military Industrial Overlord

Monday, June 7, 1983.

At nine o'clock in the morning, the bell on Wall Street announced the opening of the stock market for the new week.

Obviously, the haze of the air crash is still looming in everyone's minds. Although the FAA has not yet released the report of the investigation results of the 6.2 accident, the market still shows a clear lack of confidence in McDonnell Douglas. Once the market opened, the company's stock remained The inertia of the last week has continued to fall, and even dragged down the entire aviation sector and the broader market. However, compared with the first two days of the accident, the decline has slowed down significantly. After all, the stock investment is actually the future, and it has already happened. On the contrary, it can be described as the bad news has been exhausted.

And the FAA report has not yet been released, which gives many people a reason to continue to wait and see.

Just when almost all investors were staring at McDonnell Douglas, a few clever traders discovered some unusual situations.

Some funds began to enter the market one after another to buy Boeing and Rockwell stocks. Although these funds were very careful in the process of opening positions, each account and each amount of money were not much, but they still left enough clues for people to pursue.

At the moment when the aviation sector was short-selling as a whole, someone actually started to open positions for specific companies?

These clever traders suddenly felt that they had caught something, and they picked up the phones at hand.

At the same time, at Louis International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri, the headquarters of the Macdonald Douglas Aircraft Company.

"Mr. James, I'm afraid, I have to repeat the old tune."

In a small conference room, a small meeting is being held urgently. The number of participants is not large. However, the identities of these people are extremely important, because these are the highest-level leaders of McDonnell Douglas. The one speaking is a Chinese.

The middle-aged man sitting at the head of the meeting frowned slightly, but he nodded and said: "Gareth, you can tell me, I hope your old tune can bring us some new suggestions."

The Chinese American who was called "Gareth" by Chairman James MacDonald owed a little to everyone present, and then said: "There is no doubt that our current situation is very dangerous, and in my opinion, this The source of this kind of danger, in addition to the serious damage to our company’s reputation caused by two consecutive air crashes, is more because of our internal problems."

Hearing his least favorite topic, James McDonald's brows tightened, but he did not stop Gareth from continuing to speak.

"Now the top leaders of the company are sitting in this office, so I think there is no need to hide these issues. Although MacDonald and Douglas completed the capital merger in 1967, I have to say, it's only capital. Everyone knows that in 1979, I was commissioned by the company to preside over a period of work in Douglas, Long Beach, California, and there I really felt this. Before the merger, Douglas had always been the leader in the U.S. and the global civil aircraft market, so their employees have always been very unconvinced with McDonald. It can even be said that they have a considerable degree of resistance. In order to coordinate the work, we cannot even We did not set up two headquarters, namely here and Long Beach, and I think this is the main reason for the rapid decline of our McDonnell Douglas business."

After a pause, he looked around at the senior leaders with different faces in the room, and continued to say in a deep voice: "This situation has caused a lot of trouble to the management of the company. Recently, the situation has deteriorated further. I personally think that the important reason for this result is that we have implemented new management methods that should not be implemented."

His words immediately caused a "buzzing" discussion in the room, and all the senior leaders looked at Gareth with a hint of surprise and admiration.

Because they all know what the so-called "new management approach" mentioned in Gareth's speech is.

James MacDonald, the chairman sitting at the top, is already as dark as ink.

Of course he knows better what Gareth is talking about, and the new management method, called "Total Quality Management" or TQM for short, was forcefully implemented under his personal promotion.

He couldn't help coughing twice, reminding everyone in the room, especially Gareth who was speaking, that he was dissatisfied.

However, today Gareth seems to have eaten the weighing mound and iron-hearted-by the way, these Americans here don't know if they have ever seen the weighing mound, but Gareth, as a Chinese, might have seen it.

As if turning a blind eye to James’ black face, he gushed and said: “I have studied this TQM. Generally speaking, it is a good solution. However, a good solution also requires a good implementation plan to support it. In our world There are many cases where bad things are done based on a good starting point, and our McDonnell Douglas approach in implementing TQM is a typical example. You must know that we are a huge company with more than 60,000 employees. Its normal operation is based on one The set may not be the best and most efficient, but at least on top of the applicable rules, the existing management method has to be changed rashly, requiring every leader, even a vice president like me, to reapply for a position, and at all levels Leaders all conduct comprehensive reviews. This undoubtedly undermines the existing work process framework, and makes everyone at risk. This is the source of the current internal chaos within the company."

"Ahem," Seeing that Gareth's attack on the company became more and more intense, James had to speak, because it was him who caused this situation to go back to the root. As a typical second-generation project, the sole heir of Smith McDonald, the founder of McDonald’s Aircraft Company, and the current chairman of McDonnell Douglas, James has always been above the top, and he can’t stand other people’s near-indications. Accusing him with his nose.

However, he also knows that in the face of the difficult situation of the company today, he is somewhat helpless, and he must rely on these people here to work together with him to overcome the current difficulties. Therefore, he rarely ran out on the spot, but used a very blunt tone. Said: "Gareth, we can discuss these things in the future. There is only one topic today, which is to find a way to survive the company's most difficult period now."

"Okay, let's talk about the current solution." Maybe it was to save the big boss's face, maybe after some venting just now, Gareth's long-standing resentment was vented, his tone It also eased a little bit, "My suggestion is that since the current situation is extremely bad, then we might as well prepare for the worst."

"What do you mean?"

"I suggest that we start negotiations with Boeing as soon as possible to spin off parts of the civil aircraft and sell them to them, while the assets are still worth more. In this way, we may also be able to preserve the parts of our military aircraft that have better profits and cash flow. ."

"what did you say?!"

The small meeting place fell into a moment of silence, and only a moment later it was immediately filled with all kinds of noisy and uplifting sounds. Whether it was true or pretending, everyone’s face was filled with righteous indignation, and Gareth realized what It is called the rebellion of the relatives and the attack in groups.

"Gareth, how can you make such a suggestion? You are a naked betrayal!"