At Boeing and Starbucks, different problems but similar CEO messages

Both executives are aiming to solve a tricky problem: how best to revive a flagging company?

The dual turnaround attempts playing out at the same time and in the same place—Seattle—are drawing the attention of management gurus and CEOs, along with employees, investors, coffee drinkers and fliers, all looking to decipher how the executives will change their organizations.

The leaders took their jobs within weeks of each other. Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg started on Aug. 8, while Brian Niccol’s first day at Starbucks was Sept. 9. They are confronting wildly different problems. (Only Boeing, for instance, has a union on strike and is burning through its cash reserves.) But the playbook for fixing the companies is proving to be remarkably similar so far.

As the two CEOs addressed investors and employees in recent days, they used some of the same language and emphasized familiar concerns.

“First, we need a fundamental culture change in the company," Ortberg wrote to Boeing staff on Wednesday. A day earlier, as Starbucks suspended its financial guidance and disclosed weak results for its fourth quarter, Niccol said in a video message: “We need to fundamentally change our recent strategy."

Boeing has been hobbled by quality problems, aircraft delays and a machinist strike that has halted most production. Starbucks is contending with long waits at its cafes, a persistent sales slump in the U.S., and competition in once-promising markets such as China.

The executives have repeatedly invoked the legacies of their brands and how the path forward should include a return to what made them powerhouses in the first place. Niccol has said Starbucks will review its pricing and its menu offerings, but his core message is that the chain will focus on improving the experience of visiting its cafes.

“We must re-establish ourselves as the community coffeehouse," he said.

At Boeing, Ortberg has said he wants to change how the company operates, and restore the manufacturer’s technical prowess. That plan includes cutting jobs to slim down the company and working to restore trust.

“We will stay true to our roots and the values that defined our legacy," Ortberg said. Similarly, Niccol said Starbucks is strong when “we stay true to our core identity."

That Niccol and Ortberg are still relatively short on specifics is understandable, said Bruce Avolio, who is watching the Seattle turnaround attempts from his nearby post as a professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.

“It’s pretty early on, and that in part may be why their statements are somewhat general at this point," Avolio said. “I don’t think they have all the information that they probably need to start determining: What is the strategic transformation?"

Both executives have said solutions will come by focusing on the front line—whether in an aircraft plant or behind an espresso machine.

Ortberg said Boeing officials needed to be on factory floors and in engineering labs to better understand what is going on with its products and employees. Niccol asked the company to do more to help its baristas.

“Every person at Starbucks must work harder to support our retail teams, moving faster to respond to their feedback and get them what they need," Niccol said.

That the rhetoric among the companies is somewhat similar doesn’t surprise veteran CEO watchers, and those who help craft messages for them. In the early days, executives often take pains to praise the strengths of companies, to explain to investors that transformation will take time and to make clear that they are still refining their strategies.

Nike, another Pacific Northwest company hoping for a turnaround, is following aspects of the playbook. New CEO Elliott Hill has vowed that the sports brand will focus on its core: athletes.

When Nike does so, “we create the right discussions, debate, dialogue, and ultimately arrive at the best decisions—for consumers and our company," Hill said. He returned this month to run the company where he previously spent decades.

Years ago, bosses said very little early in their tenures, taking time to tour operations and listen—as the Starbucks and Boeing executives are now doing—without feeling an obligation to explain a broader vision and a strategy to the world.

“There used to be this thing where you got 100 days before you were expected to say anything meaningful about where you want to take the company," said Darren Brandt, co-CEO of the communications consulting firm Sloane & Co. “I don’t think that exists anymore."

Now, investors and anxious employees, in particular, want to hear from leaders earlier to determine whether the company is headed in a meaningful new direction and whether they want to stay, Brandt said.

“You’ve got to make sure your people understand what you want to do sooner, and you have to communicate it much more often," he said.

To address the issues, Ortberg relocated to Seattle, where Boeing once had its headquarters and where the company has factories that build its 737 and 777 planes. Starbucks, when it hired Niccol, said he could live in his home in Southern California and regularly commute to Starbucks’s head office on a corporate jet.

Bill George, a former Medtronic CEO and an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, who has written case studies on Boeing and Starbucks, said he is impressed that both leaders have been transparent about problems. True corporate turnarounds, though, take years, particularly at companies such as Boeing where the challenges are deep-rooted.

“It’s going to take time," George said. “People are skeptical until you start producing results."

Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com