Every organization will have incompetent individuals. A healthy organization is able to remove them; a typical one will blunt their effects; and an unhealthy one will allow them to reproduce themselves and seize power.

We want it all to be a matter of just one or two incompetent individuals, because then the solution is simple. We just need to be aware that incompetent individuals exist, and through sheer force of will we can prevent them from destroying great things! But a much darker possibility is that it's something inherent to complex systems. Then, there's nothing to do to escape the inevitable cycle. Whatever brilliant schemes we come up with are doomed to failure, because the issue isn't individuals being stupid but institutional incapability to repair itself.

Because while the issues are serious and many, Boeing is still making extremely safe and working airplanes. It's impressive and shows that in general, things are going right. It doesn't excuse the decay and issues, but this isn't a case where everything they do is faulty. they're just held to an extremely high bar.