Boeing’s new boss wants to return the manufacturer to its engineering roots. Starbucks’s new chief executive says the chain must embrace its own origins as a coffeehouse.

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.

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“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.

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