Future-Ready Aerospace!
The aerospace industry represents one of the most advanced and strategically essential sectors globally, characterized by its relentless pursuit of technological excellence and innovation. This field plays a key role in modern society, from enabling faster travel and efficient logistics to advancing aerospace and defense capabilities as well as exploring outer space for humanity’s benefit.
However, the sector’s evolution is shaped by significant challenges, including insatiable need for technology advancements, resource limitations, and the need for sustainable practices. Innovations such as digital twins, Industry 5.0 technologies, and decarbonization technologies are shaping the future of aerospace industry, driving transformative progress while addressing these pressing issues. The industry’s importance lies in its contributions to global connectivity, balancing multinational defense with beyond-earth space explorations, and its capacity to redefine the boundaries of human and technological potential.
Dr. Sandeep Muju, as an A&D Industry Advisor, brings a visionary approach to leadership for this transformative sector. His philosophy highlights the importance of aligning organizational strategies with a meaningful overarching vision, ensuring intellectual diversity, and cultivating collaboration across internal silos to unlock the full innovation potential of an organization. With a deep understanding of emerging technologies and a commitment to fostering consequential solutions, Dr. Muju’s leadership is marked by his ability to inspire others and steer intricate challenges. His approach integrates strategic foresight with practical implementation, ensuring that the organizations he guides remain at the head of the industry’s advancements.
Let’s explore Dr. Muju’s strategic leadership for shaping tomorrow’s transportation ecosystem:
Ensuring Strategic Vision Resonance
According to Dr. Muju, organizational alignment is essential for any high-performing organization lest it pull in different directions and dampen overall progress. However, alignment is not as much about prescriptive minutia but more so providing a purposeful
Vision for the organization, having transparent and agreed-upon collective goals and objectives, and designing appropriate internal processes and organizational conditions to enable steady progress (and sometimes course-correction) toward the collective goals.
For a short-term project, a single-minded team may appear briefly efficient, but intellectual diversity is necessary for resilience and high performance over extended periods. Encouraging intellectual diversity in organizations enables the organization to find creative and innovative solutions to issues and problems that will inevitably arise while meeting collective goals. However, one must design internal processes and organizational components to funnel this diversity toward optimal decision-making and outcomes.
There are at least three key “soft” foundational elements necessary to bring alignment across diverse teams with an organization’s strategic vision: (a) the “Why,” i.e., why we need to do what we need to do, (b) encouraging an ethos of cross-functional coordination across teams so that they are complementing each other in making the whole bigger than the sum of parts and not just focused on their own piece of the pie, and (c) ensuring the teams have the right competence not just for current needs but also for tomorrow’s needs, which requires having the proper intellectual diversity as well.
Getting all this to function well also requires creating the right organizational environment, having a balanced and right type of mentally diverse people and emotionally mature leaders, and, last but not least, having an effective organizational structure. In the final analysis, leadership is not about creating followers per se but instead about unleashing the organization’s potential.
In addition, appropriate rewards and recognitions for actions aligned to the larger organization’s vision are needed to encourage diverse teams to deliver highquality outcomes not only within their four walls but also find ways to collaborate with other cross functional teams in solving bigger and more complex problems and opportunities for the benefit of all in the larger organization.
Finally, ensuring that the strategic Vision is still resonating across the organization and is in sync with the evolving external conditions is also necessary. If not, it may be time for a Visioning refresh exercise, not just to develop a Vision statement of strategic aspirations but it can be important from the organization-wide buy-in perspective as well.
The Increasing Pace of Technological Change
In the aerospace context, throughout his career, Dr. Muju has had the opportunity to work on several innovative new products, technology development, and GTM scenarios. These range from materials development research in early career for space shuttles and fighter jet engines to fielding new avionics electronics for business and passenger aircraft to more recent AI-led Industry 5.0 thought leadership on innovative neural aerospace manufacturing ecosystems and autonomy for eVTOLs among driving other AI-driven enterprise transformations.
An innovation mindset has been a constant companion for him and an asset to stay ahead on emerging technologies evolutions and the resulting industry changes. For example, just some 20 years back, the previous generation of aircraft were designed mainly as traditional mechanical and electrical systems. However, over the last 15 years or so, software content has increased exponentially, and things have moved towards Systems as Network to Digitalization and significantly increased AI and Autonomy.
He highlighted that we are past the industrial era, where the changes used to happen at a biological evolutionary pace, i.e., imperceptibly slow. It took humans over 200,000 years (over 3000 generations) to go from using Fire to the Light Bulb! Then, in only about 100 years (less than three generations), we got to the Internet of the 1970s. Since the Internet it has taken just another 50 years to get to CRISPR (Gene Editing) and Generative/Agentic AI capabilities. What will the next 25 years bring?
The pace of innovation has been increasing during our lifetime and continues to drive changes. This requires continual thinking beyond where the business world is today so that one can stay ahead of or at least not fall behind where the future will be.
From an aerospace industry perspective, if Dr. Muju were to pick one such farsighted breakthrough innovation from his personal experience, he would like his proud work leading to the R&D 100 Award for DARWIN (Design Assessment of Reliability With Inspection).
This was a sizeable industry-wide effort accomplished before the term “Digital Twin” was widely used, and today, it may be called a “Digital Twin for
Reliability.” This resulted from a farsighted FAAfunded industry R&D effort between aerospace engine companies, including Pratt & Whitney, GE, Honeywell, Rolls Royce, and SwRI as the leading research institution. During his tenure with Honeywell, Dr. Muju represented the company on this industry initiative.
Today, not only is the term “Digital Twin” ubiquitous in the Aerospace and Defense industry, but the particular tools and methodologies developed have led to further enhancements to aircraft engine design processes and sustainment practices for the entire industry.
Decarbonizing the Aviation Sector
Dr. Muju believes the Aviation sector is one of the most challenging industries to decarbonize. In 2021, the global aviation industry took its climate commitment another step further by declaring that it would achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Dr. Muju calls this a moonshot (or Mars shot) challenge, achievable but also a very ambitious goal.
We all want to breathe clean and healthy air and leave the world a better place for future generations. From the aerospace sector perspective, organizations aiming to boost their impact here should consider the following:
- From a design, product development, and flight readiness perspective, fielding new aircraft tends to be a very long process. This is further complicated by the financial aspects of having very high product-development costs and multi-decade long-life product, which can also delay bringing more recent sustainable solutions to the market faster. There is a tremendous financial value to be unlocked by speeding this process while maintaining safety standards and enhancing sustainability as well. So, any organization that can bring tools, products, and solutions to unlock this value generation safely and sustainably will have plenty of opportunities to make an impact.
- Physics cannot be defied, at least not yet. Aircraft move passengers and goods faster than any other mode of transportation and, by that, are highly energy intensive. Moving hundreds of passengers at over 600 miles per hour and to an altitude of nearly seven miles above the ground requires considerable energy. Currently, very few energy storage solutions can provide the energy-to-weight ratio (specific energy density) that fossil fuels can and are also as economical. This is another area of tremendous opportunities from a longer-term value potential and making an impact through new innovative solutions for (1) reducing aircraft energy use per RPM (revenue per passenger mile), (2) reducing and eliminating the carbon footprint of propulsion systems which is the primary source of inflight carbon emissions, (3) implementing “green” sustainable manufacturing practices across the supply chain, and (4) developing practical solutions for re-capturing unavoidable carbon and non-CO2 emissions.
Ultimately, from a commercial airline customer and passenger perspective, the North Star solutions are those that can enhance the overall passenger flying experience, be cost-effective while improving safety, and be as close to net-zero emissions as possible.
Tailoring Innovation Partnerships by Industry
Innovation is the essence of humanity’s progress and, by extension, for companies, particularly in industries innovating at higher rates. While many leading organizations in their respective sectors invest significantly in developing new and innovative technologies and products, it is often not possible to always count on internal innovations for various reasons.
Larger organizations also need to source new technologies and ideas from outside rather than trying to develop everything internally. One way to accomplish this is by having a robust innovation partnership ecosystem tailored for the company. The question is not whether or not but rather what and how
An optimal innovation partnership ecosystem will vary by its specific industry context. For example for an aerospace company, it would also depend on its value-addition location across the aerospace business value chain from Aircraft OEM, Tier-1 to Tier-n Suppliers, Aftermarket and MRO shops, Aircraft operators, to other technology and services vendors.
He highlights we also have to look at the type of “Innovation.” It is easy to mistake innovation as one homogeneous thing. But “Innovation” itself has many forms. For purposes of this discussion, it can be sub grouped into three types: (1) Incremental innovation – high levels of certainty about the business environment and typically about making minor changes to existing products/services/business models; (2) Evolutionary innovation – moderate amount of uncertainty regarding business environment and represents extension to existing products/services/business models, and (3) Breakthrough or Disruptive Innovation – involving high levels of uncertainty about the business environment and represents departure from organization’s previous products/services/business models and could even lead to industry-level disruption.
Based on Dr. Muju’s experience and industry evolutions, larger businesses do well at nurturing evolutionary and incremental innovations. However, looking at myriad examples of companies that once excelled at farsighted internal R&D (AT&T Bell Labs, Xerox Labs, GE Corp R&D, Kodak R&D, etc.), the business benefits a company can derive from internal efforts on breakthrough innovations are spotty at best and rarely sustainable. So, for the third category of innovations (breakthrough or industry disruptive innovations), larger companies are better off also partnering externally or acquiring breakthrough technologies and solutions rather than trying to develop it all internally.
This does not mean there are no examples of successful internally developed breakthrough innovations, but they tend to be few and far between in the commercial domain. For example, Kodak is reported to have been the first company to develop the digital camera. However, its then leadership decided not to market it initially as it would eat into their traditional camera market, the classic “innovators dilemma”. That led to others like Canon and Sony leapfrogging and by the time Kodak realized its mistake, it was too late.
Defense industry works bit differently and does not exactly fit the commercial aerospace scenario. For various non-commercial reasons, they must keep their cutting-edge innovations in-house often even secret. However, this still does not stop Defense industry from working with newer disruptive dual-use startups to stay in the know, and that practice has taken off, particularly in the last few years.Then, there is the aspect of the “type” of innovation partnerships. Some partnerships are geared towards enhancing revenue generation by having alternate sales channels to improve a company’s customer reach or being able to increase a customer’s share of wallet. Another type of partnership is for joint innovation GTM, where two or more companies come together with their solutions to address a larger and more complex problem for the customer.
Another type of innovation partnership is geared towards conducting lower TRL R&D with academic institutions and research labs to create a pipeline of new-to-the world research that a company can further develop for specific commercial applications. Another aspect of the innovation partnership ecosystem is a partnership between near-peers (co-opetition) and a potential customer or a much smaller entrepreneurial startup or vendor.
There is no one-size-fits-all, and an optimal innovation ecosystem depends on multitude of factors. It should be deliberately designed for each company’s context and with clearly defined goals.
Academic and Energy Partnerships for Aerospace Advancements
In Dr. Muju’s view, humans have long been fascinated by the idea of flight throughout known history. Since the first known human flight (Wright Brothers) in 1903, the Aerospace industry has played an important role in technological developments and global societal evolution. In some shape or form, virtually all generations alive today have been touched by the technologies and innovations originating from the Aerospace and Defense (A&D) industry.
Using the human body analogy, aircraft cockpit computers are akin to the human brain, aircraft engines for propulsion are like the human heart, and so on. Energy or power is at the core of the functioning of all these various aircraft systems, just like the energy human organs need for proper functioning.
There is a multitude of examples of technologies developed for myriad applications finding new and dual-use in A&D and consumer markets, including (a) LASIK for vision correction came from Space and Weapons research; (b) the Digital image sensors in mobile phones and GoPro came from NASA-JPLtechnology; (c) the technology behind solar cells originated from NASA; (d) the everyday Duct tape was initially invented for Military application; (e) the ubiquitous home cooking Microwaves are based on Radar technologies for Defense; (f) the GPS technology at the heart of consumer Map applications came from Defense and Satellite use; (g) the origin of today’s AI lies in Logic Theorist, the first program designed to mimic the problem-solving skills of humans nearly 60 years ago; (h) ARPANET developed for US DoD in the 1960s is the mother of present-day Internet.
Core technological innovations can originate in other diverse scientific corners and find valuable applications in the aerospace industry. As mentioned earlier, the aerospace industry is one of the most taxing from the perspective of its need for “energy” for propulsion and other applications. While working with Stanford, US DoE, and ARPA/E in energy research commercialization context has been rewarding experience, it is another avenue for new discoveries and applications for bringing deeptech energy innovations and advances to the aerospace industry. Some of these type of advances require a deeper level of scientific discovery and development starting at a lower TRL (technology readiness level) from its commercial applications perspective. For those innovations and advances in the energy space that can also be applied to the aerospace industry, such academic and research-focused partnerships are very beneficial.
Enhancing Employee Motivation and Engagement
Dr. Muju built a solid operational excellence foundation while working for Honeywell (AlliedSignal) Aerospace, where he worked on a wide variety of operational excellence and Lean Six Sigma activities across various Aerospace divisions, including Engines, Electronic Systems, and Airframe systems. He also achieved his Six Sigma Blackbelt and Lean Enterprise certifications during this time.
He learned about the Malcolm Baldrige Business Excellence framework, which encompasses operational and strategic business aspects and gained a holistic understanding of its importance, particularly for advanced products organizations that include both hardware manufacturing and software.
This immersive operational excellence experience has continued to help him over the years as he gained further leadership experience in business excellence, business process redesign, robotic process automation, digitalization 4.0, and, more recently, AI-led industry 5.0 business process transformations.
As organizations grow in size and scale, inefficiencies tend to creep in for a variety of reasons, including the growing need for internal coordination, lack of proper alignment, “alignment” not only with current organizational priorities but also in getting the organizational priorities right in alignment with the continuously changing external context, lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities across various groups, shadow organizations, etc.
Therefore, from the perspective of managing organizations of large scale and scope, a leader must consider many reinforcing factors, starting with the right organizational design internally. This includes the basics of having the right people with the right competence, necessary and efficient processes, and technologies that can aid in getting things done. In addition, it also includes essential “softer” aspects, like building a motivated workforce and the right empowered culture, encouraging cross-functional coordination, etc.
A phrase is attributed to Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” There is much truth in that in the context of managing larger organizations. Just like purpose and meaningfulness tend to transcend everything for individuals, building an organizational ethos of meaningfulness and purpose is important for effectively managing operations of large scale and dispersed scope. It also has the beneficial effect of enhancing employee motivation and engagement, particularly with those who need to be retained.
Understanding Stakeholder Needs for Success
Over Dr. Muju’s career, he has honed his multidimensional skills working on various challenges in different contexts, each unique. However, specific underlying common theme has been around generating “value” at scale for the organizations.
“Value” creation is why organizations exist! The whole should be bigger than the sum of its parts or individuals. However, value creation for any organization involves a thorough understanding of (a) for whom the organization is creating value, i.e., the customers and stakeholders, and (b) what value they are looking for and hence what needs to be delivered to them.
When an organization operates well, it is successful in generating “value” for its various stakeholders, particularly the paying customers and prospective customers it hopes to capture.
There is also a good governance aspect to ensure hidden forces are not steering the organization in an undesirable direction. This is where some larger and otherwise, successful organizations sometimes tend to get out of phase with their organization’s contextual intelligence due to the echo chamber effect. That can lead to a “turnaround” situation, which can be harder to fix for larger organizations. The ship analogy is apt here. It takes a while and a lot of work to turn around a ship from a course it is on to hit an iceberg.
To avoid such iceberg situations, it is very important to periodically and “honestly” reassess one’s contextual intelligence of market forces, technology and regulatory trends, and larger global external factors surrounding the organization, and frequently making minor course corrections as needed. This is easier said than done in larger organizations that have been successful in the past but need to adapt to a new way of thinking to continue to be successful in the future, where the external context is different now. Finding the right pace of driving such change is as much an art as science.
Crystallizing Leadership Learnings into Practice
Dr. Muju believes in life-long and continuous learning and encourages all leaders to maintain the humility and curiosity of a learning attitude. From a functional perspective, he has worked in various functional leadership and C-suite roles. Adding to this, the formal
HBS learning on the organizational leadership lifecycle model has helped connect the dots from his past leadership experience and further informed his approach to C-suite leadership. An effective CEO or a C-suite executive, it is essential to gain hands-on experience in diverse circumstances and crystallize those learnings into a logical and informed holistic repeatable approach to the extent it is meaningful rather than rely on seat-ofthe-pants decision-making.
Over the years, he has had many significant leadership opportunities in various circumstances, which, in retrospect, have each added to honing his leadership skills and further informing his strategic thinking. Though not planned this way, he feels blessed to have actually had a variety of experiences in each of the pillars of the HBS leadership framework and then culminating with a formal immersive learning experience from how other successful real-life CEOs and C-suite executives have practiced their leadership in taking their respective organizations to new levels.
Having past experience to connect the dots along with a well-thought-out HBS CEO framework—Leader as a Beacon (direction of the organization), Leader as an Architect (internal organizational design), and Leader as the Catalyst for Innovation and Change—for full lifecycle business leadership at a global scope and scale is a great asset that has given him the confidence to tackle virtually any new circumstance effectively.
