AT&T CEO John Stankey’s recent memo on company culture sparked strong feelings — from both AT&T workers and Business Insider’s audience.
In less than two days, more than 300 Business Insider readers filled out a survey asking about whether the memo was an effective way to communicate with employees.
By Wednesday morning, more than 120 respondents had said that it was an effective message, while more than 210 respondents said the opposite.
In Stankey’s memo last week, which Business Insider was first to report on, the company’s chief outlined how he wasn’t surprised to see the share of AT&T workers who reported being engaged decline from a 2023 survey.
“We are midstream on a multi-year journey to build the company we want, not simply optimize the one we have — and I believe your feedback accurately reflects where we are,” Stankey wrote.
Stankey urged employees to accept the changes, which he said are necessary to compete in a competitive market.
AT&T didn’t respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, but previously said the memo “speaks for itself.”
‘A healthy degree of cynicism’
One of the readers who expressed criticism was Joe Kolinger, who worked as a management consultant after spending 21 years at AT&T. “It’s the same kind of blather and just trying to use different language,” said Kolinger in an interview with Business Insider about the memo.
He said he’d heard similar messages from corporate leaders at other companies — often, he said, with the aim of pleasing investors.
Kolinger, who lives north of San Francisco, was the head of software engineering at the company’s internet division. He said that leaders must make their vision clear and set goals and boundaries so workers can “grow in the right direction.”
But he said he has “a healthy degree of cynicism” about the ability of an organization with some 140,000 employees and whose origins extend to Alexander Graham Bell to “improve and survive.”
In part, that’s because Kolinger said he saw AT&T leadership touch on similar themes when he was there from the late ’70s through the ’90s. Back then, he said, he heard entreaties to focus on the customer, deliver results, and be “lean and mean.”
While AT&T has smart and capable leaders, Kolinger said, by trying to change an organization of its size and with its attendant corporate processes, “you’re kind of fighting the laws of physics.”
“You’ve got masses of people who joined the company for reasons other than this new young CEO is imagining or is admitting,” Kolinger, 72, said, referring to Stankey, who’s in his early 60s and took over as CEO in 2020.
He didn’t leave ‘any ambiguity’
Dennis Skorewicz, who lives outside Raleigh, North Carolina, told Business Insider in an interview that he found the memo refreshingly direct and clear — and unlike what often flows from C-suites.
“A lot of times, senior management will attempt to soft-soap things for employees, not wanting to offend anyone,” he said, adding that such an approach can make for muddled messaging from the top. Stankey won’t have to worry about that, he said.
“I don’t think he left any ambiguity around how the culture was going to change,” said Skorewicz, 77, who is retired after a career in accounting and financial services.
Not everyone appreciated the approach, however.
Kevin Cowger, who retired from the insurance industry more than two years ago, told Business Insider in an interview that he was so put off by the tone of the memo and Stankey’s insistence that corporate workers be in the office five days a week that he is shopping around for a different mobile carrier.
“It’s very short-sighted,” Cowger said, referring to the memo. Cowger, who lives in Los Angeles and spent about 40 years working in claims at Farmers Insurance, said he wonders whether Stankey’s get-tough message will “come home to roost” in a couple of years if the white-collar job market heats up again.
For now, Cowger, 68, said many workers might not have much choice but to stick it out.
“In this economy, people can’t afford to quit,” he said.
‘More warning than warm’
Saeed Manii worked for 35 years at AT&T and its subsidiaries and retired in 2022 as director of software development for the company’s technology development arm. He told Business Insider in an interview that while he admires Stankey, the CEO needs to find a better way to learn what’s going on further down the company’s org chart.
Manii, who lives in northern New Jersey, said that Stankey came across as frustrated in the memo.
“He was basically more warning than warm,” Manii said. “That’s a problem.”
Yet JD Wire, a retiree in Riverside, California, told Business Insider in an interview that bosses have to set clear expectations.
“The minute you start hemming and hawing, they’re going to think they can push your buttons a little further,” said Wire, 68, who spent much of his career in tech. “It’s proven time and time again.”
For his part, Kolinger said that the task before Stankey to implement more of the changes he’s seeking will likely be difficult and necessitate picking the right people for certain roles and fostering constructive communication.
He said that, at times, all of it will likely feel like trying to “drain the ocean with a teacup.”
Yet after more than two decades at AT&T, Kolinger is rooting for the company.
“My message is not all sour grapes,” he said. “I had a very good run.”
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