General manager John Stankey said he made some mistakes when it came to corporate culture at AT&T and shed new light on his an internal memo that went viral.
The lengthy memo, first reported by Business Insider in August, described how the company was moving toward a “more market-oriented culture,” kicking off discussions about the state loyalty in the workplace.
Stankey gave some insight into the purpose of the memo during a conversation at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit on Tuesday.
When asked to name a mistake he made, Stankey said he was too slow to cope with the necessary “cultural evolution.” He said that he had put this among several areas of focus for the company and that he should have instead put it at the forefront and forced concrete action to be taken to make it happen.
Alan Murray, president of the WSJ Leadership Institute, suggested that this is why Stanley sent the note this year and not earlier.
“We should not overdo this memorandum. This is one of a series of steps in an attempt to create structure and eliminate leadership's excuses for leadership,” Stankey said, adding that the memo provides context for the structure he was building for the business.
“This note sets out my view on this issue and provides leaders who want to lead all the air cover needed in the world to act within this framework,” he said.
AT&T has undergone a number of changes as a company over the past year, including mandate to return to office out of five days a week.
In a memo to employees, Stankey essentially said that they must accept the changes in the company culture or leave.
“We are a dynamic, customer-focused business with large-scale and complex initiatives,” Stankey said in the note. “If the demands dictated by this dynamic do not match your personal desires, you have every right to find a career opportunity that matches your aspirations and needs.”
At Tuesday's event, Stankey also discussed how AT&T is pushing employees to adopt artificial intelligence. He said the company has tutorials and other educational tools to help employees improve their skills in artificial intelligence, and that he pays attention to who uses them.
“I want to see who's developing their skill set, where they're developing it, and that's just the next skill set that people are going to have to have,” he said.
