Why AT&T's CEO Admits He Was Too Slow to Fix Company Culture

John Stankey, AT&T CEO, says the biggest mistake in his effort to change AT&T’s culture was not an unusually blunt memo that captured attention, but his delay in making cultural transformation the company’s top priority.

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit, according to Business Insider, the exec reflected on a turbulent year defined by shifting workplace expectations and a sharpened focus on performance.

The telecom company has undergone sweeping changes in the past year, including a full return to office and a push towards what John called a more market-based culture.

A memo that wasn’t the mistake

The August memo addressed the results of an internal engagement survey and directly confronted resistance to the company’s new direction.

In the memo, John wrote: “If the requirements dictated by this dynamic do not align to your personal desires, you have every right to find a career opportunity that is suitable to your aspirations and needs.”

He also told employees who were hoping the cultural rest would fade away that “there might be a disconnect between you and your current professional choice”. 

The CEO emphasised that those who felt that a “self directed, virtual or hybrid work schedule is essential” would “have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish”.

The directive quickly became fuel for debate about the future of work. Yet at the summit, John said the memo was receiving too much attention on its own.

“The memo should not be over rotated on. It is one of a series of steps in trying to put a framework out there and remove excuses for leaders to lead,” he said.

He added: “That memo outlined my point of view on it, and it gives leaders that want to lead all the air cover in the world they need to go and execute around that framework.”

Culture change came too late

When asked to name a mistake he made, John said he should have acted sooner to make cultural evolution an immediate and primary focus.

He explained that he initially placed it alongside several other priorities, when in hindsight it needed to stand alone.

He said he was “too slow to tackle the culture evolution that was needed” and that earlier action would have forced the specific changes required to shift behaviour across the company.

According to Business Insider, competitors took advantage of AT&T’s stricter policy to recruit workers seeking hybrid schedules. However John said: “We run a dynamic, customer facing business, tackling large scale, challenging initiatives.”

AI upskilling becomes the new mandate

The cultural reset now includes a strong emphasis on AI. John said AT&T is building tutorials and educational tools for employees and that he is monitoring who is taking advantage of them.

“I want to see who is building their skill set, where they are building, and this is just the next set of skills that people are going to have to have,” he said.

John’s reflections suggest that while the memo drew the most public attention, the true inflection point for AT&T was missed earlier. In his view, the mistake was not the message. It was timing.