AT&T, one of America’s blue-chip companies, recently downsized more than 60,000 employees. The media described it in Armageddon-like terms. The New York Times called it the “one year journey of discovery, dismemberment and downsizing” and “the epicenter of a corporate earthquake.”[i] The changes were strongly felt by many Northeastern stakeholders, employees, managers, suppliers, schools, tax districts, communities, and state governments. No one was immune!
AT&T once had a telecommunications monopoly in a highly regulated market. It no longer does. The Baby Bells and others are encroaching on AT&T’s markets. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issues new competitive rules almost monthly as it encourages local telephone competition. The AT&T story has been replicated by many American companies and felt by many communities.
Just as telecommunications change has washed over AT&T, it has introduced its own waves of constant change into its static culture. The results have been disquieting. Change has developed its own momentum. Each organizational blip is big news. AT&T has publicly replaced several CEO’s and more change is around the corner with a new set of executives.
AT&T, affectionately known as Ma Bell, is a warning signal to all organizations, managers, employees, communities, suppliers, contractors, and others who think they’re immune from competition and change. AT&T symbolized organizational homesteading, having a stable, lifetime job. That was then and this is now. The prevailing business wisdom is to break organizational paradigms, structures, and cultures that hinder organizational profitability, entrepreneurship, and individual initiative.
The organizational challenge is that when it breaks the current organizational paradigm it creates the platform for Brand U’s who look out for their own employability and work destiny.
[i] Johnson, Kirk, AT&T Changes Cause Ripples Across Region, NY Times, August 6, 1996, p. A 10.