Top Stories of 2025: What AT&T CEO’s memo did right
The memo was pointed and crystal clear.
This story was originally published on Aug. 14, 2025. We’re republishing it as part of our countdown of top stories of the year.
Emily Schlorf is a freelance writer and communicator.
Loyalty is dead, “market-based culture” is in, and if you don’t like it, you can leave.
These sentiments were present in AT&T CEO John Stankey’s post-engagement-survey email sent to managers and leaked to Business Insider earlier this month.
The memo was blunt, multiple pages long and not without typos. But it wasn’t all bad. Here’s what it did right:
Executive communication, straight from the source
Many have shared their opinions on the content of Stankey’s memo. But what hasn’t been discussed is the fact that Stankey said anything at all.
Often, when a company is undergoing change or uncertainty, the communication strategy is to remain silent because of a lack of answers or tangible updates, or perhaps in hopes the issue will blow over.
But silence is violence for companies undergoing major change.
People can handle hard news. What they can’t handle is no news, which breeds rumors, uncertainty and disengagement. Stankey said it himself in the memo, “While it’s natural to feel uneasy during times of conflict and change, the greatest source of lasting anxiety is when expectations aren’t aligned or discussed openly.”
It was essential for Stankey to address managers about the issues AT&T is going through — return-to-office grievances, reluctance to change — and the fact that he said anything at all was a step in the right direction.
Another positive step? He wrote it himself.
Sure, it’s typical for executives to author responses to engagement survey results. What’s less typical is a CEO writing it themselves — and the message not getting watered down or overcomplicated through the internal editing process.
How can I tell Stankey wrote it himself? For one, it went against many internal communications best practices. It wasn’t concise or scannable. In many instances, he used hyphens instead of em dashes. And lastly, this head-scratcher of a sentence made the final draft: “Implicit in this commitment to one another is that we all carry our part of the load aid measurably contribute to the priorities the team.”
Whether intentional or not, the unrefined nature gave the note a level of humanity often missing from executive communications.
Employees may not back Stankey’s vision for the company. But at the very least, they believe he’s the one behind it.
Transparency
You don’t need a strat-comm degree to know that the success of any relationship depends on trust.
But how does a CEO in the midst of disrupting his company’s culture regain their trust? The first step according to Edelman’s Trust Barometer is to address grievances, which Stankey did from the beginning.
“In the survey you asked for transparency in communication from leadership,” Stankey wrote. “Although not my best in terms of brevity, the purpose of this multi-page note is to share a few of my thoughts with you directly while your leaders work with you to prepare their action plans.”
He admitted when he didn’t have all the answers and he communicated reasoning for recent decisions:
“I wish I could summarize a set of actions that could quickly guarantee our transition to the market-based cultural norms I described earlier,” Stankey wrote. “But I don’t think a short-term list of actions or programs would suffice. Believe me, there is nobody more impatient for this outcome than yours truly.”
And while there was undoubtedly room for more empathy in the memo, in a divided moment in company history, he made his expectations clear:
- “This note may also help you identify areas where your professional expectations might be misaligned with the strategic direction of this company,” Stankey wrote.
- “I understand that some of you may have started your tour with this company expecting an ‘employment deal’ rooted in loyalty, tenure, and conformance with the associated compensation, work structure, and benefits,” Stankey wrote. “We have consciously shifted away from some of these elements and towards a more market-based culture — focused on rewarding capability, contribution, and commitment.”
- “If a self-directed, virtual, or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish.”
Were his words harsh? Maybe. But after the initial sting of the message wears off, I’d wager that managers will be happier in the long-run knowing exactly where Stankey stands and if they still see a future there, rather than wasting time guessing.
Action plan
Words without action mean nothing. In responding to the five themes of AT&T’s engagement survey results, Stankey took five opportunities to articulate what exactly he’ll do to make things better, including:
- “While we’ve made progress with legacy migrations and infrastructure upgrades, there’s still a long way to go,” Stankey wrote. “You have my commitment that improving these capabilities remains a top priority.”
- “We will be doing some additional work illustrating what market-based culture norms look like in practice — and sharing some prompts that can be applied in your daily work life.”
- “Despite rising medical costs, we intend to hold management medical contributions flat for the 2026 renewal cycle. We continue to test new approaches to services and care in the workplace and are seeing some promising models emerge that may warrant implementing at scale.”
Another important layer of the memo was who Stankey sent it to: managers. The folks who connect leaders to front-liners and do the brunt of the work of any company, including training, instilling culture and monitoring performance — on top of their own job responsibilities.
By confiding his vision for the company in managers directly, Stankey underscored their importance in driving change. Could he have acknowledged their contributions and the difficulty of their roles more? Definitely. But including them in rebuilding the company’s future was a must.
What communicators can take away from this
Stankey broke conventions with his memo. It was wordy. It was frank. It was unpolished.
Will the memo inspire employees to rise to the occasion or force them to flee for other opportunities? Only time will tell. What communicators can take away from the memo today is the payoff of refusing to let perfection be the enemy of progress. Send the message even if you don’t have all the answers, lead with transparency and don’t be afraid to break a few rules. Doing so could get your message heard above the noise.
I disagree that Stankey’s memo was clear. It was exceedingly long and full of Execuspeak that doesn’t translate well to broad audiences, especially not at the levels he was communicating to. The only thing clear about it was the fact that he was telling people in the company it’s his way or the highway.
Not to mention that he explicitly said he was ignoring the employee engagement survey comments and sentiments. It doesn’t really give employees a lot of incentive to continue filling those out if the CEO tells them he doesn’t care about their input.
It’ll be interesting to see if AT&T experiences attrition over the next couple of years as a result of this, as well as how easily they’ll attract new entry-level employees.