AVP's and Chiefs of Staff feed into the Ranks. The overwhelming majority of these folks haven't cut their teeth on anything. Well educated MBA's from Top Tier Schools focused on communicating what the Executive wants to hear and not what they need to hear. When the executive is told what they need to hear they then communicate back to the AVP's and Chiefs of Staff to fix it. But since the Executives are coming from the AVP's and Chiefs of Staff no one knows how to fix it. It's a vicious cycle of in-bredness and incompetence of the well educated and polished. Those that are running the business get bogged down in this process and spend much valuable time on Powerpoint's. Powerpoint's that are more concerned with telling the executive what he wants to hear along with the proper fonts and colors. The AVP's and Chiefs of Staff have convinced themselves they are the chosen ones and thus can't be bothered with getting their hands dirty. Seriously these folks come from a program where they rotate around various parts of the business and never spend enough time anywhere to learn anything. Countless times the well educated MBA's stroll in for a 6 month stint and do nothing but waste people's valuable time with their questions and ideas. They become masters of the powerpoint and eating up others time, that is about it. Ask yourself how much time you have spent answering an executives question when a simple email with bullets would suffice. You have a large communication issue where the top brass has such a void between themselves and what is actuall going on. Have you ever compared our web sites to other's web sites, we are a convoluted mess of circular links, redirect, and confusing offerings. But someone is telling these folks what a great job they are doing. It's a giant circle jerk from the AVP level up to the Board. All that education leading to poor customer relations. They still have not figured out that people hate AT&T from every direction. You are what your record says and the stock price says it all. AT&T is a massive disaster in it's current state and has been for over a decade. The past decade of management has cost shareholders $150 - $200 Billion Dollars of Wealth.
18 replies (most recent on top)
MBAs have little value, the market is flooded with them and their groupthink. Many of today's tech companies shun them and want actual accomplishments. Often they are viewed as you wasted your time when you could have gone down a less traveled road.
The person who questioned the comment about top tier schools is me who has two MBA's .....and both from a top University....A lot of my prior colleagues now long gone had their Doctorate's...So yes, I know what is involved in obtaining a graduate degree and one MBA obtained while working full time..
The posters who mention employees ‘receiving MBAs from insignificant schools’ clearly have no idea of the amount of work required to obtain an MBA . I applaud those who complete their programs; I know personally how challenging it is. Further, depending on the title, some roles within the company require a PhD. There are a ton of employees all over the country with advance degrees, and yes, ATT does recruit throughout the country at ‘top tier’ schools for positions that require advanced studies ...and those positions are not entry level.
Its incredible how this is all over ATT.
You should see the AVPs down in ATTMexico, a lot of them AVPs, not knowing what to do nor what their role is, in reality they are useless. They're all literally clowns thinking they are the best of the best; they don't even have a top tier education, nor a noticeable career or achievement in the company; if they have a mba is from a insignificant school. Heck, we have a CIO that completed a sh-tty mba during working hours.
They really don't add value, a useless "management" layer.
If you look at the recruiting schedules for top tier MBA schools, Harvard, Penn, Stanford, Virginia, Duke, you WILL NOT see AT&T there. Why? Top tier MBA schools go to top tier companies. AT&T is a mediocre company at best and CANNOT attract top talent and skill. Simple as that.
MBA's from Top Tier Schools? Are you joking? I have not seen any from Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale etc....What top tier schools are you speaking of? Middle of the road Universities at best....My peers now long gone went to Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, Wharton etc.....These are the top tier schools.
Excellent insight into the stock price performance. I know of an AVP who openly brags to have had 19 jobs in 16 years.
Those ‘well educated MBAs’ job is to do whatever the scope of the project handed down to them. And, like it or not, their bosses expect professional deliveries (PowerPoint presentations). And it is factual that a credentialed/degreed employee does not necessarily translate into the one with the most experience. But the complaints the poster raise are not new and, frankly, not particularly factual. They are thinly veiled resentments.......‘those in the field doing the work know what the problems are and how to fix them....but instead they hire people (well educated MBAs).’
There are communication, customer service issues within most mega corporations. But getting to the resolution to those problems should not mean we resort to ‘Us vs Them’. That’s definitely a recipe for disaster.
stank is digging att's grave and why should he care he will come out of it with a golden parachute.
yes the website truly is a mess and was probably written by people who ran the election in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
their billing is just as bad as their web site.
This is spot on. They are nothing but AVP lemmings collecting a fat paycheck and stock grants while it lasts.
They’re trying to BUY into power/success/notoriety, or whatever they’re seeking, instead of earning it!
Way too many Chiefs and not enough Indians !
OP - Well stated
All very true. When you have a company that started at telecom, then decided it wants its competitors to be Google, Amazon so they call themselves a tech company, then buys into media so they can be a media company, they’re not going to have the right skills.
Also, leadership need to truly be honest with themselves. With all the leadership team in a different generation and mindset than Silicon Valley, can they really compete?
I've never seen so much "fat" in a company, AVPs, chief of staff is just a layer of middle management. Someone needs to slice up AT&T and push MBA losers on the bottom to work up. Elon Musk even called out how worthless they are to companies...
OP - well stated.
The stock is the same price as it was 25 years ago. It's hard to fathom the level of incompetence that has resulted in that fact, and it honestly doesn't get discussed enough.
The disaster began when John Hayes was bypassed as President & CEO of Southwestern Bell Telephone by an underling (EW) in order to help recover $ for Zane Barnes from his recent divorce.
Big Ed didn't want to hear the truth, Handy R told Ed what he wanted to hear and the rest is history.
The snots at the top also promoted Texas A&M grads with degrees in "fog" with the addition of "California Dreaming" personnel whose ideas helped ruin this company. This stock is headed for $12.00