A CEO Said the Quiet Part Out Loud

Why this memo matters (even if you don’t work at AT&T)

In a recent memo responding to employee survey results, AT&T CEO John Stankey stated plainly that the company has moved away from an employment deal based on loyalty and tenure toward a market-based model focused on capability, contribution, and commitment.

Whether you agree with the direction or not, the clarity matters.

Because when a company changes the deal, the experience of work changes first.

Engagement scores don’t fall — experiences do

AT&T’s engagement scores declined even as most employees still reported commitment. That combination is telling. It suggests people haven’t disengaged from the mission — but the day-to-day conditions of work have shifted faster than expectations.

It often means people haven’t stopped caring about the work or the mission. What’s shifted is the felt experience of working — the day-to-day conditions that make sustained engagement easier or harder.

This is also where organizations frequently misdiagnose the issue.

They treat engagement as an attitude problem.

It’s more often a conditions problem.

What changed beneath the surface

Read closely, the memo describes structural and behavioral shifts that affect daily work:

• career opportunity tied more tightly to visible contribution and proximity
• collaboration and in-person presence positioned as essential
• cultural change framed as a practiced “language,” not a program
• wellbeing supported through benefits, while responsibility for fit remains individual
• contribution increasingly measured through broader data signals, not just reviews

None of these are abstract.

Each one changes how work feels while it’s being done — how predictable it is, how safe it feels to be “in progress,” how visible effort is, and how much personal margin is required to keep up.

The memo’s real message: self-led engagement is now assumed

There’s a line of expectation-setting running through the entire note: If this direction doesn’t align with your needs or preferences, you have every right to find a better fit. And if you want this culture to work, don’t wait for others — adjust your own behavior and commit.

That’s not a culture initiative.

That’s a statement about the modern employment reality: engagement is increasingly self-led.

In other words, the organization sets direction and standards, and individuals are expected to adapt their operating model accordingly — how they work, how they learn, how they stay valuable, and how they maintain personal sustainability.

This isn’t inherently wrong. But it’s consequential.

Where the tension shows up in real life

When the deal changes, people don’t disengage overnight. They often move through a quieter sequence:

• compliance without energy
• risk-aversion (“don’t be the outlier”)
• less learner-led development because time gets squeezed
• more fatigue because uncertainty costs attention
• declining trust if measurement feels like surveillance rather than fairness

This is why “culture” can feel so slippery.

Two people can be in the same company and experience entirely different realities based on role, proximity, manager quality, workload, and personal life demands.

The memo acknowledges this indirectly when it says culture is “in the eye of the beholder.” It’s a useful admission — because it means experience is not uniform, even under a single set of expectations.

What leaders often miss

Leaders often assume that once expectations are clarified, alignment follows.

In reality, experience lags policy.

You can change compensation models, location requirements, performance language, and career structures quickly. But people need time — and support — to reorganize how they operate inside the new reality.

Without that support, the change still “works” on paper, but it extracts more hidden cost in attention, learning capacity, and willingness to stay invested.

The bottom line

A CEO said the quiet part out loud: the employment deal has changed.

That clarity may be necessary for competition and relevance. But it also changes the lived experience of work — and it shifts more responsibility onto individuals to manage performance, learner-led development, and sustainability.

Engagement doesn’t disappear when the deal changes.

It becomes self-led.

And that’s a different kind of work than most organizations are used to asking for.