On July 11, 2011 I started work for AT&T as part of the Leadership Development Program (LDP). It’s a two year rotational program targeted at post-MBA students, designed to train general managers with broad exposure to the business. The 2.5 year rotation is structured as follows:
- A 12 month rotation as a front-line manager, supervising unionized employees.
- A six month rotation as an individual contributor.
- Performance depending, a promotion to second level manager supervising other front-line managers.
My first rotation is in the Advertising Solutions division, much of which is legacy Yellow Pages. Obviously common sense limits the amount of commentary I can make about my current employer, but as you can imagine it is certainly a challenging business environment. And yes, AT&T does still make a significant amount of money on that old yellow phone book.
What I can say is that it has been an interesting experience thus far and is a good opportunity to further reflect on what I’m looking for. This last year has been a year, not simply of infrequent blog posts, but of major life changes — rivaling or perhaps even greater than the day in 2001 when I abandoned civilian life, moved 3000 miles away from home, and found myself with a shaved head wearing a blue uniform.