Tough Calls: AT&T and the Hard Lessons Learned from the Telecom Wars [Hardcover]

Dick Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 26, 2004

Through good times and bad, few companies have been so prominently and constantly in the public eye as AT&T. Unblinkingly honest, "Tough Calls" is an insider's firsthand account of how AT&T tried to cope with fierce competition, economic turmoil, and intense media scrutiny. This is the story of the phone company - and there isn't anyone who knows the story like Dick Martin. "Tough Calls" reveals how the strategies that drive major business decisions are disastrously wrong as often as they are right.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Former AT&T PR head Martin records his take on Ma Bell's descent from blue chip royalty, offering an insider's view of the corporation's struggle to reorient itself to a world in which its longtime cash cow—long-distance service—was becoming a profitless commodity. CEO Michael Armstrong's late '90s attempt to counter this trend by expanding into cable, wireless and business services forms the centerpiece of the book. Ultimately, AT&T ran out of time as the overly exuberant market collapsed and the company had to break itself up once more, this time in order to stay afloat. The journey was highlighted by mega-deals, leadership missteps, PR blunders and outright fraud. Martin also offers an eye-opening analysis of the impact of MCI WorldCom's fraudulent financial statements, which, he says, lowered AT&T's sales by $5 billion per year. Martin lightens the endless carnage with portraits of the telecom industry's top players, describing, for instance, how a new AT&T president was unable to tell the reporters at his first press conference the name of the long-distance company he uses at home. The result: "Run AT&T? He apparently couldn't even spell it. And so forth." There are lots of good PR and leadership lessons here. (Nov.)Forecast:Anyone sussing out AT&T's remaining potential—or hurt by the telecom bubble's demise—is a potential customer here.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Martin, head of AT&T's public relations during the tenure of CEO C. Michael Armstrong, describes Armstrong's leadership and that of his predecessor from 1996 to recently, when the company was acquired by Comcast. (Armstrong did not participate in the writing of this book.) The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a death sentence for stand-alone, long-distance service, from which AT&T derived 80 percent of its revenues and 100 percent of its profits. Armstrong arrived in 1997, assuming one of the greatest challenges in American business, and designed the right plan for the company. He would have survived some mistakes but lacked the time to overcome years of fraud perpetrated by his main competitor, MCI Worldcom. While Martin focuses upon missteps, we also learn of Armstrong's successes, including wireless and data business acquisitions and developing a $4 billion outsourcing program in less than four years. Martin, a public relations veteran with 20/20 hindsight who conducted numerous interviews for this book, presents an important corporate story with lessons for those fighting today's battles. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; 1st edition (November 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814472435
• ISBN-13: 978-0814472439
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,521,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dick Martin is a business writer specializing in marketing and public relations. He has written articles for the Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek.com, the Conference Board Review, Leader to Leader, the Journal of Business Strategy, and the PR Encyclopedia. He is also a frequent speaker to business and student groups.

Martin was executive vice president of public relations, employee communications and brand management for AT&T from 1997 to 2003, capping a 32-year career with the company. He was also chairman of the AT&T Foundation.

The American Management Association published his book - Tough Calls - AT&T and Hard Lessons Learned in the Telecom Wars - in November of 2004. The book received favorable reviews in Fortune, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe. One reviewer said it was "perhaps the most honest insider's account ever committed to paper."

In 2007, the AMA published Martin's second book, Rebuilding Brand America - What We Must Do to Restore Our Reputation and Safeguard the Future of American Business Abroad. In its review, Publisher's Weekly said, "Martin's marketing expertise allows him to illuminate an issue of serious concern for political and business leaders."

Martin's third book for the AMA, Secrets of the Marketing Masters, was published in the spring of 2009.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Close to Worthless December 30, 2005

By Alberto Dominguez VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The back cover says that this book is "an up-front seat for the roller coaster ride" and a "look at how a great company tumbled" that will give us a "tour of AT&T's wild ride" and "chart the dissolution of an American icon." Not one of those comments is even remotely warranted.

I was expecting to find interesting insider discussions of important questions like:
* Did AT&T make any mistakes during the "trivestiture" in January 1996 (akin to giving away the wireless licenses to the RBOCs in the 1984 breakup)? Martin doesn't say, beyond talking about the PR fallout of the layoffs, which right off the bat were themselves only a side issue of the broader business strategy.
* Was pursuing cable the right strategy for Armstrong to implement? Probably, but Martin doesn't weigh in on this.
* Did AT&T overpay for MediaOne? Of course, but again Martin is silent.
* Did AT&T further compound its cable problem by putting poor executives (first Hindery and then Somers) in charge of broadband? Not a peep.
* How should AT&T have handled the $2 billion @Home acquisition? Silence.
* Were all these problems unavoidable due to AT&T's pre-1996 succession planning problems? The only aspect of this question that Martin bothers to discuss is the PR fiasco surrounding Walter's departure. As if that were the most important aspect. He strikes me as having an exaggerated sense of his importance to the organization.

AT&T was a corporate icon for 130 years and had 4 million stockholders. Surely there were "hard lessons learned" as the subtitle claims, lessons that are valuable in the broader context of the modern corporation. However, from reading this book you would get the impression that AT&T's only mistakes were in communications. Martin gives us an incredibly myopic view of just the PR efforts related to AT&T's various missteps. Outside the PR business, who cares? Nobody! This could (indeed should) have been the business book with the broadest appeal in a decade. Instead we got a book that only PR people could stomach. It was so monumentally boring it literally put me to sleep. I bought this book to read about AT&T; if I cared about Martin's actions I would have bought his biography instead.

Despite naming the first chapter "Don't dance to the music of your own buzz" it seems that Martin has done exactly that. His book is the ultimate example of form over substance, confusing the important business questions facing AT&T with the buzz surrounding him and the communication of the answers to those questions. Whether the answers were the right ones or not, Martin is unwilling (or unable) to say. If this book is an example of the caliber of executive thinking at the level of Executive Vice President at AT&T no wonder the company sank so far so fast.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great insights on AT&T and the practice of PR November 9, 2004

By Scribe

Format:Hardcover

Dick Martin pulls no punches in his review of AT&T and the PR efforts he led while head of the company's communications team. His insights come from his PR leadership during some of AT&T's most tumultuous times. The inner thinkings of CEOs, CFOs and more are on display as the company tackles increasing challenges in the marketplace. Martin appears most insightful when he shines the spotlight equally bright on the company's PR efforts he led -- what went right, what could have gone better, and what went wrong. A good read for those interested in corporate leadership and the communications that often accompany it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Tedious, at Best February 6, 2006

By Loyd E. Eskildson HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

Dick Martin had an excellent position inside AT&T with which to report on the "perfect storm" of technological change, intensifying competition, and government intervention (both by Congress and the courts). At the same time, the industry was melting away with the advent of cellular, its biggest competitor (MCI WorldCom) felt free to slash prices because it was making up its financial results as it went along (forcing AT&T to lose about $5 billion in revenues/year), and AT&T was seeming going in circles - diversifying (eg. into cable) - then returning to its roots, promoting new outside leadership (eg. Walters, from a printing firm) - then firing, opposing Baby Bell entry into its long-distance - then supporting (with conditions), etc.

Unfortunately, Martin does not provide a structured summary of these events - instead he remains mired in the details of P.R. actions and responses associated with them - a topic of little interest or importance.