Playfair

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    • Thu Dec 13th 19:34 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sprint: Yet Another Bad Decision
      Can anyone make a stab at the specific differences between the two companies? The list is long... For instance what first comes to mind is the length of time things take. It isn't an exaggeration to say what we did in a day or two take months at Sprint, if achieved at all. Another is that one Nextel person would do what Sprint's 4 to 10 people would achieve. At Sprint, there are meetings about what meetings should be about. Casts of thousands at meetings with unempowered and uninformed Sprint employees contrasted to Nextel's four- to six-man meetings with an achieved objective at the end. Or no meeting at all at Nextel - somebody would just do it and then report its achievement.
      The Sprint environment is similar to my experiences with government and the RBOCs/LECs. The disparity with Nextel is huge.
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    • Thu Dec 13th 14:24 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sprint: Yet Another Bad Decision
      Tired, Nextel's was the only network that worked when Katrina hit. Whatever you think of the design, whether you understand it or not, it worked. The ILECs failed but Nextel's COWs moved in and there was communication.

      I agree, 'tough but fair' is the leadership needed. You are not alone in wanting someone untied to either side. The Nextelians really did love the Tim experience. You didn't know him, and this allows you a different perspective.

      The approach of a wireless carrier and Sprint is terribly different. If you had worked in both environments, you'd see. I've worked for a few ILECs/RBOCs and the environments drastically and deeply differ. This is the basis for the shock that most Nextelians underwent at the merger.

      Yes, non-union is a huge advantage.
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    • Thu Dec 13th 14:23 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sprint: Yet Another Bad Decision
      xnext, thank you. Your description is apt - you definitely sound like you worked there!

      Todd, The Disciple, An Invested Observer, NY are right.

      Still in the Middle makes valid points.

      Its hard to live through life at Nextel then have everything change in the Sprint environment without identifying all the differences. Nextelians are used to making observations, running the analysis, and making the changes. So here we are noting the problems we see. Will it make a difference?

      Reiterating a point already made, this isn't about Sprint vs. Nextel. The two entities combined because each had something to offer. Now its one company that needs extrordinary leadership.
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    • Thu Dec 13th 12:48 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sprint: Yet Another Bad Decision
      Then Tim really is a genius to have attracted and held so many customers if it’s true that Nextel "didnt even have a network ". After Sprint got hold of Nextel's users [apparently using a non-existent network??] and contemptuously lost them, the customer loss was so high, didn't Sprint's churn become the highest in the industry?

      Aside from that, who would fit the characteristics needed to lead Sprint out of its RBOC inertia?
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    • Thu Dec 13th 11:00 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sprint: Yet Another Bad Decision
      I wonder about the embittered legacy Sprint employee and the reason for this attitude. In the past, isn't it true that layoffs occurred every quarter? Isn't it true that retaliation and punishment was the consistent response to bad news? Did pay, bonuses, and rewards drop? Did the employee learn to just duck and cover, leave at five, and stop caring? Is it true that accountability now hides behind procrastination and onerous process? Is the anger, passive-aggressive attitude an expression of despair? The campus is full of zombies who report to work, join endless non-productive meetings. There is little sense of trust or teamwork. There are no emails or meetings after five or on the weekends. To that employee, what's the point? Work gets you nowhere and no rewards. Just collect the paycheck and preserve what job there is.

      Does selfish leadership that breaks the backs of the employees cause people to shut down?

      Sprint has perfectly intelligent and capable people who have lost heart and given up. They exhibit resentment and hatred for the bright-eyed Nextelians who care and ask questions.

      The company needs a charismatic leader of integrity who is willing to make changes, knows how to make light-speed changes and fire those who resist that change. The leadership must care about the employee and reward and encourage. Drop the fear, hubris, sense of entitlement, and self-interest.

      The Sprint employee has generally only known the Sprint environment. The Nextel employee has experienced the two environments, Sprint's and Nextel's. Sprint is a miserable place to work in comparison.

      Nextel people were overworked and overwhelmed but we saw the results of our blood and sweat. Nextel was an exciting place to work where we had leaders who paid us attention and rewarded us well for our efforts. The once-empowered Nextelian is used to making a difference. Recognizing a problem and fixing it quickly is hugely encouraging to want to do it again. No, the environment wasn't perfect, but many of us after the merger recognized how really good we'd had it.

      Sprint is slow, unrewarding, full of despair and passive-aggressive behavior, upper management is utterly unengaged and uninformed, the gun-shy employee is afraid for his job security, The result is labyrinthine product design, poor customer service, contempt for the customer, contempt for the employee, disinterest in financial accountability, inability to respond to immediate market demands. The tangible customer experience is symptomatic of the core issues at the heart of every Sprint department and division.

      The merger didn't result in identifying good processes to keep and those to optimize. There was never deep analysis of department structures, objectives, and methods. The opportunity to fit experience of upper management to the positions they hold was never addressed. Instead, employees were simply merged apparently based on location and little else.

      The change must come from the top.
      View article »
    • Tue Dec 11th 21:59 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sprint: Yet Another Bad Decision
      This isn't about conservative/liberal or faggot/straight. Folks spit and spew insult when they don't have specific facts. There are hard working conscientious workers on both Sprint and Nextel sides.

      St Theresa once said, "fish rots from the head". The betrayal was at the top - not the workers. With unselfish leadership, this could have worked. The "merger", seen as an acquisition by Sprint after the fact, was supposed to mesh the assets of Sprint with the management style of Nextel. That was clearly stated at the beginning. When this didn't happen, and the Nextel teams were treated with derision and contempt by Sprint people, things went sour. But had management stepped in and controlled this clash, and leveraged what Nextel had to offer, the results would be different today. Why didn't management recognize what Nextel people brought and why wasn't this advertised? And vice-versa? How could two camps possibly work together, knowing nothing about the good each brought? Instead jealousy, suspicion, contempt and passive-aggressive behavior became the norm.

      Donahue was Chairman, not COO, not CEO. "Chairman" typically doesn't manage operational issues in a large company. When Donahue recognized the disasters occurring down below and started to get involved, he was way too late and his efforts were blocked. He threw up his hands and left early. Didn't want to be associated with ongoing failure. Don't blame Donahue for the chaos. When he tried to intervene, he was rebuffed violently. The violent emotions being expressed down in the ranks were even more vitriolic at the Board level. Why would Donahue stay for that?

      The Nextel network worked until the merger. The Network started to fail after Sprint engineering sent the network into a death spiral. Sprint would not listen to the Nextel engineers on tuning the iDEN network. Sprint would not agree to Motorola's maintenance and support. Sprint refused to consider the pleas of the Nextel folks when Sprint decided to stop maintaining integral pieces of the cell towers, arguing that these pieces weren't necessary! Sprint CDMA engineers had no clue how to manage this different network, but shut down any appeals from the Nextel folks. The Nextel folks were let go, or left in disgust. Motorola's support dropped. So DUH, guess what happened.

      Sprint's struggles with customer care really start with the poorly-designed product. The lowly care rep has no control over the complexities of how the systems work, or how confusing each disparate product is to figure out. Plus they are trained inadequately. Care organizations have high turnover anyway - its a frustrating, low-paid job with no perks, and little encouragement. Confusion on how to help an angry customer only exacerbates the pitiful situation into which the rep is put, and adds to the turnover problem. The complicated systems, quirky products, the Rube Goldberg gerbil-powered bubblegum links, passwords, commands, etc. would make anyone crazy trying to figure it out. Lay this on a high-school educated rep with no technical knowledge, poor training, and you have no customer support. To solve the customer care problem, I challenge a product person to walk through just one single Sprint product end-to-end with its attendant add-ons, support systems, call detail records, billing systems, voicemail etc. This would be an eye-opener to understand why a lowly rep can't help a customer turn on or off services and products.

      The Nextel folk are bewildered by the figurehead Sprint VPs who don't understand the business, yet report to work. The rank and file Sprint employees are bewildered by the brashness of Nextel people who regularly speak to their Nextel VPs and Officers. At Sprint, the model appears to be that the company is run by the managers, not the Directors or the VPs. The managers do their own thing and work in isolated silos. The Nextel model is that everyone is involved, no silos, and get specific direction from Directors and VPs. The Nextel folk are bewildered by the lack of empowerment of the stock Sprint worker, and wonder why nobody asks questions or do running analyses.

      Nextel folk are bewildered by the apparent contempt that Sprint managers have for their VPs and VPs for their managers. These two echelons never communicate with each other. The managers are running the company. These managers, who may have been managers for 20 years, know they will never be Director or VP. There appears to be a line that is not crossed. The VPs have plenty of letters following their titles, and degrees out the wazoo, but no concrete understanding of the cellphone business. Sort of like stuffed white shirts and a closed society that disdains using bad language or asking questions, the VPs are in the ubiquitous 'ivory tower', fed false information by their managers who know the VPs don't understand anything anyway. The VPs don't recognize that this information is bogus, because, like I said, the VPs don't understand enough to recognize good information from junk. There are bewildered knowledgeable Nextel VPs who are shocked when their Sprint employees repeatedly ignore direct orders. These employees are completely unused to informed VPs and ignoring them is acceptable behavior. Meanwhile, the managers do their thing, make the decisions, and run the business, lacking the cohesive oversight that a strong upper management offers in a typical company. But having lacked this kind of authority for years, the stock Sprint worker doesn't know that it is missing.

      When layoffs occur at Sprint, the lazy VPs never get whacked ... why is this?

      Is it my imagination or does Sprint get rid of the get-it-done workers? A few years ago, they got rid of the PCS folks, the shoot-from-the-hip; manage-by-the-seat-of-... beat-the-competition-to-the-door-guys. Then many competent workers left with Embarq's spinoff. Now the new idea being considered, is selling off the worthwhile WiMax. I don't understand this pattern of cutting off the arms and legs. Sprint used to have a lot more conscientious workers - it couldn't've gotten where it is today without this. But where are these folks now? It appears that remaining Sprint worker gets angry when asked to do work or to change their routine in some way. This is not the recipe for success.

      Embarq took the funds generated by landline. Sprint is now a cellphone company. Cell phone companies survive on fast and imaginative analysis, empowered workers, fast work, the make-it-work and get-it-to-market approach. Unlike guaranteed income on the end of a landline phone bill, cell phone companies don't have the same kind of guaranteed cashflow. Cell phone companies really have to work for their paycheck. Mean, lean and fast. The masses and VPs at Sprint don't seem to recognize that this guaranteed funding and cashflow is no longer coming in. When Sprint comes out of its slumber, figures this out, and reacts accordingly, the numbers will rise.

      But where has management been all this time?? When does the betrayal of Sprint stop?

      Bring back Donahue. He took Nextel from the brink of bankruptcy to number five. He is a get-it-done guy who can make things happen for Sprint too. Many of us would follow him to hell and back.
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    • Tue Dec 11th 21:33 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Sprint: Yet Another Bad Decision
      I am a former Nextel employee and I love Rush Limbaugh. What's that mean dyou spose...
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