MIT Sloan Management Review Article on How AT&T Employees Turned Process Gripes Into $230 Million Saved

AT&T found a way to help workers kill outdated processes and tools that wasted time, energy, and money — one drop at a time. Here’s how the approach works.

An $8 expense — rejected because of a travel policy technicality — led to my own first “raindrop.” That term is unique to AT&T, but the leadership challenge isn’t: A raindrop is an annoying policy, an outdated process, or a tool that’s no longer useful — anything that hinders rather than helps you and your organization move forward. One or two of these may be tedious but bearable; pool enough of them, however, and a day at work can make people feel as if they’re drowning in bureaucracy. Every raindrop wastes time, energy, and/or money.

During the past three and a half years, fixing or getting rid of such raindrops has led to 3.6 million hours saved and helped the company avoid more than $230 million in costs — not a bad return, you might say, from scrutinizing matters as small as an $8 expense.

About the Author

Jeremy Legg is the CTO of AT&T. Before joining the company in 2020, he was executive vice president and CTO for WarnerMedia, where he led technology strategy, development, and operations, including development of the HBO Max video streaming platform.

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