Listening to Your Best Resource

They say employees are a company’s “best assets.” I’ve always hated that phrase, mostly because the people who say it usually don’t mean it. And “assets”, really? We’re a team...we’re all in this together as co-workers, to serve as resources for each other, as we work to serve our customers. But like most phrases, there’s a truth behind it. The team who serves our customers knows them best - period. And leadership’s job is to listen to them. A lot of companies might recognize this (or think they do), but too few truly understand it. 

Our company has over 100,000 people serving our customers. That’s the size of a small city — and a vibrant one at that! We are a diverse bunch who bring every type of outlook and attitude to work each day. That’s what makes this place hum! And yet, we all have one thing in common: passion for taking care of customers. When you have the population of a wildly diverse city keyed in on the same topic, you have the stuff of success, -- if you can tap it. 

Here’s a great example: T-Mobile ONE Military. 

Think we just pulled that out of thin air? Not quite. T-Mobile ONE Military was the outcome of insights and conversations between employees, which would never have happened if we hadn’t been listening to each other in this company. 

Here’s the story. Shortly after John Legere came to T-Mobile, he was approached by a handful of military veteran employees who explained how vets can be shy about mentioning their service, to the degree they didn’t even know who else in the office shared their experience. John immediately saw that as a problem. As a huge proponent of diversity and inclusion who understands it’s value, John doesn’t want anyone to feel like they can’t be their full self on the job. He also knew a then-shrinking No. 4 operator in wireless would need every person in its ranks to be fully vested in their company and job if we were going to have a fighting chance. So John encouraged them to speak up and find ways to engage together and throughout the company. He threw his support behind them, and they ran to the challenge … because that’s what military people do. 

Soon we had Honor Walls at our Bellevue headquarters and other T-Mobile offices around the country. Our Veterans and Allies Network formed and grew. And today, our military employees around the country promote or host community events all through the year. We host military-centric recruiting events regularly, and have pledged to hire 10,000 veterans and military spouses, while also working with Team Rubicon and Fourblock. 

That brings us to T-Mobile ONE Military, which came about (like all those other awesome things) because our many military employees were talking about how proud they are to serve, and sharing their ideas on how we could serve the military community in return. We were just smart enough to listen, and T-Mobile ONE Military was born. Talk about using our resources wisely. 

That’s just the most recent example showing how our employees have helped make us the fastest growing and best thing going in U.S. wireless this decade. Hey, YOUR team is your company’s best resource, too… if you’re listening to them, that is. 

I, for one, would like to thank this incredible team for making us who we are today. And if you like T-Mobile ONE Military, or getting Netflix on Us, or having No Taxes & Fees on your monthly bill, or unlimited data, or ANY of the 14 Un-carrier moves we’ve delivered SO FAR, then you should thank our people, too!!

I'm President and COO of T-Mobile and you can also find me on Twitter at @SievertMike