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 State: So what made you decide to take the leap?
Blount: I was sitting on a beach on Kiawah Island.
We were there for a family vacation, and I had
stayed behind to load up the cooler while the others
used the showers. It was a defining moment. There
was no one else on the beach. There was a sunset,
a slight wind. It was warm, and I broke out in a cold
sweat. I realized I’m not having fun at AT&T anymore.
I’m not happy. At that point, I decided I would start
taking the recruiters’ calls.
It was a few months later when the Telstra board
called again and asked if I’d consider doing a video
teleconference with all the board members. It
was at midnight because of the time difference
between Australia and New York, where I was
located. I said, I can’t interview for another job
sitting in offices at AT&T, so they sent me to a
conference room of our arch rival, MCI, to do the
two-hour interview.
State: What did you learn about the company
during the conference?
Blount: For one thing, I learned that I’d have to
navigate a parliamentary system of government
since, initially, Telstra would be 100 percent owned
by the government. I asked, could a non-Australian
run this? And they told me, your board is appointed
by the government. We can help.
Through other due diligence, I knew the company
needed strong leaders in key positions. It had
European-style unions and tactics and lots of
“feather bedding” from the top down. There were
93,000 employees and I had 26 direct reports. I
knew it would take a while to dress it up. I thought
it would take three years. It took five.
State: Did you feel like the Australians accepted
you as an American?
Blount: Yes, Australians have a great affinity for
Americans. It may go back to the Battle of the
Coral Sea in World War II, when the Americans
intercepted the Japanese fleet and arguably saved
Australia from an invasion. Most of them were saying,
“At least someone will know what they’re doing.”
There was the other side, the unions, saying, this
Yank has come to reform the company and take
away our jobs. There were some death threats.
State: The unions created a lot of roadblocks
for you. How did you handle them?
Blount: I tried a par ticipatory approach. I even
signed an agreement bound by law to work with
the unions for a full year. But I told them from
the start, I’m pro-employee, not anti-union. We’ll
either have to reach consensus, or I’ll drive on. I
met with union leadership once a month to discuss
changes needed to make the company viable,
competitive. And at every step, they attempted to
either stonewall or block me.
At one point, I found out that only 50 of my
employees were not in the union. That included
senior management, which was schizophrenic.
They didn’t know whether they were with the union
or with the senior leadership of the company.
I sat in my office after just learning that, staring
at my reflection in the plate glass windows one
winter evening, and I said out loud, ‘Frank, you don’t
know how to do this.’ But then I said, ‘You have
not come halfway across the world not to do this.’
After a year, I saw that working with the unions
was not going anywhere. Although we didn’t make
much progress that year, it did buy me time to
get a new leadership team in place and to get all
senior managers out of union control.
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