Dan Schulman prioritized fixing Verizon's risk-averse, hierarchical, and inwardly-focused culture as the first step in its turnaround. He believed that fostering a "play to win" mindset was the necessary foundation before any strategic or operational changes could succeed, moving the focus from the network to the customer.
Verizon's CEO Dan Schulman rejects sugarcoating bad news. He believes employees are adults who already sense problems and are waiting for leadership to acknowledge reality. His approach is to state the unvarnished truth—for example, "we are losing"—to build the credibility needed to lead a difficult transformation.
To make customer-centricity tangible, Verizon's CEO implemented a simple, humanizing internal initiative. This framing shifts the employee mindset from abstract accounts to individual people, prompting actions like simplifying plans and treating customers with the care one would give a family member, making the abstract goal concrete.
Rather than presenting layoffs as a purely defensive cost-cutting measure, Dan Schulman framed them as a strategic necessity to fund growth. He explicitly linked the savings from 13,000 job cuts to a "war chest" for reinvesting in the customer experience, giving the painful decision a clear, forward-looking purpose.
CEO Dan Schulman envisions Verizon moving beyond its utility role to become an orchestration layer for consumers using AI. The company could manage and cost-optimize customer use of different AI models via tokens and provide a secure network environment for AI agents, creating a new, intelligent value proposition.
A high-intensity, disruptive turnaround environment isn't for everyone, and leaders shouldn't pretend it is. Verizon's CEO embraces this polarization, stating that the intense focus on winning is "heaven" for some but "hell" for others. This clarity attracts the right talent and naturally filters out those who won't thrive.