AT&T CEO John Stankey says he wants no part of a workplace built on yes-men. In a joint interview with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon hosted by LinkedIn, Stankey said one of the principles baked into his company's cultural documents is that employees must not walk into a meeting without having done their homework.
"I love discourse," Stankey said. "Don't walk in there and just be an observer. When you have a point of view, it shouldn't just be some uninformed opinion. It should be a point of view that's built on facts, information, and data. I crave that."
Dimon, for his part, has long pushed the same standard at JPMorgan. He has argued that leaders should let employees disagree or raise uncomfortable issues in meetings — even if it means putting the 'dead cat on the table.'
"I am never upset when someone says I'm wrong about something," Dimon said. "I just want to do the best I can for our clients, our country, our company."
Both executives are also adjusting how they prepare for meetings in the age of artificial intelligence. Stankey said he is 'starting to wonder if reading is the best way to go,' now favoring a 'dialog dynamic with AI' that lets him consume information faster. Dimon said he does the same, using Gemini or Google to 'deep dive to get information very quickly' before meetings.
Still, the core principle hasn't moved. Dimon has said that when he walks into a meeting having done his pre-reads, attendees get his full attention — a standard he described at Fortune's Most Powerful Women conference last year. He has held that view since he was a 28-year-old Harvard MBA working as an assistant to American Express president Sanford 'Sandy' Weill, when he said his 'first goal was to learn something and not say anything until I could add some value.'
The numbers come first, and they cut against a tidy narrative. JPMorgan's stock is up more than 17% over the past year. AT&T's has fallen about 12% over the same period. Two CEOs preaching the same gospel of preparation and accountability have produced very different results for shareholders.
That gap is worth sitting with. A culture that rewards informed dissent and punishes passive attendance is, in principle, exactly what free enterprise should look like — merit over comfort, substance over performative agreement. It is the opposite of the participation-trophy management style that has crept into corporate America under the banner of consensus-building.
But culture alone does not move a stock price. Capital rewards clear rules, disciplined execution and earnings that back up the talk. JPMorgan's ledger has given Dimon's philosophy a tailwind; AT&T's has not yet done the same for Stankey. The market has already voted, and it does not grade on boardroom rhetoric. Investors will keep watching whether AT&T's demand for sharper thinking in the conference room eventually shows up in the only place that ultimately matters: the balance sheet.
