Word: kappel
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Chairman Kappel now earns $271,667 a year and lives in a four-bedroom, six-telephone house in Bronxville, a New York suburb. He allows few ex pensive tastes to enter his well-modulated life. His wife does the cooking, except for parties. Kappel doesn't smoke, rarely drinks, and faithfully attends Bronxville's Dutch Reformed Church, whose 3,000 members make it the largest church of that denomination in the U.S. He does not openly participate in party politics ("I don't believe that I should"), but he likes to read books of a political nature...
Much Like the Army. Kappel is the prototype of the A.T.&T. executive, that particular type of U.S. manager whose training and abilities make the telephone company about the best-managed firm anywhere. One former A.T.&T. vice president wrote that the company's management system "is much the same as the Army's." A.T.&T. is a pure meritocracy, run by men who started at the bottom and worked up, step by step, winning the nod of many bosses along the way. The executives at A.T.&T. combine in themselves dedication, sense of service, awareness of public...
...travel farthest in this obstacle course are tough, well briefed and able. At the very top, A.T.&T. is run by a 2 3-man group that is led by Kappel and President Eugene J. Mc-Neely, 63, a stern taskmaster who supervises operations and personnel and has followed Kappel into three executive positions since 1949. This top team is known to company insiders as "the Cabinet." It is made up of an extremely close-knit and like-minded group of men (median age: 57) with strikingly similar backgrounds. They feel most comfortable with their own kind, even...
...rates. But the Cabinet seldom wastes time on detail or minor decisions. All down the line, A.T.&T.'s middle executives try to solve all problems long before they reach the vice-presidential level, leaving only the knottiest ones to the Cabinet. If there is then a dispute, Kappel has the last word...
Though such a sprawling company is beyond the power of any one man to change it substantially, Kappel has made his mark on A.T.&T. Perhaps his signal contribution has been to increase earnings nicely by pushing through local rate increases and introducing myriad new efficiencies. Long-distance operators are now taught by programmed-instruction textbooks, which are much cheaper than human teachers; speed-reading courses have cut the average time that information operators need to look up a number from 37.6 seconds to 33.3 seconds, at an annual saving of $8,000,000. During Kappel's eight years...