Was Working in Telco Always Boring? 5 Ways to Reignite Energy Across the Industry

The answer is a categorical no!

Telco was once the place for moonshot thinkers and industry-shaping tech. Do you remember when telco was exciting? When engineers solved big problems and OSS was a creative playground?

Unfortunately, telco today has a growing energy crisis. Not just in its tower sites and data centres, but an energy crisis among its people.

I keep seeing the same thing. Teams are drained, disillusioned, bored, burned out and stuck in endless admin. The spark is dimming, not because the work isn’t important, but because the way we approach it is just a little bit broken. We still have exciting toys to play with and clever people to work with.

I’ve also seen it time and again… When a telco is in growth / build phase, there’s excitement about what’s being built. But once a telco goes into run phase and there are less seats available in the game of musical chairs, the excitement wanes and the fiefdoms grow. As a whole, the industry feels more like in runCo mode than buildCo mode currently.

Looking beyond that, perhaps the problem isn’t the people but the way we’ve designed their work and incentives?

I feel incredibly lucky to have found my way into a role that I love doing. But it’s more than luck. It’s the result of many intentional career “steers” along the way. Intentionally steering towards the things I’ve loved doing (the things that give me energy) and steering away from the things that drain my energy.

Work that energises you continually recharges your batteries no matter how long the hours. Work that drains you empties more than your tank.

Founding PAOSS was one of those intentional energy steers. The only time I was fired was one of those “blessing in disguise,” unintentional energy steers.

Here are five questions every telco might like to ask so as to reignite energy across the industry.

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1. Are We Designing Work That Energises or Drains?

For many, telco work feels like an exercise in compliance. It’s not the technical challenge that wears people down. It’s the way we structure the work. Endless governance. Heavy processes. Micromanaged workflows. Tasks stripped of context, funnelled into ticket queues. No perspective of where the role sits within the big picture or how it’s adding value.

This is often driven by the dominant CFO worldview, where efficiency, control and risk reduction are valued above autonomy, experimentation, growth or energy. That mindset might optimise for cost and investor returns, but it frequently starves teams of purpose and momentum.

When creative professionals spend their days checking boxes and attending endless meetings rather than solving problems, energy evaporates. The result? Hidden churn, disengagement and untapped potential. The work gets done but not with spark, not with pride.

In the past, when I’ve worked inside the big telcos, I feel like I make one day of progress for each week worked. When I work on the outside in (as we do with PAOSS), I feel like I make a full week worth of progress. It might be an exaggeration, but that’s a 5x improvement just by being removed from the bureaucracy and meetings, freeing up time to get into flow state.

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2. What If Telco Gave Its People More Autonomy?

According to researchers from Lancaster University, higher perceived job autonomy significantly boosts satisfaction across multiple domains (despite adjusting for a wide range of personal and job?related factors)

The three levels of autonomy are often framed as follows:

1. Autonomy over your body: the most basic level, historically opposite of slavery or serfdom (freedom of movement, not being owned)

2. Autonomy over your time and activities: the level most employees don’t fully control because their daily activities are directed by others

3. Autonomy over your destiny or direction: the highest level, where you decide what game to play

The WFH agenda is just one example of workers seeking a greater level of autonomy.

Google famously introduced the concept of “20% time,” a portion of each employee’s week dedicated to projects they’re personally excited by. Gmail and Google Maps were both born from this model. At the time, Google saw this not as an indulgence but as an investment.

What if telcos borrowed this idea? Even if not at 20%, offering some protected time to explore new concepts, internal tools, automation experiments or even cross-domain ideas could reignite people’s passion for their craft. This is especially true with modern tools that allow for fast experimentation and prototyping.

Autonomy doesn’t mean chaos. It means trust and a sense of controlling ones destiny.

Let engineers choose some of the problems they solve. Let product managers sketch out visions not yet on the roadmap. Let designers experiment with OSS interfaces they actually want to use. Autonomy energises because it reconnects people with why they do the work.

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3. Could OSS Be the Catalyst for Creative, High-Energy Work?

OSS isn’t just a system. It’s the medium through which telco teams think, collaborate and build. If the entire medium / environment is clunky, restrictive, or overly rigid, it drains energy at scale. But reimagined the right way, OSS can become an amplifier of human creativity, growth and momentum.

The shift we need is from process and governance-heavy to experience-driven OSS. That means designing platforms with developer experience (DX) and user flow in mind, not just iterative improvement or technical correctness.

We should be asking: do our OSS help people think clearly? Do they support rapid experimentation and creativity? Do they facilitate cross-department collaboration? Do they get out of the way when they need to?

To me, OSS feel like a launchpad, not a checkpoint, but do others agree within their local environment?

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4. Did We Stop Making Work Fun?

There’s a quiet taboo in telco that says work isn’t really meant to be fun. But the science of motivation says otherwise. Play, progress / growth and a sense of mastery are powerful sources of intrinsic motivation. The gaming industry understands this deeply.

Companies like Aristocrat obsess over the psychology of engagement. Every sound, animation and reward cycle is crafted to create a sense of momentum and anticipation. They design for flow, balancing challenge and reward to keep users in an energised, immersive state. Imagine if OSS platforms adopted even 10% of that design intent. Not to addict, but to sustain interest, reduce friction and reinforce the sense of progress.

Gamified interfaces don’t mean flashing lights or compelling visuals and sounds. It means systems that respond to the user. Interfaces that reward progress with satisfying feedback. Visual cues that tell operators and clients, “you’re getting somewhere.”

We don’t need OSS to entertain us. We need them to respect our time, attention and skill. A little aesthetic joy and thoughtful UX can transform mundane tasks into meaningful moments. And yes, OSS can even be fun, or even addictive.

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5. What Would Happen If We Prioritised Energy Over Process?

Telco cultures tend to obsess over efficiency, but rarely measure energy. As mentioned earlier, IMHO energy isn’t fluff. It’s the fuel behind innovation, resilience and long-term performance.

What if we made energy a metric that matters? I’m constantly evaluating: What gives me energy? What drains me? How to better steer towards one and away from the other?

Where are we stuck in loops and where should we have more autonomy?

And most importantly, we must kill soul-sapping tasks and workflows with relentless intent. That means investing in intelligent automation, not just to save money, but to save people’s time, energy and sanity.

Leaders have the ability to create permission spaces (literal or cultural) where experiments are encouraged. They can set aside a small budget for tools or projects outside the core roadmap. Not everything has to scale. Some things just need to spark. With today’s prototyping tools, this can be encouraged more than ever.

In the early 2000s I worked with a vendor whose network assurance visualisation engine was a bit clunky. The users needed it but didn’t really like using it. A very clever developer decided to make it his weekend project to develop a MVP (minimum viable product) version of a replacement. He never even asked for permission. He just did it in his own time. The clients saw the MVP version, loved it and lobbied for it. It became one of the company’s most influential, wow-factor products.

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The Takeaway

Energy isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a competitive advantage. And right now, telco is getting sucked into an energy vortex.

The work we do matters. The infrastructure is still vital. The technological possibilities are exciting! The potential is massive. But if we want to unlock it, we have to stop designing work and tools that are a bit of a grind or work practices that feel like obligation. Instead we need to create environments that spark curiosity, autonomy and purpose.