Theodore Vail’s decision that the business of the Bell System was service might have remained dead letter but for the yardsticks of service performance which he designed to measure managerial performance. Bell managers were used to being measured by the profitability of their units, or at the least, by cost. The new yardsticks made them accept rapidly the new objectives.
Similar to Alcoa CEO decision to make safety the new metric of success, rather than profitability. Vail and the other guy both knew that profit is the result of customer satisfaction. In Vail's case, external customers; in Alcoa's case, internal customers (i.e. employees).
