Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla & SpaceX) needs to get a lot done.
And we can all learn from the way he pulls his teams together to deliver (what sometimes looks & feels) the impossible…
Recently, he wanted to adopt a new shift schedule to get production for Tesla’s Model 3 electric car back on track. And he knew he was asking a lot of from his team. So to help he offered employees a list of tips to help their productivity.
And here are the productivity tips in his own words…
1. Large-format meetings waste people’s time.
Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get rid of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.
2. Meetings should be infrequent unless a matter is urgent.
Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.
3. If you don’t need to be in a meeting, leave.
Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.
4. Avoid confusing jargon.
Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software, or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.
5. Don’t let hierarchical structures make things less efficient.
Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the ‘chain of command’. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.
6. If you need to get in touch with someone, do so directly.
A major source of issues is poor communication between departments. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between departments, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be okay for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.
7. Don’t waste time following silly rules.
In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a ‘company rule’ is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.
In summary
Elon Musk is no fool, and he understands meetings, bureaucracy & hierarchy can impede productivity and immediate actions. And in most situations direct communication is the best and quickest tool available. Like us he prefers people apply common sense to the task at hand to improve productivity and get the job done quickly & efficiently.
For us, he still tries to run his company as a small business, keeping as much bureaucracy & hierarchy out, so his team can improve productivity and make quick & efficient decisions allowing the business to be nimble, move quickly and change direction at a moments notice.
Our office solutions business is no where near as big as Tesla or as exciting as SpaceX. But we share the same values. And as we grow we will always trust our team to to make quick & efficient business decisions, in the interests of keeping our customers happy and to drive innovation and growth for our organisation.
