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I came across a leaked letter that Elon Musk sent to Tesla not that long ago.
Being that Elon’s Mom was from Saskatchewan we thought what not a better leader to look up to when looking at workplace productivity. Tesla has grown into an amazing company that has a “Cinderella-esque” theme to it. Always an underdog, always doing something different than the norm, if there’s one thing we’ve come to rely on Elon for, it’s innovative thinking. So when it comes to productivity we view opinions from Musk as invaluable advice to take into any organization, yes even (insert slow moving bureaucracy) type organizations.
My grandmother was from Moose Jaw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2017
The email was direct, it talks about precision, profitability and progress. The most interesting part was the last part where he says “Btw, here are a few productivity recommendations”. Basically he sums up what goes wrong at big companies and organizations. Inefficiencies that are handed down from old bureaucrats to bureaucrats in training. Using the excuse of “but it’s always been done that way!” or “we’ve never done it that way!”.
To the Musks of the world, we need you. The status quo has never helped anyone, it’s time to change up the way you organize your workplace.
Here are Elon Musk’s productivity tips in a nutshell:
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No large meetings. They’re inefficient and waste time.
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No frequent meetings. You shouldn’t need regular meetings unless there is a crisis, after the crisis is over stop meeting regularly.
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Leave meetings you aren’t adding or getting value from. I love the quote: “It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”
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No use of specialized language, no fancy words, no fancy acronyms. Trying to make people feel bad for not know what you’re talking about it is in poor taste.
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Communicate with whoever you need to, there’s no such thing as “chain of command”
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Use common sense more than “company rule”
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If there’s a way to make the company better let someone else know, don’t just keep it to yourself!
“It is not rude to leave [a meeting], it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”
Here is the text of the end of the letter leaked from Tesla:
Btw, here are a few productivity recommendations:
– 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.
– 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.
– 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.
– Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explination inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.
– 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.
– A major source of issues is poor communication between depts. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between depts, 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 ok for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.
– 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.
-If there is something you think should be done to make Tesla execute better or allow you to look forward to coming to work more (same thing in the long term), please send a note to [redacted]
Thanks for being such a kickass team and accomplishing miracles every day. It matters. We are burning the midnight oil to burn the midnight oil.
-Elon
You can read the entire email to the Tesla team here: The Musk Letter
