Elon Musk's brilliant email rule at Tesla

Jimi Swagger

I say whatever I think should be said
Supporter
Joined
Jan 25, 2015
Messages
4,365
Reputation
-1,340
Daps
6,058
Reppin
Turtle Island to DXB
Brings context to the mixed glassdoor/paysa employee reviews and those NLRA issues in Fremont. :pachaha:

RMW23D5BOJDVXDKEEB4XKBOSXQ.jpg

Elon Musk is famed for his unconventional management style.

The South African-born entrepreneur behind companies including Tesla and SpaceX has described himself not as a micromanager but a "nano-manager", news.com.au reports.

Musk works about 100 hours per week at the electric carmaker and involves himself in even the tiniest aspects of the business - and this email, sent by Musk to Tesla employees several years ago, shows how.

In the email, published by Inc Magazine, the eccentric billionaire outlines his approach to communication inside the company.

"There are two schools of thought about how information should flow within companies," he writes. "By far the most common way is chain of command, which means that you always flow communication through your manager. The problem with this approach is that, while it serves to enhance the power of the manager, it fails to serve the company.

"Instead of a problem getting solved quickly, where a person in one dept. talks to a person in another dept. and makes the right thing happen, people are forced to talk to their manager who talks to their manager who talks to the manager in the other dept.
who talks to someone on his team. Then the info has to flow back the other way again. This is incredibly dumb. Any manager who allows this to happen, let alone encourages it, will soon find themselves working at another company. No kidding.

"Anyone at Tesla can and should email/talk to anyone else according to what they think is the fastest way to solve a problem for the benefit of the whole company. You can talk to your manager's manager without his permission, you can talk directly to a VP in another dept., you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone without anyone else's permission. Moreover, you should consider yourself obligated to do so until the right thing happens. The point here is not random chitchat, but rather ensuring that we execute ultra-fast and well. We obviously cannot compete with the big car companies in size, so we must do so with intelligence and agility.

"One final point is that managers should work hard to ensure that they are not creating silos within the company that create an us vs. them mentality or impede communication in any way. This is unfortunately a natural tendency and needs to be actively fought. How can it possibly help Tesla for depts. to erect barriers between themselves or see their success as relative within the company instead of collective? We are all in the same boat. Always view yourself as working for the good of the company and never your dept."

Inc Magazine's Justin Bariso argues that while he's a "huge fan" of the message the email conveys, it's "easier said than done". "Communication that is forced to go through the 'proper channels' is a recipe for killing great ideas and burying the feedback that a company needs to thrive," Bariso writes.

"There's only one problem with Musk's proposed solution: it's extremely difficult to cultivate in the real world. Of course, leaders have to set the example. That means looking beyond individual achievements and key performance indicators, which takes courage, insight, and emotional intelligence. It means making yourself available to hear as many voices as possible."
 

TLR Is Mental Poison

The Coli Is Not For You
Supporter
Joined
May 3, 2012
Messages
46,178
Reputation
7,465
Daps
105,764
Reppin
The Opposite Of Elliott Wilson's Mohawk
I like it

I also think the silo'd approach to corralling employees is stupid. I'm moving to my 3rd dept in this company in a week. But I still wish I would keep working in my previous 2. There's still work to be done, but probably not enough in each department where they need 3 separate people. Plus having multiple people in multiple departments fosters cross collaboration.
 

Darth Nubian

I bought my first Ki from my baby momma brother
Joined
May 8, 2012
Messages
4,720
Reputation
1,225
Daps
17,239
Reppin
The Black Star
This sounds good in theory, but doesn't work in practice. All ideas are not credible, especially from new hires ( hint, I had that idea 10 years ago). Also, pay is determined by performance. As a manager, why wouldn't I hoard the best talent? This sounds great because Elon is about making his company great. His employees are about their banking account great. The two aren't mutally exclusive.
 
Last edited:

Pressure

#PanthersPosse
Supporter
Joined
Nov 19, 2016
Messages
42,944
Reputation
6,677
Daps
137,445
Reppin
CookoutGang
I think the greatest way to stifle young workers is forcing them to ask their manager to ask someone else a question. It's like a child scared to ask their parent for shyt. Muhfukkas taking 30mn to type up a perfect fukkn email.
Facts. This doesn't even take into account how important viability is for advancement.
 

duncanthetall

Veteran
Supporter
Joined
Jun 14, 2012
Messages
44,059
Reputation
4,074
Daps
144,265
Reppin
WHODEY/BIGBLUE/SNOWGANG/MIDNIGHTBOYZ
This sounds good in theory, but doesn't work in practice. All ideas are not credible, especially from new hires ( hint, I had that idea 10 years). Also, pay is determined by performance. As a manager, why wouldn't I hoard the best talent? This sounds great because Elon is about making his company great. His employees are about their banking account great. The two aren't mutally exclusive.
I agree to an extent. I feel as though through the hiring process they can certainly at least try to establish their company's philosophies and try and get the people who would adhere to them the most. But still, yeah, you're right I feel. In a vacuum where employees don't have egos or individual desires to be commended/rewarded, yeah. But people are not robots.
 

Arianne Martell

"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"
Supporter
Joined
Jan 22, 2014
Messages
6,605
Reputation
881
Daps
22,646
Reppin
House Martell #SnakeGang #Targset
As he stated if there is a problem the chain of command of communication is not practical specially in a new company


Issues have to be resolved quickly and the right people need to be involve to expedite a solution; otherwise, like the email stated, you are creating silos:yeshrug:
 

TNC

Hardbody
Joined
May 3, 2012
Messages
4,888
Reputation
945
Daps
9,363
His secretary gonna get sick of going through hundreds of daily ass kissing emails sent "directly" to Elon...
 

Colilluminati

TAMRON HALL STAN
Supporter
Joined
May 6, 2012
Messages
10,773
Reputation
2,519
Daps
24,181
Reppin
MiddleWest
At my job there are 31 other offices , 4 district managers , 1 regional manager and 2 VPs all communicating in 1 email . Whoever answers , answers :yeshrug:
 
Joined
Apr 30, 2012
Messages
9,457
Reputation
-534
Daps
15,337
Reppin
WestMidWest
Mr. government welfare doesn't want to acknowledge the bottleneck in communication that's created when having to read every email from every employee about everything
Chain of command would ideally filter messages
 

Professor Emeritus

Veteran
Poster of the Year
Supporter
Joined
Jan 5, 2015
Messages
48,588
Reputation
18,772
Daps
193,601
Reppin
the ether
This sounds good in theory, but doesn't work in practice. All ideas are not credible, especially from new hires ( hint, I had that idea 10 years ago).

Yes, all ideas are not credible. But won't the person to whom the idea is relevant be able to filter credible ideas out from non-credible ideas much faster than the chain-of-command would?



Mr. government welfare doesn't want to acknowledge the bottleneck in communication that's created when having to read every email from every employee about everything
Chain of command would ideally filter messages

There's far less of a bottleneck this way, because the total # of emails becomes much fewer.

Yes, chain of command filters out emails, but it also intensely multiplies the total number of emails. You could easily end up doubling or tripling the total number of emails moving through the system because it has to pass through the whole chain of command.

The only reason it would ever be a good idea for "chain of command" to spend their time filtering through emails in a process that actually creates many MORE emails is if you don't value the time of your chain of command at all.

If everyone in your company is doing a worthwhile, important job, then company efficiency is maximized by minimizing the total number of emails - which is done by the most direct communication possible.

Sure, maybe that means one particular person (like Musk) will have to field many more emails. But that's easily solved by hiring someone whose job is specifically to filter them for you, if needed. Since they work at your direction they will do a much better, more efficient job of filtering than the chain of command would, and would keep a lot of people who have better things to do from wasting their time.
 
Top