Elon Musk shares how to improve productivity with Tesla employees telling them to walk out of meetings
Tesla boss Elon Musk has told employees to walk out of meetings and end calls as soon as possible in an effort to boost productivity.
In an email to employees at the electric car firm, Musk has sought to boost production of the highly-awaited Model 3 sedan, with goals to lift output in the coming months.
The email posted by Electrek had recommendations from Musk to his employees, including getting rid of frequent meetings, and telling them to “walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value”.
Read more: Tesla has temporarily stopped Model 3 production to tackle bottlenecks
“It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time,” Musk said.
Excerpt from Elon Musk’s email to staff
– Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get 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 explanation 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.
The Tesla chief executive is keen to ramp up production of the more affordable Model 3, but the company has been under pressure to do so after missing previous targets.
A planned shutdown was to help clear bottlenecks and prepare for a lift in production, with Tesla now aiming to more than double production and have 5,000 units per week by the end of the second quarter.
Read more: We should learn from the little guys to get out of our productivity rut