
Elon Musk reveals his productivity rules in a letter he sent to Tesla employees - mikevm
http://www.themindsetapp.com/musk-letter/
======
mikevm
Quoting from the article:

    
    
      Btw, here are a few productivity recommendations:
    
      – 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.
    
      – 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.

~~~
bagacrap
The part about nonsense words is great (one of my pet peeves) but how do you
accomplish that in practice? Everything has to have a name. For example, when
you're developing Windows 8 what would you call Metro Mode? "Alternate touch
optimized desktop UI" is a bit of a mouthful.

~~~
simplicio
I think pretty much every industry and field quickly develops it's own stock
of acronyms, nicknames, jargon etc. This can feel alienating to "outsiders",
which is why people don't like it, but I think its pretty necessary (and
inevitable). If you're working with a set of concepts, processes, software
everyday, developing a shorthand way of talking (and thinking) about them is a
big timesaver both in terms of communication and mental effort.

~~~
gregknicholson
> If you're working with a set of concepts, processes, software everyday,
> developing a shorthand way of talking (and thinking) about them is a big
> timesaver both in terms of communication and mental effort.

For internal processes, this is fair enough. But anything that will be exposed
to an end-user should be simple without shorthand.

------
minimaxir
This is blogspam of Musk’s email from the original source:
[https://electrek.co/2018/04/17/tesla-model-3-production-
goal...](https://electrek.co/2018/04/17/tesla-model-3-production-
goal-6000-units-per-week/)

~~~
supermdguy
Worse, it's used as content marketing and without any attribution.

------
presidente20
Doesn't sound like a great company to work for. Insane production targets
coupled with 'by the way we're examining all costs under a microscope'.

The part about the midnight oil doesn't even make sense and seems to celebrate
excessively hard work which I can't believe is a good thing - the studies I've
seen seem to point to anything more than a 7 hour day being counter-
productive.

Additionally some of the things he has written seem to smack of inexperience.
Yeah hierarchies can be annoying but presumably they are there to serve a
purpose (after all he set it up!).

Can't disagree with what he says about meetings though!

~~~
talltimtom
I guess it’s all a matter of taste. Looking at the current state of affairs I
would love to be part of the work. A need to improve production greatly while
cutting costs (for the products) means it’s a time where there is a lot of
investment in the process. New machines, new flows and lots of things that
need to be made. I have a background in the semiconductor industry and the
times like these, the make or break periods where fantastic. Work turned into
a sport and you and everyone else came together like an underdog team that had
a shot at the World Cup! Sure working 70 hours a week and sometimes a critical
24 hour day isn’t healthy. But there was never any management pressure to do
this, that was us taking it upon ourselves because try as they may, management
couldn’t drag us away from the line.

Looking forwards Tesla will settle into a much gentler pace, and it will
become the same old incremental production cycle plant mentality thats shared
by so many. But right now it must be amazing to be on the floor, even if it is
exhausting.

------
motohagiography
One hopes he has read this, a classic slate star codex post on leadership:
[https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html#cutid1](https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html#cutid1)

Sincere questions for Musk would be:

How are you supporting your management team when you've asked their
subordinates to bypass them with good ideas for exposure, leaving them only to
provide risks and bad news their subordinates didn't want to bring forward?

How do local team leaders take risks when their team is encouraged to defect
and draw in the exec at the first sign of controversy, or just
opportunistically?

How do your teams commit to shared outcomes when an arbitrary member can call
in a veto from the top?

How do you as the owner not become the bottleneck (and blocker) while everyone
clambers to have your support their pet issue because they know nothing is
going to get traction without your royal assent?

How do managers not just fire people who call in your air support for things
they are in fact wrong about, and how do managers trust those people to be a
part of the team after?

His company, his rules. But having seen this kind of naive abdication of
responsibility for effective delegation in practice, it is reasonable to ask
how this thing scales when you add the uncertainty of a random super veto, and
encourage and reward transgression.

edit: better link to "The Asshole Filter," article.

~~~
netsharc
Oh man the first paragraphs of that article contains so many instances of the
word "asshole(s)" that it's having that effect of ehen you repeat a word so
nany times where it just becomes noise without meaning.

~~~
motohagiography
It's a bit pedantic at the beginning, but when he defines it as
"transgressiveness or willingness to transgress," it becomes much more clear.
That's the trouble with great ideas in blogs. Here's the essence of it:

"If you tell people "the only way to contact me is to break a rule" you will
only be contacted by rule-breakers.

But wait, it can get worse. If, despite telling everyone to use the
departmental email address, Fred personally handles – expedites – the requests
of people who email him at his personal email account, he is now rewarding
those who transgress.

So far, I've been talking about being an asshole (or not) – that is,
transgressiveness – as a fixed trait. But that's not how personality works,
even assuming it is a personality trait. If it is a personality trait then
it's more like a "set point" for something that varies with circumstances.

Which means if you reward it, you will get more of it."

------
wmeredith
I really like the tips themselves. Though, I must admit I do get a chuckle out
of taking productivity tips from someone notorious for working 80 hours a
week. Not that my accomplishments hold a candle to his. It's just funny in
some part of my brain.

~~~
dkasper
CEO is often an 80 hour per week job during critical phases. Acting as CEO of
two companies in only 80 hours per week is pretty impressive.

~~~
Robotbeat
Like 4 companies, actually (although admittedly the other two are low effort
compared to Tesla and SpaceX).

------
isuckatcoding
I’m a fan of Elon as much as much as any other person but I think a lot of
this only works for someone like Elon.

Workaholism isn’t fun nor is it healthy. Maybe for single people it can work
but if you give a damn about family or friends it will slowly destroy your
life.

~~~
tprice7
Which one of the recommendations given here do you think would entail
workaholism?

~~~
yoshuaw
Just guessing here, but perhaps it might be the bit where it's claimed he
works 100 hours a week?

~~~
tprice7
THat's not one of the recommendations he gives. That's not even part of the
email itself.

~~~
Rzor
Perhaps not in this letter, but it sounds exactly like that in this video:

>If somebody else is working 50 hours and you are working 100. You get twice
as done - as much done, in the course of a year as the other company.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX7I_Rw8Q0I&#t=4m54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX7I_Rw8Q0I&#t=4m54)

Also, there are a few interviews where he says that [sometimes] he works that
much despite being incredible painful.

------
mabbo
> Our car needs to be designed and built with such accuracy and precision
> that, if an owner measures dimensions, panel gaps and flushness, and their
> measurements don’t match the Model 3 specs, it just means that their
> measuring tape is wrong.

It's cute lines like this that make the fanboys love Musk. Myself included.

~~~
neilk
This really didn’t make sense to me. Every 10x increase in precision surely
causes a huge jump in price. I don’t know anything about mechanical
engineering but this is one of those things that is true across disciplines.
This blog seems to confirm that guess.[1]

And in the same email he says they’re going to ruthlessly cut costs. Is there
some supply-chain advantage that arises from super tight tolerances that I’m
not seeing? As far as I can tell this raises costs, and makes you more
vulnerable to supply-chain disruption since fewer suppliers can keep up.

He offers no justification, other than some hypothetical obsessive Tesla owner
being impressed.

[1] [https://metalcutting.com/your-tight-tolerance-could-be-
serio...](https://metalcutting.com/your-tight-tolerance-could-be-seriously-
affecting-part-cost/)

~~~
vlehto
I know something about mechanical engineering and doing away with needlessly
tight tolerances is one of the most efficient ways to cut costs.

If the cars are designed so that there is some genuine need or benefit from
general extra tight tolerancing, then the issue is way way worse than merely
tolerancing out of ignorance. In that case the design work is going to result
in high workload in assembly in addition of high workload in fabrication.

I sincerely hope it was just a cheap marketing stunt aimed at consumers.

------
alkonaut
Were the rumors true that workers were _unpaid_ for this "process upgrade"
shutdown?

~~~
bsder
This is generally Standard Operating Procedure in a manufacturing facility.

Semiconductor plants often shut down over July 4th or Christmas for
maintenance. You were compelled to take vacation when that happened or you
were on unpaid leave.

In practice, where I worked, most managers generally worked it out informally
if you didn't have enough vacation days.

~~~
alkonaut
Wow. So not only do workers not have a reasonable number of vacation days (say
20-25 for a new employee), they also arent free to choose when to use those
they do get?

And this is in an industry (auto) that actually _has_ organized labor in the
US?

What did the auto unions actually accomplish in the last 3-4 decades?

~~~
bsder
> What did the auto unions actually accomplish in the last 3-4 decades?

Survival.

When you are the target of a very well-funded propaganda campaign to
delegitimize your very existence, what do you expect?

People in the US are so stupid that they denigrate the very unions that stood
in front of guns and bullets in order to get them the 40 hour work week, child
labor laws, pensions, and health care to name just a few accomplishments.

It's beginning to turn (see the recent teacher walkouts--most of which are
illegal in the eyes of the law, by the way), but it's very slow.

------
tbabb
Many good tips, but IMO the "...or else!" style threats are poor leadership.
Examples: "All you contractors better shape up or you'll be fired on monday!"
or "managers will be insta-fired if they enforce chain-of-command
communication!"

This is toxic tone. Waving a baseball bat at your team shows— and instills— a
mutual lack of trust. Simply lay out the standards of behavior clearly and
frequently, and outwardly show that you trust in the team's good faith and
desire to adhere to them. Most of the time, if you have hired well, you'll be
right.

Discuss individual shortcomings frankly, but do it behind closed doors.
Dispatch corrections behind closed doors too. Simply calling out a mistake and
making clear what's expected is often enough to incite a change in behavior.
It's much healthier for culture, it's much better for retaining knowledge and
talent, and it's much cheaper than hiring and firing with a hair trigger. If
the person doesn't respond to corrections, or is acting in bad faith and not
merely making a mistake, THEN you fire without hesitation. And you do it
quickly, quietly, and without drama. Those kinds of cases are (ideally rare)
pockets of toxicity, and they are the last kind of picture you want to paint
in your team's mind of their workplace by broadcasting it across the company.

Examples:

BAD: "Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will
soon find themselves working elsewhere."

BETTER: "If you find your management is stifiling the free flow of
communication, either intentionally or inadvertantly, please escalate this
upward and we will support you, and get your team pointed in the right
direction."

What you're trying to do:

\- communicate to employees not to put up with stifiling managers

\- communicate to managers that stifling communication will make them look bad
and get them reprimanded

\- encourage problem areas to actually be identified and corrected

\- make everyone feel good about all of the above so that the actually want
partake in it

\- make it socially safe to change course

BAD: "All contracting companies should consider the coming week to be a final
opportunity to demonstrate excellence. Any that fail to meet the Tesla
standard of excellence will have their contracts ended on Monday."

BETTER: "Most large supply chains are ripe with waste and overspending, often
brought about by backwards incentives to inflate costs. At Tesla we do not put
up with this, nor cynically accept it as inevitable. Avoiding this kind of
behavior requires the Tesla standard of good faith and efficiency at all
levels. If you suspect cost inflation or task bloat, please call it out
immediately and escalate it. We'll be paying close attention to this over the
next week."

What you're trying to do:

\- dispel complacency about cost bloat and gouging

\- reinforce the requirement / community standard to be honest and efficient

\- make people feel comfortable / emboldened to fight bad-faith behavior

\- let bad-faith contractors know you are watching them

\- make everyone feel united by this goal, instead of mistrustful and cynical
about each other

If you're walking down a road and you see a man angrily beating his horse,
who's wrong? The man or the horse? Leaders that threaten fire and brimstone
beyond the natural consequences of failure conjure the image of the horse-
beater, for me. If you resort to flogging your labor, then the shortcoming is
yours in failing to understand how to motivate and empathize; how to make the
horse want to do the right thing on its own.

~~~
neoz
+1. Really well said!

------
DerSaidin
– Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at
Tesla.

I like to minimize use pronouns like "it" or "that" in a technical discussion.

Communication becomes so much clearer by expanding "it" into something more
descriptive and explicit.

Also minimize number of words, and complexity of words.

~~~
spyspy
I notice this a lot in RFCs within my company. Teams will put out
architectures for new systems that contain massive amounts of acronyms and
jargon for the system they're building and/or replacing it's insanely
frustrating. It doesn't help when the last system was named something
completely arbitrary and is being replaced by a new system with an equally
arbitrary new code name. ("Flywheel has served us well for years but due to
limitations on the XCGA middleware we believe Project Kegerator is the
future...")

------
viach
> Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t
> adding value.

"Except I'm still on this meeting or it's a call with me" I guess?

------
eric24234
Who leaked the email ?.

~~~
borplk
Maybe marketing department? ;)

------
Ryan1516
I'm pleasantly surprised by these rules

------
angersock
How does this increased productivity benefit the workers? Are they getting any
personal upside for working harder, I wonder?

~~~
manigandham
Productivity is about efficiency, not working harder. Getting more done in a
normal work-week benefits everyone, and I'm sure all those employees would
prefer a company that is in business to continue paying their salaries,
bonuses and increasing their stock value.

~~~
angersock
How does more get done in a normal workweek but by greater exertion of
workers? This is literally factory work.

Sure, a few of the proposals are aimed at fixing sloppy management...but where
do you think the extra cars come from?

~~~
manigandham
As already answered, you get more done by being more efficient with the given
effort. It doesn't matter whether it's factory work or CEO level. Increasing
productivity usually leads to a _decrease_ in net effort by workers.

If you want an example, look at the epitome of production line efficiency that
is the Toyota Production System:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System)

