Elon Musk’s 6 Rules to Boost Productivity (Includes Video)

rules by elon musk for productivity

Last updated - November 9, 2023

Elon Musk is undoubtedly one of the key figures in the global industrial revolution. Even the smallest of things he does quickly become a headline for the media coverage because of the impact he has on a global scale.

That being said, the owner and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter recently sent an email to his employees consisting of six thumb rules to increase productivity and promote seamless workflow, and apparently, it got leaked.

In addition to the six key rules, the leaked email also had sub-points for each of the rules. A couple of weeks ago a Twitter user by the name @alex_avoigt brought this leaked email to the public’s attention by tweeting it on his account titled “Elon reportedly sent this mail to Tesla employees”, to which Elon Musk responded, “Correct. Good thread”.

Later on, it was @LiamKircher’s retweet of Alex’s thread that broke the internet and now people are going crazy over these six rules by Elon and we couldn’t keep silent either. So here are the six thumb rules by Elon Musk to boost productivity that you can also integrate into your organization.

Avoid Large Meetings

Avoid Large Meetings

This is absolutely true! Numerous business organizations especially startups and SMEs spend a lot of time organizing large meetings and sometimes for the entire organization. More often than not these meetings end up wasting the time, effort, energy, and resources of the organization as well as the employees since it is less productive.

In most cases, large meetings end up being one-way communication rather than encouraging a productive debate. Rightly pointed out by Elon, most people are not comfortable with opening up to a large gathering and even if they do there isn’t just enough time to listen to each person.

What if you organized such a large meeting on a weekend or a holiday to make sure you are not compromising productivity? Your meeting would have reluctant participants with the least inputs and redundant data collected at the end of the day, thus rendering your efforts pointless.

Leave a Meeting if you’re Not Contributing

Leave a Meeting if you’re Not Contributing

This tends to be a problem for most employees as well as meeting organizers. Just because you put in a lot of effort in organizing a meeting you cannot expect a packed conference hall. It is pointless to have a full house with little to no participation or valuable input.

What is the point of the meeting? If you are firm on extracting the most toward the objective of your meeting then you would have fewer but potential participants. And as for the employees, it always seems disrespectful to walk out of the meeting even if he/she is completely irrelevant to the meeting.

“It is not rude to leave a meeting but it is rude to waste people’s time.” It will be great if every business organization can etch this statement on their walls.

Forget the Chain of Command

Forget the Chain of Command

I know it is difficult to comprehend that this statement has come from one of the most successful, influential, and richest businessmen in the world. The chain of command is and has always been the most important and rigidly followed rule by a vast majority of businesses and corporate giants.

It is even worse if the boss or the management team expects every single aspect of the workflow to be approved by them. While the chain of command is good in admin-level decision-making it is rendered pointless and a huge waste of time for everyday tasks, communication, and decision-making.

In the beginning, it might be difficult as ever to forget or not follow the chain of command but over a period of time, you will come to like it. After all who doesn’t like to have a competitive edge with a faster decision-making process?

Be Clear, not Clever

Be Clear, not Clever

Communication is key. George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright and political activist, quoted “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place”. I believe Elon has said this in a way that sticks.

A workplace is a common ground for people from various demographics and contextual backgrounds to come together for a common purpose. And to attain that common goal communication needs to be simple, concise, easy to understand, and efficient.

Just because you know some high-sounding words and technical jargon you cannot bombard everybody with it. The next time you are tempted to display your vocabulary at your workplace remember Elon’s 4th thumb rule.

Ditch Frequent Meetings

Ditch Frequent Meetings

I cannot emphasize this enough because these frequent meetings are turning out to be a nightmare for the vast majority of the employees. Here are a few of the many problems with having frequent meetings.

  • It is a waste of time for you and your employees
  • Disrupts the workflow
  • Makes it difficult for the employees to get back into the rhythm of things.
  • Weakens productivity due to the time delay
  • Increases work pressure, which directly affects the quality of the work.

As a supervisor, manager, or executive officer, you might have all the time in the world to have numerous meetings since you are not directly contributing to the workflow. But that doesn’t mean that you can pull your employees away for a meeting as and when you like. It is just not professional and does more harm than good for your business.  

Use Common Sense

Use Common Sense

Elon has saved the best for the last. I say this because this rule probably goes completely against your business’ motto or even the core principle upon which your enterprise is founded and functioning for all these years.

Rules are meant to guide the employees, ensure smooth functioning, avoid or overcome obstacles, and finally contribute to the progress of the company. 

However, in most cases, the rules are designed and laid out to control the work environment to the management’s advantage, which is why most of them do not make sense and the rest are not applicable to various groups of employees.

The worst part in all this is that whether a rule is applicable or not, growth-promoting or not, practical or not, makes sense or not, contributes to the progress or not, all employees are expected to abide by it.

Do not expect your employees to blindly follow rules but rather give them the freedom to apply common sense and ignore the rules if necessary. Remember, an employee ignoring a rule is in no way insubordination to the authority.

Conclusion

These six rules or principles, if you may, are absolute gems that can take your organization to the heights you’ve always wanted. For most of you, these six rules are everything you and your organization stand against, but if it has come from Elon Musk, one of the most excellent minds in the world, then you need to think about reconsidering your work environment and the processes you follow.

If you think someone you know needs to read this blog I urge you to share it with them and let as many people and organizations be benefitted.

Further Reading

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