There was a document circulating on the Internet that I ran across — a memo to all Tesla employees from Elon Musk written in 2018. The memo consisted of 7 bullet points to increase productivity and I found them to be insightful.
Below is a condensed version:
- Large team meetings are the blight of companies.
- Get rid of frequent meetings.
- Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it’s obvious you aren’t adding value.
- Don’t use nonsense words for objects or processes.
- Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary (not through the “chain of command”).
- Allow the free flow of information between all levels (poor communication is a major challenge between departments).
- In general, always pick common sense as your guide.
I passed the productivity suggestions to my team.
The most senior member had already left the meeting and only 2 remained willing to listen:
Now you know: In 2005 the Wisconsin owners of a missing cat received a call informing them that their cat had ended up in France and would be coming home soon. Their cat had wandered into a container of paper bales inside a nearby paper company, which went by truck to Chicago before being shipped to Europe.