In a letter to employees describing new measures Tesla will take to meet production goals, the company's CEO and cofounder Elon Musk also included thoughts on leadership that executives in any industry can learn from.
Here are three quotes from Mr. Musk's letter that can help leaders.
1. "Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get rid of all large meetings, unless you're certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short."
2. "A major source of issues is poor communication between [departments]. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between [departments], 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[ay] for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen."
3. "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."