Elon Musk's "Productivity Recommendations": Avoid Meetings And Nonsense Words, Use Common Sense

Elon Musk, who is the boss of several high-profile companies, has "a few productivity recommendations", which the employees need to follow to thrive in any of his firms. The billionaire informed the employees of Twitter, which he acquired recently, about this through email, the details of which have appeared on the social media platform. The leaked email also includes sub-heads for the employees to navigate success throughout their career. The screenshots of the emails have led to a lot of buzz on Twitter.

You blurred out the actual text just so that you could make a thread out of it? Wow. So much for communicating via the shortest path.
Here's the actual screenshot so that everyone can read Elon's words directly. And if anyone wants a transcript - https://t.co/UHobM0M5fL pic.twitter.com/tLOoISbbhG

— Amogh Vaishampayan (@amogh42) November 16, 2022

Mr Musk sent the same emails to staff at Tesla, SpaceX and his other companies, giving suggestions to improve productivity. It has also been posted on Medium.

According to the screenshots of the email going viral, these are the points Mr Musk has mentioned:

• "Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time." He has also asked the staff to get rid of frequent meetings "unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter".
• In the subsequent point, Mr Musk further emphasised that if an employee finds they cannot contribute successfully to a meeting, they can "walk out or drop off a call". "It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time," he added.
• The "Chief Twit" also said that it is not advisable to use "acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes". He added anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication.
• The next suggestion further expanded on the need to communicate effectively. "Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the chain of command" Mr Musk said in his email to employees. "Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere," he added.
• Mr Musk then asked the employees to "pick common sense as your guide". He said if following a "company rule" would make for a Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.

Weeks after taking over Twitter, Mr Musk sent a message to Twitter staff telling them that they had until Thursday to consider whether they wanted to stay on for "working long hours at high intensity" or take a severance package of three months' pay.

Mr Musk told Twitter employees that anyone who had not clicked on a link confirming "you want to be part of the new Twitter" by Thursday evening New York time would be considered to have quit.