You have to put a lot of faith into your workforce to allow so much freedom in their operation.
Rules of the game change very often, sometimes super liberal like "ya ran out of disk space? Just rip it off someone who doesn't need it" then blaming you for the chaos and rushed decisions because a developer made the error of exiting a meeting before listening to an important point by field ops which they could not have foreseen.
If your company is running with scissors you need every individual to be a top performer who knows exactly what they are doing at all times. That is hard to guarantee when you start scaling up your headcount.
Autopilot, Supercharger, or even name of Tesla Inc. itself. Your number-one choice for AC electrical coils?
And what do they say when discussing LIDAR sensors, for example? "We need to select a vendor for the laser-imaging-detection-and-ranging sensor". "Well Bob I propose the Bosch laser-imaging-detection-and-ranging sensor which runs on 28 volt direct-current". Not conducive to more efficient meetings.
Acronyms and codewords serve a purpose in any context that involves repetition.
If I were Mr Musk I'd be less concerned about the mental burden of acronyms and more worried about the physical strain and injury on the shop floor. But the latter can't be 'fixed' with an e-mail missive.
> "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"
Acronyms have their place, and can be more descriptive than, say, project Glorfindel.
- they didn't invent the LIDAR, and it is the widely used name for this device so if course they must use it. This recomandation just advise not creating new acronyms inside the company. (A better example would be the BFR but that's kind of a joke) Better to choose a small name than an acronym
"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. reply