Gus Carlson is a New York columnist for The Globe and Mail.
It’s a curious and perhaps counterintuitive thing: to keep Tesla at the forefront of innovation, Elon Musk is stepping back in time to management strategies that are positively old, like the old Tom Peters.
Do you remember him? Mr. Peters was the management guru of the 1980s and the best-selling author who is credited with all sorts of concise slogans for ambitious office aficionados who want to add value, lift all ships, make home runs. and pick low fruit.
Among his mantras: On promise, on delivery. Fail faster, succeed sooner. And the nugget of which it seems that Mr. Musk has taken over: management wandering around, suggesting that managers can increase employee morale and productivity if they are engaged in person rather than hiding in their offices.
This week, it seems that the founder of Tesla took the dust off his copy of the management gospel of Mr. Peters of 1982, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Managed Companiesand he removed the remote work option in his company and, in the process, told senior executives they needed to do more walking and less zooming.
“Anyone who wants to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean a minimum) of 40 hours a week or leave Tesla,” Musk said in a note to employees. “That’s less than what we ask of factory workers.”
“The bigger you are, the more visible your presence should be,” he said. “That’s why I lived so long in the factory, so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If it hadn’t, Tesla would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. “
In addition, Mr. Musk said senior executives cannot comply with the rule by informing the most convenient branches if these locations do not align with their work obligations. He added that he will personally review any request for exemption.
When asked on Twitter for his opinion on those people who believe that working in an office is outdated, Mr. Musk replied, “They should pretend they’re working somewhere else.”
Predictably, the old school position of Mr. Musk has received criticism. Many companies struggle to find the right work-life balance for office workers who became accustomed to working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of them adopting hybrid models with a combination of working days at home and in the office.
In what commentators have dubbed the Great Resistance, many workers are reluctant to return to the offices, claiming that they are more productive and efficient working at home because their quality of life is better. Many say they work longer hours than in the office and do not have to struggle for long commutes.
Recent research tends to support this position. A Stanford University study found that workers are more productive if they are allowed to work from home at least part of the time. And a Texas A&M study published last month found no negative correlation between working from home and productivity.
But Mr. Musk is not alone. Companies like Google Alphabet and others have moved to eliminate remote work. And he is not the first technology executive to take that position.
Ten years ago, long before the pandemic spawned a Zoom work-at-home culture, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made a similar statement. He banned working from home after studying the logging habits of remote work employees and finding that they were not online as often as they should have been.
The result, he concluded, was an erosion of Yahoo’s creative culture and performance that could be better addressed by reclaiming face-to-face office work.
Ms. Mayer faced her own Great Resistance when it was revealed that she had built a daycare center next to her office for her young son, a luxury that most working mothers affected by their return mandate. in the office could not be allowed.
The last move of Mr. Musk has probably caused more cages on Twitter, which he intends to buy for $ 45 billion. Employees have already expressed concern that their new owner will soon make unpopular changes to the company, including working conditions.
Recently, on Twitter, Mr. Musk suggested that San Francisco’s Twitter headquarters could become a “shelter for the homeless, as no one shows up anyway,” a comment hinting that it may be leaning toward a solution. similar to Tesla.
If Mr. Musk bans remote work on Twitter, would mark a turning point in the opinion of current CEO Parag Agrawal, who recently said: “Where you feel most productive and creative is where you will work and that includes working from home. full time forever “.
The last journey back to the future of Mr. Is Musk risky in a post-pandemic work environment that is about flexibility rather than rigidity? Some people close to Tesla say that Mr. Musk, a workaholic marathon stays at work are legendary, not being a little realistic when it comes to expecting this kind of tireless commitment from others in their quest to beat competitors until the next great thing.
“Of course, there are companies that don’t require it,” Musk said of his tenure back in office. “But when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It’s been a while. Tesla has created and will manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. That won’t happen by calling it quits.”
Time will tell who is right, and whether walking is more effective than zooming. But it is difficult to bet on the man who has become the richest person on the planet for his ability to execute with excellence a vision that few others have dared. to own.
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