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I am definitely in favour of the notion of avoiding "management silos" but I would echo the sentiment left at the end that it seems to be much easier said than

I am definitely in favour of the notion of avoiding "management silos" but I would echo the sentiment left at the end that it seems to be much easier said than done in practice. "you can talk directly to a VP in another dept., you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone without anyone else's permission." I imagine someone in such a high position would then receive an influx of e-mails to the point where it is counter productive as they cannot address each one on top of the already ~100 hours of work? I have never worked in an organization where this was the explicit rule established by the leader but maybe someone can shed some light on whether this practice has worked for them, or the challenges that comes with it?

hacker_9 9y ago
Just because he receives emails doesn't mean he'll answer them all. He probably tries to fill some quota of 10 emails a day or something, then moves on to other things. As an employee, you would hopefully have the common sense to not email him about trivial matters anyway.
nicktelford 9y ago
I think you've missed the main point of this rule. The rule enables you to communicate across the hierarchy, instead of having to traverse it. For example: you can work directly with someone at the same level as you in another department without having to traverse the hierarchy. This is actually the opposite of the problem you highlight, as traversing the hierarchy often creates choke-points in senior management as they have to co-ordinate everything going through them. Of course, it's good to keep management informed of important issues, but that's what the CC line is for!
fnordsensei 9y ago
With one exception, I have only worked in companies where this has been the norm. It's never been an explicit rule. It seems to me that it happens naturally unless culture is built to prevent it. The fact Elon decided to send an email might be an indication that one or more people implicitly or explicitly have punished others for communicating.
pedroaraujo 9y ago
I think he is expecting people to have some critical thinking to not starting to send emails to a VP just for the sake of sending emails to a VP. Let's say you are implementing the UI for the car's dashboard and you think it would be super cool to have the color of the cars' model in the UI matching the exact color the customer chose for the car. Maybe you could cut all the middle points of communication and directly email the guys that handle the paint job to know the exact color values that they use to paint the car. Of course that you wouldn't email Elon himself to do this, it would be pointless.
nkoren 9y ago
Almost a decade ago, I invited Elon to speak at a conference I was helping to organise at Oxford. Would've been very on-topic for him, but he declined with a pithy one-line reply. Was a solid enough opportunity that it was probably worth wasting a minute of his time. Had I come to him with something more trivial, I suspect the response would have been pithier and less polite. The impression I've gotten is that Elon likes to work with smart people, and that part of being smart is being able to make good calls about when to escalate something and to whom. Escalating an issue too high (or too low) is probably not a mistake one gets to make very often. It would be impossible to impose a discipline like this on a bunch of worker-drones. But amongst reasonably intelligent people, with honest leadership at the top levels, it seems achievable.
- CADTroy 9y ago
  Yes I agree, after thinking about it a bit more and reading all of the responses I get the impression that this model works best if you are hiring people who are capable to make these judgement calls, and those who can't will likely not last very long within the company
trevyn 9y ago
This is easy for the people in high positions -- the vast majority of these types of emails are simply forwarded to the appropriate underling, with only the implicit comment "please handle this". Many senior managers are little more than human message routers.
deleted 9y ago
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tchaffee 9y ago
The other rule that helps with this is to train employees to always put the conclusion at the top of the email. And it should fit in a short sentence. Give me the bottom line first and I can get through a lot of emails. I very rarely need all the details someone thinks are important in order to make a decision.

hacker_9 9y ago

Just because he receives emails doesn't mean he'll answer them all. He probably tries to fill some quota of 10 emails a day or something, then moves on to other things. As an employee, you would hopefully have the common sense to not email him about trivial matters anyway.

nicktelford 9y ago

I think you've missed the main point of this rule. The rule enables you to communicate across the hierarchy, instead of having to traverse it. For example: you can work directly with someone at the same level as you in another department without having to traverse the hierarchy. This is actually the opposite of the problem you highlight, as traversing the hierarchy often creates choke-points in senior management as they have to co-ordinate everything going through them. Of course, it's good to keep management informed of important issues, but that's what the CC line is for!

fnordsensei 9y ago

With one exception, I have only worked in companies where this has been the norm. It's never been an explicit rule. It seems to me that it happens naturally unless culture is built to prevent it. The fact Elon decided to send an email might be an indication that one or more people implicitly or explicitly have punished others for communicating.

pedroaraujo 9y ago

I think he is expecting people to have some critical thinking to not starting to send emails to a VP just for the sake of sending emails to a VP. Let's say you are implementing the UI for the car's dashboard and you think it would be super cool to have the color of the cars' model in the UI matching the exact color the customer chose for the car. Maybe you could cut all the middle points of communication and directly email the guys that handle the paint job to know the exact color values that they use to paint the car. Of course that you wouldn't email Elon himself to do this, it would be pointless.

nkoren 9y ago

Almost a decade ago, I invited Elon to speak at a conference I was helping to organise at Oxford. Would've been very on-topic for him, but he declined with a pithy one-line reply. Was a solid enough opportunity that it was probably worth wasting a minute of his time. Had I come to him with something more trivial, I suspect the response would have been pithier and less polite. The impression I've gotten is that Elon likes to work with smart people, and that part of being smart is being able to make good calls about when to escalate something and to whom. Escalating an issue too high (or too low) is probably not a mistake one gets to make very often. It would be impossible to impose a discipline like this on a bunch of worker-drones. But amongst reasonably intelligent people, with honest leadership at the top levels, it seems achievable.

CADTroy 9y ago
Yes I agree, after thinking about it a bit more and reading all of the responses I get the impression that this model works best if you are hiring people who are capable to make these judgement calls, and those who can't will likely not last very long within the company

trevyn 9y ago

This is easy for the people in high positions -- the vast majority of these types of emails are simply forwarded to the appropriate underling, with only the implicit comment "please handle this". Many senior managers are little more than human message routers.

deleted 9y ago

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tchaffee 9y ago

The other rule that helps with this is to train employees to always put the conclusion at the top of the email. And it should fit in a short sentence. Give me the bottom line first and I can get through a lot of emails. I very rarely need all the details someone thinks are important in order to make a decision.