Why Elon Musk Hates MeetingsHe called them a 'blight' on effective company operations.

ByNina Zipkin

Nicholas Kamm | Getty Images
Elon Musk

Whether a meeting is a dramatic negotiation or a time suck, they are an aspect of business that are tough to avoid. One business leader who really isn't a fan?Elon Musk, whose days have recently consisted of sleeping onhis factory floorand skipping showers as he endeavors to get Model 3 production back on track.

In anemailabout the current plans to stem the production woes that was obtained by automotive news site Electrek, Musk laid out his top productivity tips to help streamline the process. Chief among them: no meetings if you can help help it.

"Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of [sic] all large meetings, unless you're certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short," Musk wrote. He also urged his employees to do away with frequent meetings unless something is truly urgent. Once is the problem is solved, the meetings should stop too.

Related:25 Weird Things We've Learned About Elon Musk

For all those people who wish that they could banish conference calls completely, this tip is for you: "Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren't adding value," Musk advised. "It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time."

Apparently, Musk isn't the only one who has adopted this tack. In something of a high stakes brainwave, President Donald Trump recentlysaidof a planned upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that, "If the meeting when I'm there is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting."

麝香还指出,当涉及到通信n, that if a manager is favoring the "chain of command" over transmitting the information in a timely fashion to the person most able to solve the problem, then that person would quickly be out of a job.

"In general, always pick common sense as your guide," Musk wrote. "If following a 'company rule' is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a greatDilbertcartoon, then the rule should change."

Wavy Line
Nina Zipkin

Entrepreneur Staff

Staff Writer. Covers leadership, media, technology and culture.

Nina Zipkin is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com. She frequently covers leadership, media, tech, startups, culture and workplace trends.

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