Elon Musk's Illusion of Control Undermines Tesla's FutureElon Musk told Tesla staff to return to the office or quit. This take on remote and hybrid work models will only damage Tesla's future.
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Elon Muskrecently demandedthat all Tesla staff return to the office full-time, according to an email sent to executive staff and leaked on social media.Musk saidthose who don't want to come to office should "pretend to work somewhere else." This authoritarian, top-down approach rooted in mistrust and false assumptions goes againstbest practices. It speaks to an illusion of control that will undermine employee productivity, engagement, innovation, retention and recruitment at Tesla.
One of Musk's false assumptions involves the idea that employees "pretend" to work from home. In fact, research usingbothsurveysand behaviortrackingfrom the early days of the pandemic has shown that remote work resulted in higher productivity. More recently, academics demonstrated afurther increasein productivity in remote work, from 5% in the summer of 2020 to 9% in May 2022. That's because companies and employees grew better at working from home.
Yet despite this easily-available evidence, Musk wrote inanother leaked emailthat those who work remotely are "phoning it in." He highlights the importance of being visible and cites his ownnotoriously longworking hours as an example.
Such a focus on visibility in the office speaks to a highly traditionalist leadership mindset underpinned by theillusion of control. Thiscognitive biasdescribes our mind's tendency to overestimate the extent to which we control external events.
Related:Why Proximity Bias Keeps Leaders From Excelling in the Era of Hybrid and Remote Work
It's especially prevalent in authoritarian executives who want to control their employees. They believe that having employees present in the office guarantees productivity.
In reality, research shows that in-office employees work much less than the full eight-hour day. They actually spend anywhere from36%to39%of their time working. The rest, according to these studies, is spent on other activities: checking social media, reading news websites, chit-chatting with colleagues about non-work topics, making non-work calls and even looking for other jobs.
Musk's desire for control is not simply emphatically unrealistic. It also goes directly against what we know is critical for productivity, engagement and innovation for office-based workers: thedesire for autonomy.
Studies show that we do our best work throughintrinsic motivation, which involves autonomy and control over our work as a fundamental driver of effectiveness. Employees aremost engaged, happy and productive when they have autonomy. A key component of autonomy in thepost-pandemic environmentinvolves giving workers flexibility and self-control of where and when they work, rather than trying to shoehorn them into the pre-pandemic "normal." And thoughMusk claimsthat forcing employees to come to the office under the threat of firing will help Tesla develop and make "the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth," astudy of 307 companiesfinds that greater worker autonomy results in more innovation.
Musk's obvious lack of trust in his employees contrasts with the much more flexible work policies of other organizations. That includes manufacturing and tech companies where Tesla's employees might go. Consider the manufacturing company3M's approach, which the company explicitly calls "trust-based." The company allows employees to "create a schedule that helps them work when and where they can most effectively."
Related:Why Are So Many Leaders Botching the Return to the Office?
As another example of a potential place to work for Tesla staff,Applied Materials高科技制造商,开发了一个“艾克塞琳ce from Anywhere" modality. Rather than a top-down approach, Applied has a team-led model, where team leaders work with team members to figure out what works best for each team and employee. Applied is adopting best practices to facilitate innovation in remote and hybrid work such asvirtual asynchronous brainstormingto sustain a competitive advantage.
Tesla's research and development staff might also consider working in more research-focused tech environments, such as the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. By adoptingresearch-driven approaches, ISI put itself in "a leadership position in terms of figuring out how to do hybrid work" through maximizing flexibility and autonomy for its staff.
Studyafterstudyafterstudy表明,40%到60%的员工ould look for another job if forced to come to work against their wishes. And I would gladly eat my hat if we don't see increased quit rates at Tesla as a consequence of a forced office return. After all, there's a reason why a member of the executive staffleakedMusk's emails on returning to the office.
Indeed, we immediatelywitnessed pushbackagainst Musk's demands for an office return by employee representatives in Germany, which has the first worker's union across the whole of Tesla. Those without union representation will vote with their feet. Indeed, my information indicates that recruiters are already using Musk's words to target desirable Tesla employees. Musk's illusion of control and false assumptions will result in serious losses to Tesla and a gain forcompanies that are innovatingabout the future of work.
