According to Toyota “Hardcore” Doesn’t Work
This is no surprise to long time Tesla watchers. We’ve been trying to tell all y’all for years now that Musk doesn’t know how to run a company and shouldn’t be allowed to manage people. The guy is a textbook example of what not to do.
Look no further than the quality of the products that Tesla churns out. Tesla EVs are regularly at the bottom of the Consumer Reports quality list for problems of both a mechanical or fit & finish nature. And this won’t change until Musk is no longer running Tesla. Why do I say this? Because Musk thinks the Toyota manufacturing system is stupid.
At Toyota all employees down to the lowest paid hourly workers are empowered to stop production if they identify any recurring quality issues. The entire plant will focus on solving that problem before production resumes. And Toyota puts big red buttons every 10ft on the assembly line so that there is no excuse not to do it. Meanwhile at Tesla, Musk empowers all employees to “ignore stupid meetings or rules” to keep production running. And guess who drives most meeting and rules? Yeah, the quality department. Musk effectively empowers his employees to ignore the quality people if it hurts their production quota.
Then there’s the time that Musk decided he was going to shut down all the retail stores. A few days later they backtracked and opened up half of them. What an idiot. He’s like a college intern who just starts pressing buttons without knowing what will happen. But you could fill a thousand page book with examples of Musk making stupid decisions or reversing them. I wouldn’t hire Musk to run a McDonalds restaurant.
But the latest example of Musk’s stupidity is his ultimatum to employees that they “go hardcore or go home”. That just doesn’t work.
Again I return to the Toyota method. One of the most profound things that I learned while studying the Toyota manufacturing principles was this. Relying on “exceptional performers” to keep a system moving is a recipe for disaster. Because it is difficult to find exceptional performers and eventually even your exceptional performers will get burned out. You will cause them to leave once they get too tired.
At Toyota they believe in setting up “exceptional systems” for average to below average people. Toyota strives for systems full of checks and balances in which you could drop almost anyone into a job and they could do it with a high level of quality. This allows them to flex their workforce more easily when volume is up or down. And a relaxed pace will keep workers happy and errors down to a minimum.
And Musk’s ultimatum of “go hardcore or go home” is stupid for another reason which I’ve witnessed. Those with the strongest resumes are the ones who leave. It is the people at the lower end of the bell curve who stay. That’s because they have weak resumes or a spotty history. As a consequence, they don’t leave because it will be difficult to find another job. But the best and brightest people who have a stellar work history will quickly jump ship. What has Musk done? He’s gutted the collective brain trust.
So yeah, Tesla watchers knew that Musk was going to bring his typical chaos and stupidity to Twitter. But I think even we didn’t realize how bad it would it be. There just doesn’t seem to be anyone in Musk’s orbit who can tell him when he’s making a mistake.
If you didn’t catch the reference in my article photo, that is the character Gavin Belson. The show tried to create a composite character of self-centered and egotistical billionaires who are narcissistic. Everyone around Gavin Belson is afraid to tell him that he’s a complete loser and total moron. But when you watch the show, you swear that the character is based on Elon Musk.
At Toyota all employees down to the lowest paid hourly workers are empowered to stop production if they identify any recurring quality issues. The entire plant will focus on solving that problem before production resumes. And Toyota puts big red buttons every 10ft on the assembly line so that there is no excuse not to do it. Meanwhile at Tesla, Musk empowers all employees to “ignore stupid meetings or rules” to keep production running. And guess who drives most meeting and rules? Yeah, the quality department. Musk effectively empowers his employees to ignore the quality people if it hurts their production quota.
Then there’s the time that Musk decided he was going to shut down all the retail stores. A few days later they backtracked and opened up half of them. What an idiot. He’s like a college intern who just starts pressing buttons without knowing what will happen. But you could fill a thousand page book with examples of Musk making stupid decisions or reversing them. I wouldn’t hire Musk to run a McDonalds restaurant.
But the latest example of Musk’s stupidity is his ultimatum to employees that they “go hardcore or go home”. That just doesn’t work.
Again I return to the Toyota method. One of the most profound things that I learned while studying the Toyota manufacturing principles was this. Relying on “exceptional performers” to keep a system moving is a recipe for disaster. Because it is difficult to find exceptional performers and eventually even your exceptional performers will get burned out. You will cause them to leave once they get too tired.
At Toyota they believe in setting up “exceptional systems” for average to below average people. Toyota strives for systems full of checks and balances in which you could drop almost anyone into a job and they could do it with a high level of quality. This allows them to flex their workforce more easily when volume is up or down. And a relaxed pace will keep workers happy and errors down to a minimum.
And Musk’s ultimatum of “go hardcore or go home” is stupid for another reason which I’ve witnessed. Those with the strongest resumes are the ones who leave. It is the people at the lower end of the bell curve who stay. That’s because they have weak resumes or a spotty history. As a consequence, they don’t leave because it will be difficult to find another job. But the best and brightest people who have a stellar work history will quickly jump ship. What has Musk done? He’s gutted the collective brain trust.
So yeah, Tesla watchers knew that Musk was going to bring his typical chaos and stupidity to Twitter. But I think even we didn’t realize how bad it would it be. There just doesn’t seem to be anyone in Musk’s orbit who can tell him when he’s making a mistake.
If you didn’t catch the reference in my article photo, that is the character Gavin Belson. The show tried to create a composite character of self-centered and egotistical billionaires who are narcissistic. Everyone around Gavin Belson is afraid to tell him that he’s a complete loser and total moron. But when you watch the show, you swear that the character is based on Elon Musk.
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