Without a doubt, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, is a genius, but his real power lies in his common sense. Nowadays, this quality is rare in the business world. Corporate executives these days are bombarded with various news jargon and nonsense from university days, making it difficult for them to remember the basics.
This has led to a corporate culture gone astray, easily swayed by various absurd ideologies that have no relevance to productivity and profitability.
Mr. Musk’s approach to personnel management has caught my attention. Shortly after taking over Twitter, he laid off two-thirds of the staff within a few weeks. He acted on intuition, aiming to eliminate employees whose daily tasks only involved supervising others, arranging meetings, and displaying leadership styles. Even entire teams were let go. He then fired employees whose positions were irrelevant to the company’s core business.
These standards meant that the majority of employees needed to be let go. What was the result? The website immediately ran more smoothly, and feature development progressed at an astonishing pace. In just a year, he not only successfully rebranded Twitter as X platform but also transformed it from an entertainment tool into a vital social platform, making it the most valuable social media space on the entire internet.
The most important governance tool is to clean the house, or as the saying goes, “draining the swamp.”
In fact, almost all large and medium-sized American companies face this problem. Since entering the new millennium, favorable financial conditions have inflated the workforce and high salaries. Low-interest rates have led to endless credit, which, in turn, inflated valuations. Management began to believe that all problems could be solved by pouring more manpower into it; they automatically assumed that these people had the necessary qualifications.
This is unprecedented. It has completely changed the tone of professional life.
In the past twenty years, we have witnessed various fresh theories:
“We need better marketing strategies.”
“We need to build a marketing team led by top marketers with the best university marketing degrees.”
“We need better data storage.”
“We need to hire a data expert to oversee a computing team.”
“We need to focus on compliance.”
“Great idea, we need to establish a dedicated team for this.”
The results have led to thousands of people being employed in such false positions, only protecting their own jobs and not much else. So their main job is to make themselves look like they have a job.
They mastered the art of fancy spreadsheets, which were perfect tools for creating the appearance of work; they also mastered numerous task planning platforms to record who did what when. If these tasks were unrelated to the organization’s driving purpose, even better.
As a result, the entire system was easily manipulated by employees and middle managers using management jargon to deceive superiors. They have developed a whole set of vocabulary around this scheme. If you master this language and can confidently talk at meetings, avoiding the real issues, you could excel.
This situation has persisted for over two decades, and has become increasingly prevalent in many companies and organizations. It has become ingrained in corporate culture to the point where almost no one knows how to do anything, they only know how to deceive their superiors, pretending to be indispensable. This trait has become the essence of millions of high-paying jobs in America.
This bizarre trend cannot continue indefinitely. The COVID-19 lockdown has exposed this scam because the entire workforce is working remotely from home, yet the operation of the organization has not significantly changed. At the very least, this phenomenon harbors many mysteries. However, corporate culture has become so foolish that people truly believe they can still draw high salaries without doing anything besides chatting with colleagues on the company’s internal Slack communication platform or attending video conferences.
In conclusion, Musk saw through this scam long ago. In his companies, he does not tolerate this behavior. He keenly identifies who is trying to deceive him and repeatedly issues notices to everyone in the company that if they think they can pretend to work and get paid, they will be fired. As a result, his companies have performed well and achieved real profits.
Now, many of his management strategies have been openly applied at X company. He made it clear to X company employees that he applies three criteria to each employee. A qualified employee must possess the following three qualities: outstanding ability, utilizing people to their full potential, and being trustworthy.
Let’s now delve into these three qualities in detail.
Outstanding ability firstly means being down-to-earth and willing to do actual work. Not fake tasks of pointing fingers at others, but real work. It means understanding the industry, excelling at a task, persevering in completing tasks relentlessly, even if the work is dull and lacks recognition, being able to reliably complete tasks with sufficient enthusiasm, even after hours and weekends for urgent tasks, rather than constantly complaining about excessive work as it is surely a pretentious way to seek attention.
Outstanding ability also means having genuine skills, understanding work software, making real changes, taking full responsibility, managing all steps of the production process, and understanding the entire chain of command. Of course, this does not mean bossing around, concealing work, hoarding tasks, monopolizing work hours, condemning colleagues, or making false accusations and rumors.
Outstanding ability does not mean constantly complaining about the need to balance work and life. This is another clear sign of an individual’s lack of excellence. This promotes a false binary: having work against having a life, with no connection between the two. In reality, work is a part of life, done to achieve a goal. A nice vacation is also work because it is done for a purpose, such as exploring or experiencing something new. If someone truly believes they cannot enjoy life once they are working, then the problem is quite apparent.
Throughout my career, I have conducted many job interviews, and there are some signs that indicate a person should not be hired. One is detailed inquiries about benefits and break times. Another is the lack of particular interest in the company’s processes and productivity. There is also concern about being contacted after hours. All of these indicate that the person does not possess outstanding ability.
Regarding utilizing people to their full potential, it is indeed a defining standard for an individual’s retention in a company. If a company does not need you, you should not linger there. It is a waste and a net loss of resources. It is that simple. Only those talents that are truly needed by a company should be employed. I have always adhered to the principle of “No Post Unless Necessary.” Meaning, everything and everyone should be utilized to their maximum potential, and only when you truly have no time to complete tasks requiring your professional skills should you outsource those tasks. You should not frequently resort to this and should only do so when absolutely necessary.
The standard of utilizing people to their full potential applies to every aspect of life. Take the example of the COVID-19 vaccines. We do not even need to worry about whether these vaccines are safe or effective. For 99% of people, even under the most effective assumptions, there is no need to take these vaccines. That is the real failure. However, hardly anyone talks about this issue.
Any employee not needed by a company should be immediately dismissed. Keeping them on board is a plunder of necessary employees. As an employee, nothing is more demoralizing than working in a company where you have to pay and protect someone who does no valuable work. Having such individuals around dampens the morale of others. And these individuals can range from one person to thousands. Why should I work hard, care for others and do my best, while some people are just there, giving orders and pretending to be important?
The secret to successful personnel management lies in this: good employees eagerly hope for the dismissal of bad employees. They eagerly anticipate and pray for that day to come. When this situation does not materialize, and disruptors continue to roam freely, management loses credibility in the eyes of others. Continuing to employ fools and charlatans will certainly poison the entire company. It cannot be tolerated for even a single day. Never.
The third quality is being trustworthy, which is also embedded in the other two qualities. We will find that in any company, the people who cause the most trouble by gossiping and constantly complaining are those who neither possess outstanding ability nor are utilized to their full potential. They feel undervalued and often complain outwardly. Over time, they become worse through lies, conspiracies, and plots. These people are the poison of a company. They should have been dismissed long ago.
Oddly enough, we also notice that failures, idlers, pretenders, and imposters often congregate together. They gather in small corners. They have lunch together. After work, they hang out in bars. What are they doing? They badmouth the company, belittle capable individuals, disparage the company and its products, complain about excessive work and low wages, and so on.
The only positive aspect of this phenomenon is that it tells managers who to dismiss. The entire clique should be fired because this group is not trustworthy and has a negative impact on everything and everyone. The quicker these dismissals happen, the better.
Musk’s hiring standards are excellent. These standards should also apply to the government, and the government needs these hiring standards even more. If a government employee lacks outstanding ability, is underutilized, and is untrustworthy, elected presidents should be able to dismiss them immediately. Every decent government system should operate in this manner, and not a single position should be beyond the control of the people. The entire administrative state needs to be abolished and reshaped into a government truly belonging to the people.
“Outstanding ability, utilizing people to their full potential, and being trustworthy” – these are the hiring standards for every organization, whether it is a business, nonprofit organization, or government entity. In fact, these hiring standards apply everywhere in the world, every field, and for eternity. The principle is simple, and if you doubt it, we can look at the restaurant or hotel industry. There, we can learn a lot and deepen our true understanding of the meaning of “work.”
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This translated and rewritten news article highlights the importance of common sense and practicality in the corporate world as demonstrated by Elon Musk’s approach to personnel management, emphasizing the qualities of outstanding ability, utilizing people to their full potential, and being trustworthy as key hiring standards in organizations.