Common Sense Rules for Disruptive Leaders

If you survey the “disruptive” leaders in the industry today, you’ll find a lot of rules they have established to improve productivity within their respective companies. Interestingly, most of these rules are about…

• the effectiveness of meetings…
• the efficiency of communications… and
• the robustness of processes in your company.

Striving to improve these qualities in your workplace isn’t disruptive, it’s just common sense. That said, what is disruptive… is pushing back against the institutional inertia that over time has established a set of bad habits that may have had a purpose at some point but are now obsolete.

Let’s take a look at some of the disruptive disciplines Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos use to drive productivity. As you read through them… see if you can detect any common themes.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Elon Musk Disciplines

1. Effective Meetings

1.1 Large Meetings

• Avoid large meetings. Large meetings waste valuable time and energy. Only call one if you’re certain it will provide value to everyone.
• Large meetings discourage debate. People are more guarded than open and there’s insufficient time for everyone to contribute.

1.2 Frequent Meetings

• Ditch frequent meetings. There’s no better way to waste everyone’s time.
• Use meetings to collaborate. Attack issues head-on and solve urgent problems. However, once you resolve the issue, frequent meetings are no longer necessary.
• Make decisions without meetings. Use You can resolve most issues without a meeting. Instead of meetings… send a text or an email… or message on a Slack channel.
• Keep team workflow focused. Don’t interrupt your team’s workflow if it’s unnecessary.

1.3 Leave a Meeting

• No value. Leave when a meeting doesn’t require your input to establish value or make decisions.
• No purpose. Leave when your presence serves no purpose and you’re not contributing.
• It’s not rude… to leave a meeting, but it is rude to waste people’s time.

2. Efficient Communication

2.1 Forget the chain of command.

• Be direct. Communicate with colleagues directly… not through supervisors or managers.
• Be quick. Fast communicators make fast decisions.
• Be competitive. Fast decisions = competitive advantage.

2.2 Be clear, not clever.

• Be simple. Avoid nonsense words and technical jargon. It slows down communication.
• Be concise. Choose words that are concise and to the point. Make your points easy to understand.
• Be focused. Don’t try to sound smart… work to be efficient.

Jeff Bezos Disciplines

The core principles are prioritizing written information sharing over oral, minimizing time waste, maximizing participation, and ensuring accountability through pre-work, notes, and follow-ups. The strictness helped enforce high standards.

1. Effective Meetings

1.1 Before the Meeting

• Publish an agenda. Meetings have clear agendas circulated ahead of time so people can prepare.
• Provide a read-ahead. Presenters must submit material in writing before presenting verbally so people are informed.
• Focus on details. No PowerPoint presentations are allowed. Discussions focus on narrated memos with detailed information.
• Prepare to contribute. Attendees must carefully read the material ahead of time for meaningful contributions.

1.2 During the Meeting

• Limit meeting time. Meetings are capped at 30 minutes and start on time. (Latecomers are locked out.)
• Make key decisions. Meetings focus on making decisions, not just information sharing. Clear decision owners are designated.
• Allow for discussion. Time is left at the end for clarifying questions and open discussion.
• Keep your focus. Side conversations and interruptions are prohibited to maintain focus.

1.3 Don’t Forget To…

• Take notes. An executive takes detailed notes and sends them out after. This frees participants from notetaking.
• Get feedback. Post-meeting feedback is encouraged to improve next time.

2. Efficient Communication

The Bezos philosophy on communication is that teams should be small, with well-defined work scopes… and they should strive to communicate less, not more. He believes that when teams are communicating well, they are working in a harmonious, organic manner that reduces the need for constant communication.

• Keep it simple. Use short words to talk about hard things. Your goal in communicating is to ensure no one misunderstands the team’s task.
• Keep team focus. Keep focused on your mission. Don’t allow extraneous topics to obscure essential details of the team objective.
• Images capture context. Use symbols to convey big ideas and scope the context of the challenge.
• Stories relate to context. Choose metaphors to simplify complex topics. A common story can allow everyone on the team to understand a problem in the same way.

If All Else Fails, Remember…

Most of the time being a disruptive leader just means challenging the status quo, applying a healthy dose of discipline and commonsense, and having a good reason to change. So, if you see something in your company that doesn’t seem right, disrupt it.

• Question processes and rules that don’t make sense, don’t contribute to progress or don’t apply to your situation.
• Avoid blindly following anything you don’t understand.
• Always follow principles, integrity, discipline, and common sense.

Thanks for reading…

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