Perhaps no company in recent years has captured the attention of the public more than Tesla and SpaceX, both headec by CEO Elon Musk. Tesla is named after the inventor Nicola Tesla, a contemporary of Thomas Edison, who designed the first electric engine. SpaceX is a company that is known for innovation such as reusing rocket launchers to reduce costs. While Tesla and SpaceX still manage their operations with all the processes covered [in our course], their constant innovation requires new processes. Perhaps no aspect of modern business has had a bigger impact than the proliferation of e-mail. No longer confined to the desktop, e-mail messages are delivered via mobile devices, and managers must find ways to manage the proliferation of communication to keep on top of things. Elon Musk communicated the processes and rules for communicating at Tesla in this e-mail to all employees. Subject: Communication Within Tesla There are two schools of thought about how information should flow within companies. By far the most common way is chain of command, which means that you always flow communication through your manager. The problem with this approach is that, while it serves to enhance the power of the manager, it fails to serve the company. Instead of a problem getting solved quickly, where a person in one dept talks to a person in another dept and makes the right thing happen, people are forced to talk to their manager who talks to their manager who talks to the manager in the other dept who talks to someone on his team. Then the info has to flow back the other way again. This is incredibly dumb. Any manager who allows this to happen, let alone encourages it, will soon find themselves working at another company. No kidding. Anyone at Tesla can and should email/talk to anyone else according to what they think is the fastest way to solve a problem for the benefit of the whole company. You can talk to your manager's manager without his permission, you can talk directly to a VP in another dept, you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone without anyone else's permission. Moreover, you should consider yourself obligated to do so until the right thing happens. The point here is not random chitchat, but rather ensuring that we execute ultra-fast and well. We obviously cannot compete with the big car companies in size, so we must do so with intelligence and agility. One final point is that managers should work hard to ensure that they are not creating silos within the company that create an us vs, them mentality or impede communication in any way. This is unfortunately a natural tendency and needs to be actively fought. How can it possibly help Tesla for depts to erect barriers between themselves or see their success as relative within the company instead of collective? We are all in the same boat. Always view yourself as working for the good of the company and never your dept. Thanks, Assignment The issue escalated to the board of directors. So, on April 22nd, you will attend a meeting of the board of directors to present your communication plan. The board will expect: 1) PowerPoint presentation that you will use to explain the major points to them at the meeting. 2) Whitepaper describing your communication strategy in detail that they can take away to review and consider. Creating both is your final assignment in this class. To prepare the two deliverables above, answer the questions below. Be sure to include citations of supporting references. 1. Why would an e-mail rules memo like this work better at an innovation-driven company such as Tesla rather than at a manufacturing-driven company such as General Motors? 2. What are the potential problems that could arise gut of this informal approach to communication? (Hint: Elon Musk has been in the news recently). 3. GM CEO Mary Barra has also taken a stand on clear business communication with a new company dress code. Compare her communication choices to Elon Musk's. Which communication style is most beneficial to the company led and why? Length: There is no set length for this assignment. However, l expect it will take 1-2 pages to cover the necessary material. Presentation Components The presentation should have the same components, but only the high points. Imagine you have 15 mins in front of the board, Summarize the contents of your white paper using no more than 10 slides. Clarity, conciseness, readability, aesthetics, and content will all be aspects of your grade on this component