The term ‘Twitter storm’ has taken on new meaning since Elon Musk took over the platform last month. As the self-proclaimed guardian of free speech, Musk is tossing aside the manual and rewriting the rules – for the good of humanity! I mean – who better to protect our democratic freedoms than the richest man on earth?
Having promptly fired half of Twitter’s employees, the Musketeer is now taking the next necessary step in his transformation of the platform: a piece of company-wide communication.
An email to all Twitter staff has just leaked, in which Musk makes clear:
- I’m the boss and don’t you forget it
- Here’s how to have an effective meeting, in case you didn’t know
The ‘meetings’ part of this email is naturally of huge interest to us at tl;dv. To say we know a thing or two about effective meetings is to put it mildly. We literally built a tool for productive meetings – and we did it entirely through remote and async collaboration. So we decided to take a look at Musk’s ‘productive meeting’ principles, offering our take on each one.
@tldv.io Makes perfect sense. #meeting #comedy #corporate #meetings #9to5 #firstday ♬ original sound – tldv.io
Elon Musk’s 6 Rules for Effective Meetings
1. Avoid larger meetings
We TOTALLY agree. Studies have shown that larger meetings become dominated by a handful of extroverts, leaving other participants sidelined and passive. The result is wasted time, and the fact that valuable input from quieter participants risks getting overlooked.
Rarely does a meeting need more than five participants. By inviting a bunch of colleagues only to have them sit through them meeting as passive listeners, you’re robbing them of their time and productivity.
What’s more – workers who are pressed for time are likely to multitask during meetings. This means their focus is split between the meeting and whatever task they’re trying to complete. Not a great situation (unless you love sloppy work that’s full of mistakes).
If a discussion is so important that multiple people must be kept in the loop, then the most effective thing is to record the meeting, timestamp the important take-aways, and share the recording async.
Did five minutes of the meeting become relevant to a particular stakeholder? Use tl;dv to tag the recording at that exact moment, so the stakeholder can jump straight to the part where their awareness or input is needed.
Eliminate passive listeners. Make every call optional. Record the meeting.
2. Leave a meeting if you’re not contributing
Once again, Musk is right on the money. It’s pointless to say in a meeting out of politeness. You know what’s not polite? Wasting hours on unproductive discussion when you could be putting in real work instead.
A transparent meetings culture means making remote calls accessible to the people who need or want to catch up in their own times. No more ‘meeting FOMO’ or ‘peer-pressure attendance’.
Allow colleagues to confidently say ‘I don’t think I have more to contribute here, so I’m going to hop out’ – knowing they can easily get looped back in via tl;dv if necessary.
Every recorded call becomes a treasure chest of context. Leverage this!
3. Forget the chain of command
Smaller meetings invite more discussion. Why? Because when meetings are small, participants feel like their inclusion is more meaningful. That’s the way it should: everyone should feel like their input and ideas are genuinely valued.
One benefit of remote and async work is that employees often feel more empowered to share creative or bold ideas. As we explore in our article about asynchronous communication, an async culture gives employees the time and space to properly formulate and prepare their contribution.
In other words, async and remote work allows employees to be “honest and speak freely without the fear of being judged or ridiculed. This, in turn, allows people to share ideas without fear, and take the time to think over their input without the pressure of someone expecting an instant response.”
With open online communication, individuals are less likely to be anxious about authority.
“Invisibility gives people the courage to go places and do things that they otherwise wouldn’t."
4. Be clear, not clever
Recording your meetings allows you to evaluate your organization’s style of communication. Where did the call lack clarity? What was left out, and where did the discussion go off-track? Did anyone’s contribution get overlooked?
A transparent meeting culture encourages precise communication and to-the-point discussion. We’re held accountable for what we say – reducing the ‘fluff’ of vague, jargon-heavy language.
With tl;dv, you can easily revisit your past presentations, sales calls, interviews or tutorials. Learn from them, and become a better communicator as a result.
You can also bring real user voices closer to your organization by sharing clips from user research sessions and interviews. No need to translate their experiences and emotions into ‘formal language’! A user’s ‘plain speak’ will tell your team precisely what they need to know in order to become more user-centric.
5. Ditch frequent meetings
The average professional spends half their work week in meetings. Do you want to be average? With tl;dv, there’s no excuse for frequent or long meetings. Calls can be instantly recorded and transcribed in multiple languages – for free.
That means you have a video from which to instantly create small, relevant clips. You have a transcript from which to lift key quotes. You have a recording that can be timestamped for fast recaps and effective follow-ups.
Insights can be extracted in a matter of minutes, then shared effectively with your team with minimum demand on their time.
Were you out of office? No sweat. Search the tl;dv library for words like ‘marketing budget’ or ‘bug report’. You’ll quickly see all the calls in which those words were spoken while you were away.
Start turning down meetings, and win back hours of time every week.
6. Use tl;dv
The last of Musk’s principles is perhaps the most obvious. With tl;dv, you obliterate ineffective meetings while ensuring that no key insight ever gets overlooked. You’ll catch up on meetings in minutes, rather than waste your work week stuck in calls that aren’t bringing value.
OK, all jokes aside – it does rather seem like Musk found the inspiration for his email by reading our Manifesto, or perhaps our guide to effective meetings. We’re flattered!
But seeing as Musk’s meeting principles are all centered around efficiency, we can’t help but wonder when he’ll realize the power of remote and async work in unleashing productivity and focus. Until then, we’re feeling sorry for all the Twitter folks having to return to office.
