Musk’s Five Things Email Edict Is a Flop. GCs Could Do It Better

It’s been a little over a month since Elon Musk famously demanded that federal workers send a weekly bullet point list of their five accomplishments to an Office of Personnel Management email address. While some agency heads told their employees not to participate, the five bullet point ritual remains in place for many. It’s fair to consider whether it’s a management practice that should be more widely adopted in private industry. If it works for the world’s richest man and enables him to run the federal government and multiple public and private companies at the same time, maybe more of us should consider it. And how should we think about drafting them?

Let’s start with why. If you’re thinking about implementing the practice, first ask yourself what you hope to accomplish. I’ve used it myself for my direct reports when I was running an in-house legal team—it was a great way for me and the other legal leaders to know what was going on across the department.

I found it particularly useful to read through the bullet points with an eye on each group’s quarterly goals. Were we working on the things that matched our strategic objectives, or were we getting caught up in the tyranny of the urgent—doing small things that seemed important in the moment but distracted us from what really mattered?

If you’re looking to downsize and restructure your team, though, the bullet points aren’t an effective technique. An intelligent downsizing exercise involves understanding two things:

• How does this person’s work contribute to the key objectives of the organization as it will operate post-restructuring?
• How good is that person at doing that work?

Reading an employee’s glowing summary of a particular workweek won’t likely help you much on either count. They are unlikely to admit that they weren’t productive or they wasted time on projects that didn’t matter. For all you know, it may not have been a typical week. I’ve seen employees who went through lulls, but when you needed them, you really needed them—and they rose to the occasion.

Even worse, sending summaries outside the management chain to different organizations that don’t understand your work (such as OPM or HR) increases the chances that the person reading the summaries won’t understand or appreciate them. It can also increase the potential for attorney-client privilege problems, or issues around improper sharing of classified or sensitive confidential information.

For downsizing, you’re better off starting with a strategic exercise to define what work you want the organization to do going forward and reading the performance evaluations to understand each employee’s strengths. Look to see what each part of the organization does, and take the time to evaluate what skill sets the employees possess and which ones you’ll need going forward.

Focusing on five-bullet-point weekly summaries means that you may end up keeping employees who are the busiest (or who are good at making themselves sound busy). They might be the wrong employees for what you need in your refocused organization. Worse, the exercise may create fear and tension within the group, and lead employees to start looking for work elsewhere. Mission accomplished? Not really—the first people to leave are often the best, most skilled workers who can easily find another job. If you aren’t careful, you may find that by the time you’ve finished deciding where to cut, you’re left with those who are most passionate about your mission (great) or the poorest performers who can’t get a job anywhere else (ugh).

If you’re thinking about trying the five-bullet-point technique, keep three operational things in mind.

First, communicate up front, clearly and honestly, why you’re doing it. Avoid unnecessary confusion and fear—plan messaging carefully. Tell employees who will read the summaries and what you’re going to do with the information.

Second, keep the individual employee summaries in the management chain—there’s little value in having the individual reports read and evaluated in other departments.

Finally, read them yourself. Send a note with appropriate follow-up questions, or expressions of appreciation for work well done. There are reports that federal employees have been dutifully sending their bullet points in each week, only to have them bounce back because the OPM email box is full—that sends a terrible message.

As an employee, how should you think about crafting your five bullet points? It’s a strategic decision that depends in part on your level of trust in your manager. Evaluate how the reader of your summary will be looking at your email—if it’s your manager, and the bullet points are informational, take it seriously. Turn in your email on time. Use whatever template is provided. Be honest and authentic—don’t try to embellish your work, as your manager should be generally familiar with what you’re doing and trying to oversell will catch up with you.

Don’t hide bad news. If something isn’t going well or you have an issue, get it on the table. You’ll gain trust and credibility over the long run. A good manager will want to know the problems, and can smell when they’re being snowed. And keep it crisp—not so short that it looks like you aren’t busy or taking the task seriously, or so long that you’re trying too hard to sound important.

If you think the emails are being used as part of an evaluation for a potential restructuring, your focus needs to shift. Think about where your organization is going, what type of work is likely to be valued in the future, and what kind of work is simply essential. Be honest, but understand the lens through which the reader is seeing your bullet points. Don’t use technical jargon—make sure that a layperson can understand what you do and, most importantly, why it matters. Your bullet points must be on time, well written, and professional.

When you’re done, ask yourself: If I were reading this email, would I understand how this person’s work is important to the organization’s mission? Finally, don’t ever stop polishing your resume, networking, and looking for other opportunities. If you are let go, you want to have a running start toward the next phase of your career—and it might be a better place than where you are now.

Rob Chesnut consults on legal and ethical issues and was formerly general counsel and chief ethics officer at Airbnb. He spent more than a decade as a Justice Department prosecutor and he writes on in-house, corporate, and ethics issues.

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