5 Steps to Transformation for CEOs
I’m not a fan of Elon Musk, the person. Coming from the media business, I recoiled at his changes to Twitter (now X) and have disdain for his public commentary. But I also have enormous admiration for Elon: space exploration, electric vehicles, satellites, high-speed rail, and online payments are unrivaled accomplishments—and mostly executed concurrently.
How can one person do so much with so much impact?
Walter Isaacson shares 5 Steps to Change in his biography of Elon Musk. This is Elon’s personal algorithm for fighting bureaucracy and complacency that plague business and our daily lives.
Elon Musk's 5 Steps to Change
Question Requirements
Remove Unnecessary Steps (More Than You Think)
Simplify (Optimize)
Accelerate
Automate
Question requirements
Why are you doing what you are doing?
I wrote last week about questioning assumptions. Living consciously unconscious means doing the same things over and over without questioning effectiveness.
Achieving impossible possibilities is not doing what we’ve always done a little bit better.
Impossible goals are achieved by questioning current requirements, systems, and mindsets.
It starts by asking, why?
I asked my client with a bold three-year vision for her company, what if she reworked her three-year plan into one year? The change in her face and body language was visible. At first, uncomfortable. Then, she smiled. New thinking from possibility. She’s now optimistically reworking her plan with the question: what would need to be true in order to condense three years into one?
We assume a lot. Elon challenges his requirements continually.
Remove More Than You Think
This is cutting the fat.
Who or what have you outgrown?
What are you tolerating?
What can be delegated, or better yet...
What can be let go?
Look for the bottlenecks - when you do, you often see that you are the biggest bottleneck.
Elon shares that you can always add back what you’ve let go of if needed. Learning is a tool for improvement. The hardest part is making the decision to let go. Remove more than you think possible; if one or two things must be iterated backward, you learn and go.
Simplify and Optimize
This one is tough. Many overthink, making our days more complicated as we rethink, ruminate, compare, and despair.
Author Dr. Benjamin Hardy says that the system is designed to defend itself.
The systems in our lives and businesses you defend because it's what you've always done. But does that make it the best or right way? It might have been the right way last year, but what about now?
Ask yourself what would make this simpler.
When the bottlenecks are removed, and things become simpler, you open a path to optimizing.
Accelerate
Most of us are impatient. We want to move faster and get more results. Every process can be sped up, but Elon insists you must complete Steps 1, 2, and 3 before acceleration. Otherwise, you might quickly get off course, detoured, or worse.
If you follow the first three steps, acceleration naturally occurs. When you investigate requirements, rework assumptions, and simplify to optimize, the wind is at your back.
I’ve often moved too fast, jumped over the proverbial dollar to snatch the dime, and had to go back to square one to begin again. Wasted time and energy in pursuit of a momentary endorphin hit that's not sustaining.
This year, I started an audit of my month’s accomplishments. Waiting until year-end is laborious, and in my rush to results, I ALWAYS think I’m not doing ‘enough.’
Since April, I’ve moved to auditing my weeks, listing my accomplishments and where I’ve moved the needle forward. It’s rewarding to see, and even on those weeks when things blow up, it reveals where I can focus next week to accelerate.
Automate
Today, every business needs more automation to stay competitive. Traditional automation is a must, but also think about automation unconventionally.
If I could go back and do my corporate work differently, I would give myself permission to hire a personal assistant. I always had an assistant at work, but I never gave them anything personal. As a single mom of three kids and a full-time job, I was always frantically behind personally. Hiring someone to help me buy presents, make reservations, and call for doctor’s appointments would have freed me up and reduced my worry.
Where can we bring more automation into our business and our personal lives?
When thoughtfully considered, any of Elon's 5 Steps to Change are likely to make a difference for you.
Taken together, these steps could be life-changing for you. The proof or evidence: Tesla, PayPal, and Starlink are just a few.
Print this list and pin it somewhere that's always visible to remind you to reflect as a tool forward.
Your impossible possibility may be five steps away.
