Tesla is set to report its first quarter results later today investors will hear from Elon Musk in the wake of company layoffs price cuts and the public attention to his pay package joining us right now for more on the company's governance as we head into that report is gothan Manda he is lecturer in the practice of management at the Fletcher.
School of Law and diplomacy he's also the author of two books on leadership and Gotham why don't we start um with who Elon Musk is and what he's accomplished to this point I mean it's not a minor it's it's not a minor story if you created a character in a comic book and called about Elon Musk even comic book writers might call.
It implausible he reinvented reinvented Automotive transportation and in SpaceX which might actually be his most impressive company has cut the cost of putting something in orbit by a factor of 27 not 27% a factor of 27 so that scale of achievement makes you understand why his board and why.
Corporate governance have cut him a lot of slack over the last few years but it might be time for that slack to end why why do you say that so if we step back for a second let's say that you believe that Elon is a business genius and you know I'm not going to argue that you're wrong given the scale of a track record the thing.
About being a genius is that it's a retrospective title you only have to do it once you only have to be right once when everyone else in the world is wrong and you get to you get to sort of claim that for the rest of your life and the thing is about even the greatest Geniuses who've ever lived is they don't get to be right they're not right all.
The time Albert Einstein is the greatest physicist of the 20th century he's the person we sort of always cite as the ultimate example of a genius and Albert Einstein made no real significant contributions to physics after general relativity because he just could not accept where physics was going he was still a genius it just means that he.
Wasn't right anymore so in the case of Elon Musk uhuh oh go ahead finish your go no no in the case of Elon Musk right like the fact that he was right about electric cars the fact that he was right about uh SpaceX doesn't mean that he's going to be right now it might mean that that in fact the the very tendencies that made him so gifted earlier make him.
Really poorly suited to running a company of 150,000 people that's facing disruptive challenges completely unlike those he's mastered in the past Gotham I I hear your point just because you're a genius once or in Elon musk's case maybe 5 10 15 20 times doesn't make you right on everything but if you're looking at that leader who founded a company or two.
Companies or three companies versus a board of directors who's been along for the ride um I I might pick sides with the founder more often than not if I'm if I'm playing the odds of who's more likely to be right if I'm playing the odds of you know where I think I'm best off that that might be how I would go down with.
It too again not not that any anybody's right on everything nobody's right on everything but you can probably look and play odds with somebody you think is more likely to be right and I think that's why um so many of these Founders and Geniuses are given so much leeway they saw things nobody else did you can look at Mark Zuckerberg who you know.
Everybody else on his board thought he was crazy for not selling for a billion dollars when he got an offer that came in I I mean there are reasons that they are where they are and they may not be right all the time but if they're sticking within their own business business is not getting outside of their Lanes you might be playing the right.
Odds by sticking with them so I mean I think that's a very natural human tendency and look if I was on the board of Tesla I would say hey Elon I'm going to give you a lot of benefit of the doubt that you were right when other people wrong because you've been it before but that is so I say that natural human tendency is actually a way to.
Betray us like you know to pick the same example if physicists had done that for Einstein for 30 years they would have kept physics would have been delayed for 30 years as they just didn't pursue all the Avenues that were right so in elon's case it's not that he doesn't you know it's not that he hasn't done this in the past it's let me set two sets of.
Problems one is Tesla now is very different from Tesla 10 years ago and when you think about leadership selection when you think about who the Right leader for an organization is what I often tell my students is that leadership is not a ranking problem it is a matching problem you're not asking looking through the question of who is.
The best person in the world in all circumstances that's not how leadership Works what you're thinking is who is the right person for the particular set of circumstances that we're in today the very fact that Elon Musk was you know for the early years of Tesla not just the right person amongst some said but the right the sort of the most right.
Person in the history of business doesn't mean that he's the right person now when the situation Tesla is facing is completely different and in particular it doesn't mean that he's the right person who should operate without restraint so I'm not saying he's the wrong person what I'm saying is if you are the board you also have business.
Judgment it's your job to ask him okay what is your strategy for dealing with Chinese electric cars that are going to come onto the market at $2,000 a car he may have a strategy that no one else would come up with but you even if you couldn't come up with it are able to evaluate that and that is your job
He just isn’t very any longer the founder or inventor.
He teaches students about management, are you able to suspect it?😂
..Musk is correct about EV however harmful about easy fetch a automobile company…there is a cause Ford, GM, Toyota had been multi generational companies..