Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2018

Autonomy - This is everything Musk goes against by, since “if you’re joining Tesla, you’re joining a company to work hard,” Musk told Autoblog in 2012. Additionally, Musk describes himself as a “nano manager” , which translates to the fact that he is involved with every little aspect of productions (Wartzman, 2015). Musk is described to have a hands-on obsession with the tiniest operational aspects at Tesla His involvement proves that he does not take a “laissez- faire” approach when managing his crew. Hence, allowing minimal freedom within the framework to its employees. In his argument, Pink states that works of creativity require intrinsic motivation. A reason on why Tesla lacks autonomy is because the organization mostly consists of highly trained engineers, instructed to do what their told by their “nano-manager” Musk. Logically speaking, engineering is a work of precision rather than creative brainstorming, which is why Musk does not leave anything to chance by giving his employees that kind of power. It is evident however, that Tesla compensates for its lack of autonomy. A statistic proves that in just one year (2016 to 2017), number of employees at Tesla increased by 53% (Statista, 2017). Although Pink argues that a lack of autonomy is not preferred and appreciated by employees, Tesla seems to worthily contradict this. Mastery - Furthermore, mastery is when certain opportunities allow employees to innovate and strive. Building an automobile is certainly one of those opportunities. Thus, Musk gives the atmosphere of mastery by hiring employees to go above and beyond to manufacture cars that are part of a new, developing technology. Former Tesla director of finance Ryan Popple, now CEO of electric bus maker Proterra, says, “He’s the master of getting more out of people than they think they can deliver.”, which is the epitome of achieving true mastery. Employees are also achieving mastery through the specific organizational culture at Tesla. Tesla Inc.’s management encourages employees to achieve innovative and creative mindsets. These mindsets are critical in upholding the company’s technologically innovative foundation (Meyer, 2018).

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