Key Takeaways
- Roland Busch spent more than three decades climbing the corporate ladder at Siemens before being appointed CEO in 2021.
- Busch now gets about 200 emails per day and tries to keep his inbox below 100 unread messages.
- He gets to this goal by “answering messages quickly and using a few words.”
Writing a detailed email to Siemens CEO Roland Busch? Expect a two-letter response back: “OK” or “No.”
“I try to keep my inbox below 100. If you have more than 100 emails in your inbox, you lose the overview of what’s actually on your plate,” Busch recently told Business Insider. “I accomplish this by answering messages quickly and using a few words.”
Busch gets about 200 emails per day and skips elaborate responses in favor of efficiency. That means that his emails are “simple and fast.”
“My team is trained to communicate this way,” he told the outlet. “If I need to write something longer, I dictate my response while walking through the office.”
The 61-year-old CEO carries the same message of efficiency in the way he structures his time with his direct reports. Instead of scheduling recurring one-on-one meetings with direct reports on his calendar, Busch has an open-door policy.
“Because I value efficiency, I don’t have recurring meetings with my direct reports,” Busch said. “I tell them, ‘You come to me whenever you need me.’ It could be five times a week or once a month. I don’t need to entertain people, and they don’t need to entertain me.”
Busch’s beginnings in physics
Busch has spent more than three decades at Siemens. He joined the German engineering company in 1994 and worked his way through its leadership ranks before becoming CEO in 2021. Since then, Siemens’ shares have more than doubled, helping make it Germany’s most valuable company and one of Europe’s largest by market capitalization.
Busch didn’t go to business school. Instead, he has a Ph.D. in physics, and he began his Siemens career in research, working on energy technologies like solar power and offshore wind.
That scientific grounding still informs the way he runs a global company.
“As a CEO, you’re always making decisions with incomplete and ambiguous information,” Busch told Business Insider. “Physics taught me how to de-layer a problem, separating the core issues from the less important ones. Once you isolate the core variables, you have a much better chance of making the right decision.”
Another CEO is cutting back on meetings with direct reports
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also skips one-on-ones with his dozens of direct reports, according to an episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast from earlier this year.
Huang told the podcast that he has around 60 leaders reporting directly to him, instead of the standard five to seven direct reports. The structure eliminates layers of hierarchy that can slow down decision-making, flattening out Nvidia’s organizational chart.
“I don’t have one-on-ones with them because it’s impossible,” Huang said on the podcast. “We present a problem, and all of us attack it.”
Key Takeaways
- Roland Busch spent more than three decades climbing the corporate ladder at Siemens before being appointed CEO in 2021.
- Busch now gets about 200 emails per day and tries to keep his inbox below 100 unread messages.
- He gets to this goal by “answering messages quickly and using a few words.”
Writing a detailed email to Siemens CEO Roland Busch? Expect a two-letter response back: “OK” or “No.”
“I try to keep my inbox below 100. If you have more than 100 emails in your inbox, you lose the overview of what’s actually on your plate,” Busch recently told Business Insider. “I accomplish this by answering messages quickly and using a few words.”
Busch gets about 200 emails per day and skips elaborate responses in favor of efficiency. That means that his emails are “simple and fast.”