Want to work more efficiently? This $251 billion company CEO has a surprisingly simple email rule: just 2 words

For most CEOs, hundreds of emails a day can easily turn into a backlog. Siemens CEO Roland Busch has a different approach. The 61-year-old executive receives around 200 emails daily but tries to keep his inbox below 100 unread messages, relying on short replies and quick decisions to stay organised.

Busch recently told Business Insider that he considers a crowded inbox a distraction, saying, “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.”

He said he manages the volume by responding quickly rather than writing lengthy emails. “I accomplish this by answering messages quickly and using a few words,” Busch said.

That can mean responding to detailed messages with just two letters, such as “OK” or “No.” The same principle extends to his team, which has been trained to communicate in a similarly concise manner.

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“My team is trained to communicate this way,” Busch told Business Insider. He added that when a longer response is needed, he prefers to dictate it while moving around the office, saying, “If I need to write something longer, I dictate my response while walking through the office.”

No recurring one-on-one meetings

Busch also applies his focus on efficiency to how he manages his senior team. Instead of scheduling recurring one-on-one meetings with direct reports, he follows an open-door approach and asks executives to come to him when they need his time.

“Because I value efficiency, I don’t have recurring meetings with my direct reports,” Busch said. He explained that the frequency depends entirely on what needs to be discussed: “I tell them, ‘You come to me whenever you need me.’ It could be five times a week or once a month.”

Busch said he sees little value in meetings that are held simply because they are scheduled. “I don’t need to entertain people, and they don’t need to entertain me,” he said.

From physics to leading Siemens

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 the company become Germany’s most valuable company and one of Europe’s largest by market capitalisation. The company is valued at around $251 billion.

Unlike many corporate leaders, Busch did not come through a traditional business-school route. He holds a Ph.D. in physics and started his Siemens career in research, working on energy technologies such as solar power and offshore wind.

His scientific background continues to influence how he approaches decisions at the top of a global company. Busch told Business Insider that CEOs often have to make decisions without complete information and credited physics with teaching him how to break complicated problems down.

“As a CEO, you’re always making decisions with incomplete and ambiguous information,” Busch said. He explained that physics taught him “how to de-layer a problem, separating the core issues from the less important ones.”

Busch added that identifying the most important factors can make decision-making easier, saying, “Once you isolate the core variables, you have a much better chance of making the right decision.”

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has a similar approach

Busch is not the only major CEO to move away from traditional one-on-one meetings. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has also said he does not hold individual meetings with his dozens of direct reports.

Speaking on the Lex Fridman Podcast earlier this year, Huang said around 60 leaders report directly to him, far more than the five to seven direct reports typically associated with traditional corporate structures.

Huang explained that the large group makes conventional one-on-one meetings impractical. “I don’t have one-on-ones with them because it’s impossible,” he said on the podcast.

Instead, Huang said problems are brought to the wider leadership group so they can be addressed collectively. “We present a problem, and all of us attack it,” Huang said.

Both approaches point to a broader shift in executive management: fewer routine meetings, faster communication and more direct involvement when a decision actually needs to be made.