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The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You
Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller!
Congratulations, you're a manager! After you pop the champagne, accept the shiny new title, and step into this thrilling next chapter of your career, the truth descends like a fog: you don't really know what you're doing.
That's exactly how Julie Zhuo felt when she became a rookie manager at the age of 25. She stared at a long list of logistics--from hiring to firing, from meeting to messaging, from planning to pitching--and faced a thousand questions and uncertainties. How was she supposed to spin teamwork into value? How could she be a good steward of her reports' careers? What was the secret to leading with confidence in new and unexpected situations?
Now, having managed dozens of teams spanning tens to hundreds of people, Julie knows the most important lesson of all: great managers are made, not born. If you care enough to be reading this, then you care enough to be a great manager.
The Making of a Manager is a modern field guide packed everyday examples and transformative insights, including:
* How to tell a great manager from an average manager (illustrations included)
* When you should look past an awkward interview and hire someone anyway
* How to build trust with your reports through not being a boss
* Where to look when you lose faith and lack the answers
Whether you're new to the job, a veteran leader, or looking to be promoted, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager you wish you had.
Congratulations, you're a manager! After you pop the champagne, accept the shiny new title, and step into this thrilling next chapter of your career, the truth descends like a fog: you don't really know what you're doing.
That's exactly how Julie Zhuo felt when she became a rookie manager at the age of 25. She stared at a long list of logistics--from hiring to firing, from meeting to messaging, from planning to pitching--and faced a thousand questions and uncertainties. How was she supposed to spin teamwork into value? How could she be a good steward of her reports' careers? What was the secret to leading with confidence in new and unexpected situations?
Now, having managed dozens of teams spanning tens to hundreds of people, Julie knows the most important lesson of all: great managers are made, not born. If you care enough to be reading this, then you care enough to be a great manager.
The Making of a Manager is a modern field guide packed everyday examples and transformative insights, including:
* How to tell a great manager from an average manager (illustrations included)
* When you should look past an awkward interview and hire someone anyway
* How to build trust with your reports through not being a boss
* Where to look when you lose faith and lack the answers
Whether you're new to the job, a veteran leader, or looking to be promoted, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager you wish you had.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published March 19, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,558 reviews
May 30, 2022
I'm probably not the target audience for this book. The book seems to focus a lot more on going from an IC mindset to a manager mindset when everything is going well.
I wish the book had addressed difficult issues such as:
- What to do when you have to ask your team to do things they don't want to do, e.g. when you yourself receive directions from higher up that you don't necessarily agree with.
- How to ask for more resources from the company: budget, headcount, etc.
- What to do in a hiring freeze or mass layoff.
- How do you know when it is the right time to let someone go, how to help that person move on, and how to communicate with the team about it.
I wish the book had addressed difficult issues such as:
- What to do when you have to ask your team to do things they don't want to do, e.g. when you yourself receive directions from higher up that you don't necessarily agree with.
- How to ask for more resources from the company: budget, headcount, etc.
- What to do in a hiring freeze or mass layoff.
- How do you know when it is the right time to let someone go, how to help that person move on, and how to communicate with the team about it.
March 4, 2019
The management book I've been looking for! Whereas most management books are written by CEOs and sometimes stuffy authoritarian types, Julie Zhou writes this for the newbie manager with an accessible, conversational tone. Practical advice you can immediately put to use is peppered with anecdotes from Julie's baby steps in management.
I'd recommend this for new managers and anyone looking to see if management is for them or not.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via Netgalley for review consideration.
I'd recommend this for new managers and anyone looking to see if management is for them or not.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via Netgalley for review consideration.
July 17, 2019
Really love this book!
The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo is my first book about business management.
I’ve read one article by Julie Zhuo but I didn’t realize it was really her until my colleague told me that this is the same person.
I really am glad that I got the chance to read this book. The author has become a manager when she was 25 and had no idea what to do and where she should start with. Just imagine a lot of experiences she gained from the start, especially her mistakes.
This book really an easy read. It’s like listening to someone sharing their experiences. But you can learn a lot from this book if you’re leading a team, big or small.
Some topics discussed in this book are;
1. Leadership
2. Skills on how to be people manager
3. Building trust
4. Having one on one session
and many more.
I hope you will pick up this book if you are looking for something about business management and people around you in your organization.
Thank you, Pansing for sending me a copy of The Making of a Manager in return for an honest review. This book is available in all good bookstores.
April 18, 2022
oh hey, what's up, career development i guess
I'm not a manager yet, but my career is heading that way. I'm extremely curious about how my previous life as a high school teacher will have prepared me for it (more ways than one, I'm guessing already just from reading this book), and I'm also curious about how the conversation around people management interlaces with that around classroom/student management. I'm not an expert in either, but there's definitely overlap.
Classrooms aside, this is a good first read around managing. It's written by one of Facebook's first employees who ended up skyrocketing (the way one does in startups) to VP Design and is now bopping around the founder/board member circuit. However, Zhuo is humble enough to recognize she's still effectively mid-career, and therefore this is, self-professedly, not an "expert" take on management. Instead, it's kinda co-conspiratorial -- rife with anecdotes about mistakes and successes, nudges in a (not 'the') right direction, conversational. The thoughts about management are well-expressed and, overall, seem pretty sound. She doesn't rely on her Facebook pedigree, at least not explicitly, but when she does talk about it -- separate from the management advice -- it's interesting to read about the process behind decisions made at a company that has really affected, and in many ways deeply fucked up, the entire world.
And that's....the thing.
As I was researching books about management in tech, I started getting the nagging suspicion that I was going to struggle with the rhetoric. Aaand yeah -- this is not a book that is critical of Facebook, of social media, of big tech, of the speed with which big tech moves. Any philosophical questioning of the industry or the company is notably absent, for a book that harps so hard on feedback and uncomfortable conversations. It's not quite Facebook propaganda, but it's close, and it makes it really difficult for her points to deeply resonate. That is -- I don't trust anyone who doesn't question the fuck out of Facebook, and based on this book, Zhuo has clearly drunk (and in some ways, made!) the Koolaid.
I don't know what I expected, exactly. I do know that my values and Zhuo's seem mismatched, and I would rather switch industries than work at Facebook. And while I like Facebook's "Be Bold" value, I struggle deeply with "Move Fast" --- we've seen how this has played out, and the best of intentions don't matter when algorithms are destroying communities far more rapidly than they're helping build them. When I taught, one of my classroom values was "Question Everything", and I'll bring that to my management; the company I work at now is all about being "Curious, Caring, and Driven." I'm not drinking the Koolaid at my own company, trust, but I do appreciate the forefronting of curiosity and care alongside the more typical tech value of drive. All that to say -- we find the places we belong, or try to, in this capitalist hellscape 🙃
So -- do I recommend this book? idk. I don't hate that I read it, and I very well could have, so that's probably a win. It's important, no matter what, I think, to read and think outside our comfort zones, so whether I'd like Zhuo as a manager or whatever I think of the company where she built her career -- I appreciate having read it, and the advice is good food for thought.
(if anyone has recs that approach management from a more socialist/equity-focused perspective, hit me up!)
I'm not a manager yet, but my career is heading that way. I'm extremely curious about how my previous life as a high school teacher will have prepared me for it (more ways than one, I'm guessing already just from reading this book), and I'm also curious about how the conversation around people management interlaces with that around classroom/student management. I'm not an expert in either, but there's definitely overlap.
Classrooms aside, this is a good first read around managing. It's written by one of Facebook's first employees who ended up skyrocketing (the way one does in startups) to VP Design and is now bopping around the founder/board member circuit. However, Zhuo is humble enough to recognize she's still effectively mid-career, and therefore this is, self-professedly, not an "expert" take on management. Instead, it's kinda co-conspiratorial -- rife with anecdotes about mistakes and successes, nudges in a (not 'the') right direction, conversational. The thoughts about management are well-expressed and, overall, seem pretty sound. She doesn't rely on her Facebook pedigree, at least not explicitly, but when she does talk about it -- separate from the management advice -- it's interesting to read about the process behind decisions made at a company that has really affected, and in many ways deeply fucked up, the entire world.
And that's....the thing.
As I was researching books about management in tech, I started getting the nagging suspicion that I was going to struggle with the rhetoric. Aaand yeah -- this is not a book that is critical of Facebook, of social media, of big tech, of the speed with which big tech moves. Any philosophical questioning of the industry or the company is notably absent, for a book that harps so hard on feedback and uncomfortable conversations. It's not quite Facebook propaganda, but it's close, and it makes it really difficult for her points to deeply resonate. That is -- I don't trust anyone who doesn't question the fuck out of Facebook, and based on this book, Zhuo has clearly drunk (and in some ways, made!) the Koolaid.
I don't know what I expected, exactly. I do know that my values and Zhuo's seem mismatched, and I would rather switch industries than work at Facebook. And while I like Facebook's "Be Bold" value, I struggle deeply with "Move Fast" --- we've seen how this has played out, and the best of intentions don't matter when algorithms are destroying communities far more rapidly than they're helping build them. When I taught, one of my classroom values was "Question Everything", and I'll bring that to my management; the company I work at now is all about being "Curious, Caring, and Driven." I'm not drinking the Koolaid at my own company, trust, but I do appreciate the forefronting of curiosity and care alongside the more typical tech value of drive. All that to say -- we find the places we belong, or try to, in this capitalist hellscape 🙃
So -- do I recommend this book? idk. I don't hate that I read it, and I very well could have, so that's probably a win. It's important, no matter what, I think, to read and think outside our comfort zones, so whether I'd like Zhuo as a manager or whatever I think of the company where she built her career -- I appreciate having read it, and the advice is good food for thought.
(if anyone has recs that approach management from a more socialist/equity-focused perspective, hit me up!)
February 26, 2019
Excellent new release! Clear and succinct delivery, undoubtedly useful for the target audience. I would look at it as a remastered High Output Management by Andy Grove aimed a the modern age new managers.
The downside is that is premised on a setting that is hardly universal. Most examples would resonate if you are working in a (for the lack of better term) ‘white-collar’ job, possibly in tech sector. But if you are exposed to managing teams in a ‘blue-collar’ environment some of the advice may ring less true.
Still - there are pearls of practical wisdom in here. So, I would strongly recommend giving this read a go.
The downside is that is premised on a setting that is hardly universal. Most examples would resonate if you are working in a (for the lack of better term) ‘white-collar’ job, possibly in tech sector. But if you are exposed to managing teams in a ‘blue-collar’ environment some of the advice may ring less true.
Still - there are pearls of practical wisdom in here. So, I would strongly recommend giving this read a go.
December 14, 2019
This is a great book for anyone in a managerial position or aspiring to fulfill one. It is also great for anyone working in a team or collaborative environment, which is almost anyone.
I found the advice practical and down to earth. The author did not use structured terms but rather kept the tone conversational and approachable.
Highly recommend it for anyone working in fast paced, dynamic environment who wishes to be a good leader and team member.
I found the advice practical and down to earth. The author did not use structured terms but rather kept the tone conversational and approachable.
Highly recommend it for anyone working in fast paced, dynamic environment who wishes to be a good leader and team member.
November 12, 2019
I really tried with this book, but for every good idea there was one that doesn’t apply to the service fields. And no matter what she was saying I kept thinking, “You work for Facebook. You’re okay with working for Facebook.” And she’d lose all credibility with me.
January 14, 2021
Learned a lot from the book. Feels like having a personal mentor. The author is frank and humble in her writing, allowing me to learn from failures and mistakes.
Notes:
- a manager: get better outcome of a group of people thru influencing purpose people and process
-to measure a manager: 1/2 is on teams results did u achieve goals (present outcome). 1/2 is on strength and satisfaction of team (future outcome) -
- 3 things managers think about all day:
- 1) purpose (the why) - everyone should believe in your teams purpose, believe why our work matters
- 2) people (who) do they have the right skills, motivation? Must have trusting relationship, know them well Coach them to do their best
- 3) process (how?) what principals should guide decisions? Predictable plans needed, need to establish common values.
- Your role is not to do the job cus you’re best at it, but to train up people to do the job as you do, so you can utilize the multiplier affect the best as you can
- How do u know if you’d be a great manager? You need to love the day to day of management . Management is all about people
- Ask 1) do I find it more motivating to achieve a certain outcome or play a certain role. Need adaptability. If there’s a specific activity you love too much then your goals might be at odd with the team. 2) do I like talking to other people? If 70% of your job is in meeting how would you feel? 3) can I provide stability to a challenging situation? Are you the friend ppl go to for emotionally charged moments
- The best outcomes come from inspiring people to actions, not telling them what to do. Don’t be too excited about being able to be call the shots. Your decisions need to be best for the team, not for yourself.
- Leadership is a quality not a job. It must be earned. Managers should cultivate leadership in self and in their team
- in transition period, ask your manager 1) what will be my scope to start and how do you expect to change over time 2) how will my transition be communicated 3) what do I need to know about the people I’ll be managing 4) what important team goals and processes should I be aware of and help push forward 5) what does success look like in my first 3-6 months?6) how can the two of us stay aligned with who does what
- Create list about what they’re doing well, list of what could be better. This will help you realize goals
- See yourself as a coach. Realize you own the outcome of your team
- Figure out: 1) how do I make decisions 2) what do I consider a job well done 3) what responsibilities did I take care of when it was just me? 4) what’s easy/hard about working in this function 5) what new processes are needed for this team?
- Informal manager training- have meals with others who do similar jobs to get tips and support
- 3 months of manager - mistakes are forgiven, colleagues willing to help. USE THE NEWBIE CARD
- Give everyone a benefit of a doubt and a clean slate. Be upfront with what kind of relationship you want to have and what kind of manager you want to be. Better to do first than when you settled in
- Have 1-on-1 and figure out their dream manager 1) what did you and your past manager discuss that was helpful to you? 2) what are the ways you’d like to be supported 3) how do you like to be recognized for great work 4) what kind of feedback is most useful to you 5) imagine you and I have a great relationship, what would that look like?
- Listen ask questions and learn
- For yourself, ask your manager 1) what does it mean to do a great job, avg job, poor job, can you give me some examples? 2) how do you think meeting Y went? Why do you think that? 3) I noticed Z happened the other day, is that normal? 4) what keeps you up at night, why? 5) how do you figure out what to prioritize?
- To address mistrust in beginning- you might not feel comfortable sharing with me everything yet but I hope to earn your trust, I’ll start by sharing more about myself including my biggest failure ever
- Change precedes improvements. Give yourself permission to be a diff manager than the one the team used to have. Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
- For author- took 3 years to feel like she knew what she was doing. Be patient and learn.
- Being a manager 1) developing healthy manager report relationship 2) creating environment of support
- Barriers to good work 1) skill 2) motivation. First, Figure out if great work means the same to both of you, then figure out motivation. Then lastly figure out skill
- YOU MUST TRUST PEOPLE OR LIFE BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE
- You need a trusting relationship so your rapports feel they can be honest with you because they know you care for them.
- You know you’re there if 1) my reports regularly bring their biggest challenge to me. Mistakes, fear, challenges. Strive for 1-on-1 meetings to feel a little awkward, it’s not easy to talk of mistakes, fears, secret hopes. 2) my reports would work for me again. Ask what are the qualities of a perfect manager for you.
- Strive to be human not a boss. Show respect and care for your rapport. MANAGING IS CARING. Doing your best to help ppl be successful, understand what they care about, personal blends into professional, need to be unconditional.
- Invest time to help your reports - have weekly 1-on-1s. What motivates you? How are you feeling about work? You need to be a MULTIPLIER
- 1 on 1s: have questions ready. Let them lead and while u listen and probe. 1) discuss top priority/desired results for reports and how you can help them 2)calibrate what great looks like 3) shared feedback (both ways) 4) reflect how things are going- how they feeling on a whole? What has he learned recently and what do you wanna learn?
- IDENTIFY TOPIC by asking 1) what’s top of mind for you right now 2) what priorities are you thinking of this week 3) what’s the best use of our time today. UNDERSTAND 1) what does your ideal outcome looks like 2) what’s hard to get to outcome 3) what do U really care about 4) whats the best thing that can happen? 5) what’s the worst thing that can happen
- How can I help you? how can I make it more successful? What’s most helpful for you today?
- You will make mistakes! Apologize, admit you screwed up and make improvements
- In tough times, it’s empathy that makes a difference. There’s a lot of power in expressing vulnerability
- Pay attention to top performers, don’t put all of your time on the weaker person.if you don’t think they’re set up to succeed in their roles, sometimes the best you can do is to be honest and support them in moving on.
- Letting ppl go- just cus they didn’t work out on your team doesn’t mean it’s on them, own that your relationship is a two way street and be compassionate. Focus on future and don’t prolong the breakup
- No brilliant assholes, the team does better without their talents and toxicity. It helps collaboration to have them leave
- Personal and organizational value must match, if not then the individual might need to be moved. Don’t take that personally
- Feedback- changes behaviors could be positive and negative. Only counts if it makes things better. Figure out where you need to adjust/make clear your expectations. Do at least 50% positive feedback, do it often. Make listeners feel safe.
- Critical feedback- show curiosity. state your point directly and ask if it resonates with you, why or why not. At the end- what are ur takeaways and next steps, or email, or help person hear many times (multiple one on ones, 360 feedbacks)
- task specific feedback as much as possible (tell them what they did we’ll and what could be better) - moments of coaching throughout the day
- Behavioral feedback - making a statement about how you see that person. Give attention also on reports as people, their goals future ups and downs, not just task related
- 360 degree feedback - ask peers/collaborators what X did well and what X can change
- Performance review shouldn’t be a surprise, if someone is not meeting expectation it should be talked of throughout the period.
- Make expectations clear, feedbacks specific, suggest next step- or ask what do you think the next step should be
- Imposter syndrome - Linda hill Harvard. transition into management, most will be disoriented and confusion, a job too big for them to handle. Ppl look to you for answers- immense pressure to make the right decisions. Often doing things you haven’t done before (I.e. firing ppl) management is not an innate skill.
- Managing self- figure out your strengths and weaknesses
- Visualization is important- imagine moments of when you’d be in the pit, picture the crowd nodding as you speak, how you are confident while speaking. Imagine your days, how you look waking up, feelings while working out, at quiet time, walking into office.
- Journal of Little Wins - write 3 things daily of what you did well that day, what you’re grateful for that day
- Ask for feedback from others all the time! Ask both task specific and behavioral feedback. “I’m working on my point being clear for first 3 minutes, how can I do better next time?”
- Treat your manager as a coach, not a judge. Ask what skill do you think I can work on? X is my goal, how do you think I can work on that.
- Make a mentor out of everyone
- Have weekly notes, 6 month goals. then evaluate, did u achieve goals? what did u learn? How would you coach someone with the same goals?
- To evaluate training- One year from now, will I be happy that I did this?
- Be a great leader is to be who you are and using your assets well
- Interview questions: 1) what kind of challenges are interesting to you and why? Can you describe a favorite project? 2) what do you consider your greatest strength? What would ur peers agree are your areas of growth? 3) imagine yourself in 3 years what do you imagine yourself to be different than now 4) conflict in the past year, how did it end and what did you learn? 5) what’s something that inspired you recently
- How to establish culture- figure out what your team does well (moments where u felt proud of being on this team) and what you hope to happen (list 5 adjectives you want outside person to describe your team’s culture, what 5 qualifies u wouldn’t want to emulate from another team)
- There’s power to ritual, they create ways to celebrate team values (ie annual Oscar style award ceremony, fail of the week to encourage honesty connections)
- How we behave helps to spread that throughout company culture. So walk the walk.
Notes:
- a manager: get better outcome of a group of people thru influencing purpose people and process
-to measure a manager: 1/2 is on teams results did u achieve goals (present outcome). 1/2 is on strength and satisfaction of team (future outcome) -
- 3 things managers think about all day:
- 1) purpose (the why) - everyone should believe in your teams purpose, believe why our work matters
- 2) people (who) do they have the right skills, motivation? Must have trusting relationship, know them well Coach them to do their best
- 3) process (how?) what principals should guide decisions? Predictable plans needed, need to establish common values.
- Your role is not to do the job cus you’re best at it, but to train up people to do the job as you do, so you can utilize the multiplier affect the best as you can
- How do u know if you’d be a great manager? You need to love the day to day of management . Management is all about people
- Ask 1) do I find it more motivating to achieve a certain outcome or play a certain role. Need adaptability. If there’s a specific activity you love too much then your goals might be at odd with the team. 2) do I like talking to other people? If 70% of your job is in meeting how would you feel? 3) can I provide stability to a challenging situation? Are you the friend ppl go to for emotionally charged moments
- The best outcomes come from inspiring people to actions, not telling them what to do. Don’t be too excited about being able to be call the shots. Your decisions need to be best for the team, not for yourself.
- Leadership is a quality not a job. It must be earned. Managers should cultivate leadership in self and in their team
- in transition period, ask your manager 1) what will be my scope to start and how do you expect to change over time 2) how will my transition be communicated 3) what do I need to know about the people I’ll be managing 4) what important team goals and processes should I be aware of and help push forward 5) what does success look like in my first 3-6 months?6) how can the two of us stay aligned with who does what
- Create list about what they’re doing well, list of what could be better. This will help you realize goals
- See yourself as a coach. Realize you own the outcome of your team
- Figure out: 1) how do I make decisions 2) what do I consider a job well done 3) what responsibilities did I take care of when it was just me? 4) what’s easy/hard about working in this function 5) what new processes are needed for this team?
- Informal manager training- have meals with others who do similar jobs to get tips and support
- 3 months of manager - mistakes are forgiven, colleagues willing to help. USE THE NEWBIE CARD
- Give everyone a benefit of a doubt and a clean slate. Be upfront with what kind of relationship you want to have and what kind of manager you want to be. Better to do first than when you settled in
- Have 1-on-1 and figure out their dream manager 1) what did you and your past manager discuss that was helpful to you? 2) what are the ways you’d like to be supported 3) how do you like to be recognized for great work 4) what kind of feedback is most useful to you 5) imagine you and I have a great relationship, what would that look like?
- Listen ask questions and learn
- For yourself, ask your manager 1) what does it mean to do a great job, avg job, poor job, can you give me some examples? 2) how do you think meeting Y went? Why do you think that? 3) I noticed Z happened the other day, is that normal? 4) what keeps you up at night, why? 5) how do you figure out what to prioritize?
- To address mistrust in beginning- you might not feel comfortable sharing with me everything yet but I hope to earn your trust, I’ll start by sharing more about myself including my biggest failure ever
- Change precedes improvements. Give yourself permission to be a diff manager than the one the team used to have. Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
- For author- took 3 years to feel like she knew what she was doing. Be patient and learn.
- Being a manager 1) developing healthy manager report relationship 2) creating environment of support
- Barriers to good work 1) skill 2) motivation. First, Figure out if great work means the same to both of you, then figure out motivation. Then lastly figure out skill
- YOU MUST TRUST PEOPLE OR LIFE BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE
- You need a trusting relationship so your rapports feel they can be honest with you because they know you care for them.
- You know you’re there if 1) my reports regularly bring their biggest challenge to me. Mistakes, fear, challenges. Strive for 1-on-1 meetings to feel a little awkward, it’s not easy to talk of mistakes, fears, secret hopes. 2) my reports would work for me again. Ask what are the qualities of a perfect manager for you.
- Strive to be human not a boss. Show respect and care for your rapport. MANAGING IS CARING. Doing your best to help ppl be successful, understand what they care about, personal blends into professional, need to be unconditional.
- Invest time to help your reports - have weekly 1-on-1s. What motivates you? How are you feeling about work? You need to be a MULTIPLIER
- 1 on 1s: have questions ready. Let them lead and while u listen and probe. 1) discuss top priority/desired results for reports and how you can help them 2)calibrate what great looks like 3) shared feedback (both ways) 4) reflect how things are going- how they feeling on a whole? What has he learned recently and what do you wanna learn?
- IDENTIFY TOPIC by asking 1) what’s top of mind for you right now 2) what priorities are you thinking of this week 3) what’s the best use of our time today. UNDERSTAND 1) what does your ideal outcome looks like 2) what’s hard to get to outcome 3) what do U really care about 4) whats the best thing that can happen? 5) what’s the worst thing that can happen
- How can I help you? how can I make it more successful? What’s most helpful for you today?
- You will make mistakes! Apologize, admit you screwed up and make improvements
- In tough times, it’s empathy that makes a difference. There’s a lot of power in expressing vulnerability
- Pay attention to top performers, don’t put all of your time on the weaker person.if you don’t think they’re set up to succeed in their roles, sometimes the best you can do is to be honest and support them in moving on.
- Letting ppl go- just cus they didn’t work out on your team doesn’t mean it’s on them, own that your relationship is a two way street and be compassionate. Focus on future and don’t prolong the breakup
- No brilliant assholes, the team does better without their talents and toxicity. It helps collaboration to have them leave
- Personal and organizational value must match, if not then the individual might need to be moved. Don’t take that personally
- Feedback- changes behaviors could be positive and negative. Only counts if it makes things better. Figure out where you need to adjust/make clear your expectations. Do at least 50% positive feedback, do it often. Make listeners feel safe.
- Critical feedback- show curiosity. state your point directly and ask if it resonates with you, why or why not. At the end- what are ur takeaways and next steps, or email, or help person hear many times (multiple one on ones, 360 feedbacks)
- task specific feedback as much as possible (tell them what they did we’ll and what could be better) - moments of coaching throughout the day
- Behavioral feedback - making a statement about how you see that person. Give attention also on reports as people, their goals future ups and downs, not just task related
- 360 degree feedback - ask peers/collaborators what X did well and what X can change
- Performance review shouldn’t be a surprise, if someone is not meeting expectation it should be talked of throughout the period.
- Make expectations clear, feedbacks specific, suggest next step- or ask what do you think the next step should be
- Imposter syndrome - Linda hill Harvard. transition into management, most will be disoriented and confusion, a job too big for them to handle. Ppl look to you for answers- immense pressure to make the right decisions. Often doing things you haven’t done before (I.e. firing ppl) management is not an innate skill.
- Managing self- figure out your strengths and weaknesses
- Visualization is important- imagine moments of when you’d be in the pit, picture the crowd nodding as you speak, how you are confident while speaking. Imagine your days, how you look waking up, feelings while working out, at quiet time, walking into office.
- Journal of Little Wins - write 3 things daily of what you did well that day, what you’re grateful for that day
- Ask for feedback from others all the time! Ask both task specific and behavioral feedback. “I’m working on my point being clear for first 3 minutes, how can I do better next time?”
- Treat your manager as a coach, not a judge. Ask what skill do you think I can work on? X is my goal, how do you think I can work on that.
- Make a mentor out of everyone
- Have weekly notes, 6 month goals. then evaluate, did u achieve goals? what did u learn? How would you coach someone with the same goals?
- To evaluate training- One year from now, will I be happy that I did this?
- Be a great leader is to be who you are and using your assets well
- Interview questions: 1) what kind of challenges are interesting to you and why? Can you describe a favorite project? 2) what do you consider your greatest strength? What would ur peers agree are your areas of growth? 3) imagine yourself in 3 years what do you imagine yourself to be different than now 4) conflict in the past year, how did it end and what did you learn? 5) what’s something that inspired you recently
- How to establish culture- figure out what your team does well (moments where u felt proud of being on this team) and what you hope to happen (list 5 adjectives you want outside person to describe your team’s culture, what 5 qualifies u wouldn’t want to emulate from another team)
- There’s power to ritual, they create ways to celebrate team values (ie annual Oscar style award ceremony, fail of the week to encourage honesty connections)
- How we behave helps to spread that throughout company culture. So walk the walk.
September 6, 2020
Because I am in digital technology management, I tend to read mostly management books by Silicon Valley authors. However, I am in the Midwest, and the issues I regularly face are not really acknowledged in most of these books. This is no exception. I wish I worked in a world where my biggest issues were filling all my headcount needs and nurturing overly ambitious employees. Try writing a book about working with what you have when it is not nearly enough, or finding an internal backfill outside of your area to fill the shoes of three experienced people who have left the company. Or how about hiring a global team, where low-cost will always trump high-value. Maybe even a lesson on if it is better to keep on a mildly effective employee, rather than letting them go knowing that a backfill is only a distant possibility. And don’t get me started about the constant specter of layoffs or sudden leadership changes.
Also, for once I’d like to read a book that doesn’t constantly name drop. For those of you living the FacebookGoogleApple life, enjoy reading about your world.
Also, for once I’d like to read a book that doesn’t constantly name drop. For those of you living the FacebookGoogleApple life, enjoy reading about your world.
April 13, 2019
This was a 3.5 book. There were a couple chapters I felt were quite valuable, and many that I had 0 notes for.
December 18, 2022
A concise, practical guide to being a manager. On the positive side, there is relatively little fluff or business speak; instead, the book jumps into the day-to-day details of what it takes to be an effective manager, which is refreshing to see in a business book. On the negative side, the book is a bit too obsessed with Facebook and companies like Facebook: not everyone is a manager at a VC-backed, hypergrowth, once-in-a-generation tech giant, so not all the lessons here will apply. Overall, a very worthwhile read for anyone who is a manager, or aspiring to be one.
Here are the key insights I got from this book:
1. The job of a manager
"Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together."
2. The tasks of a manager
A manager's daily tasks can be grouped into three buckets:
1. Purpose: this is the why. What outcome is your team is trying to accomplish? Everyone on the team should have a similar answer to, "why does our work matter?" A huge part of your job as a manager is to "ensure your team knows what success looks like and cares about achieving it."
2. People: this is the who. Your job as a manager is to ensure that you hire the right people and create an environment where they can grow and thrive.
3. Process: this is the how. When you work alone, you need no process; but when you are coordinating the work of a group of people, you do; and the more people, the more process you need.
3. Evaluating the performance of a manager
To evaluate how a manager is performing, focus on two things:
1. What results (outcomes) did the team achieve? In what ways did they make the company and its customers more successful?
2. How satisfied is the team? Is the team happy, working well together, and doing a good job of hiring and developing individuals?
4. Deciding if you want to be a manager
Key questions to ask yourself to determine if you can be a great manager:
1. Do I find it more motivating to achieve a particular outcome or play a specific role? As a manager, you may have to perform a huge variety of tasks to help your team achieve a specific outcome; as an individual contributor (IC), you typically play a single role the whole time, such as writing code or doing design work.
2. Do I like talking with people? If you had to spend 70% of your day in meetings, what's your reaction?
3. Can I provide stability for an emotionally challenging situation? Your direct reports will bring their own experiences, motivations, hopes, fears, etc to the table. As a manager, you are going to have a lot of hard conversations: giving tough performance review feedback; letting someone go; and so on.
5. How to get people to do great work
A great way to think about this question is to flip it around. What gets in the way of doing good work? It really comes down to two possibilities:
1. They don't know how to do good work. This is usually because the person lacks the training they need. A big part of being a manager is hiring people with the right skills; another big part is providing the environment and training where people can improve their skills.
2. They know how to good work, but they aren't motivated. On possibility is that people don't know what good work looks like: defining standards of performance and providing lots of examples helps here. Another possibility is that they know exactly what good work looks like, but they aren't on board with what they are being asked to do. A huge part of management is inspiring people: if they aren't bought into the purpose, people will trudge along, and you won't get the best work from them. Note that you can't inspire people by just telling them to do something; the word "inspire" is not an accident—as a manager, you have to learn how to be inspirational.
6. The role of trust
All relationships are based on trust. If your employees don't trust you, or you don't trust them, you cannot work together effectively. Therefore, it's critical that employees know that you care about them, that you will always be honest with them, and they can always be honest with you. You know you've achieved this when the following three items are true:
1. Your reports regularly bring their biggest challenges to your attention. "A hallmark of a trusting relationship is that people feel like they can share their mistakes, challenges, and fears with you."
2. You and your reports regularly give each other critical feedback and it isn't taken personally. The only way you and your direct reports can get better is if you can tell each other what isn't working. This can feel a little bit awkward; that's normal.
3. Your reports would gladly work for you again. This is one of the biggest indicators of the strength of your relationship: would they sign up to work for you again?
7. The role of expectations
Your job as a manager is to set clear expectations for each direct report before any work begins. In particular, right up front, you should define:
1. What a great job looks like, versus a mediocre or bad job.
2. What advice you have to get started on the right foot.
3. Common pitfalls to avoid.
8. The role of feedback
Your direct reports almost always want feedback; and you're probably not giving them enough of it.
Make sure to give at least two types of feedback:
1. Task-specific feedback: provide detailed feedback on specific tasks as often as you can, and as soon after the task was completed as possible. This should be akin to "coaching," where your goal is to help the person get better at that specific type of task.
2. Behavior feedback: provide higher-level feedback on the themes and patterns you see across many tasks regularly, but not quite as often, and do it more thoughtfully. This is feedback on the employee's skills and career trajectory, and often indicates how you evaluate their performance, so while it's incredibly important to provide (and many managers fail to do it), it can also be more sensitive. Make sure to think through what you want to say, and have plenty of examples to back up what you're saying.
9. Delivering feedback effectively
It's very easy for feedback to be misheard and not have the desired effect. The employee may perceive the feedback as a threat to their career, and when you're threatened, you go into a "flight or flight" reaction, where you'll experience a variety of physiological and neurological reactions (e.g., increased heart rate and blood pressure) that make it much harder to absorb information.
The key to make sure your feedback is heard is to ensure the listener feels safe. There are several ways to make this happen:
1. Make it clear that you care about the person you are talking to and want them to succeed. If you show any ulterior motive (e.g., you're just annoyed), your feedback won't get through.
2. Share positive feedback along with the negative feedback. Recognizing what's going well, and not only the problems, is much more likely to change behavior.
3. Share feedback with a sense of curiosity. For example, state your feedback, and then ask, "Does this feedback resonate with you? Why or why not?" This shows curiosity and a desire to understand; moreover, it gets the person to reflect, rather than just become defensive.
4. Repeat the message many times. Sometimes, you have to hear the same thing over and over before it has an effect. Share it in a 1:1; have others share it in 360 feedback; share it in writing; and so on.
5. Follow up to see if you were heard. At the end of the conversation, ask "OK, let's make sure we're on the same page: what are your key takeways and next steps?"
10. Managers as coaches
Many people work with their managers solely as authority figures. The predominant emotion is, "don't mess up" and "don't let them see weaknesses and think I'm incompetent." This rarely leads to a healthy relationship. In fact, it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy: you're struggling, but you refuse to ask for help, so you keep struggling, and as you never get better, you ultimately are judged incompetent.
A better model is to work with a manager as a coach. It would be crazy for an athlete to try to hide weaknesses from their coach. The same is true with managers. Good managers are their to help you get better: treat them as a coach, not a judge.
11. Defining a vision
One way to inspire a team is to share with them an inspiring vision of what the future will look like. A key point is that this vision must be concrete. It can't be squishy or vague. It should be bold and it should be instantly clear whether you've accomplished it.
For example, compare a political vision like, "America will get wealthier" to "A chicken in every pot."
You know you've done a good job defining the vision if you can ask 5 team members what the vision is, and they all say the same thing.
12. Hiring tip: look for advocates, not consensus
When interviewing a candidate, don't use consensus to make the hiring decision; everyone saying "hire," but no one being enthusiastic, often leads to weak hires who don't perform all that well. Instead, look for one or more passionate advocates who feel strongly about hiring the candidate and are willing to go to bat for them. That's usually a stronger signal of a strong hire.
Here are the key insights I got from this book:
1. The job of a manager
"Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together."
2. The tasks of a manager
A manager's daily tasks can be grouped into three buckets:
1. Purpose: this is the why. What outcome is your team is trying to accomplish? Everyone on the team should have a similar answer to, "why does our work matter?" A huge part of your job as a manager is to "ensure your team knows what success looks like and cares about achieving it."
2. People: this is the who. Your job as a manager is to ensure that you hire the right people and create an environment where they can grow and thrive.
3. Process: this is the how. When you work alone, you need no process; but when you are coordinating the work of a group of people, you do; and the more people, the more process you need.
3. Evaluating the performance of a manager
To evaluate how a manager is performing, focus on two things:
1. What results (outcomes) did the team achieve? In what ways did they make the company and its customers more successful?
2. How satisfied is the team? Is the team happy, working well together, and doing a good job of hiring and developing individuals?
4. Deciding if you want to be a manager
Key questions to ask yourself to determine if you can be a great manager:
1. Do I find it more motivating to achieve a particular outcome or play a specific role? As a manager, you may have to perform a huge variety of tasks to help your team achieve a specific outcome; as an individual contributor (IC), you typically play a single role the whole time, such as writing code or doing design work.
2. Do I like talking with people? If you had to spend 70% of your day in meetings, what's your reaction?
3. Can I provide stability for an emotionally challenging situation? Your direct reports will bring their own experiences, motivations, hopes, fears, etc to the table. As a manager, you are going to have a lot of hard conversations: giving tough performance review feedback; letting someone go; and so on.
5. How to get people to do great work
A great way to think about this question is to flip it around. What gets in the way of doing good work? It really comes down to two possibilities:
1. They don't know how to do good work. This is usually because the person lacks the training they need. A big part of being a manager is hiring people with the right skills; another big part is providing the environment and training where people can improve their skills.
2. They know how to good work, but they aren't motivated. On possibility is that people don't know what good work looks like: defining standards of performance and providing lots of examples helps here. Another possibility is that they know exactly what good work looks like, but they aren't on board with what they are being asked to do. A huge part of management is inspiring people: if they aren't bought into the purpose, people will trudge along, and you won't get the best work from them. Note that you can't inspire people by just telling them to do something; the word "inspire" is not an accident—as a manager, you have to learn how to be inspirational.
6. The role of trust
All relationships are based on trust. If your employees don't trust you, or you don't trust them, you cannot work together effectively. Therefore, it's critical that employees know that you care about them, that you will always be honest with them, and they can always be honest with you. You know you've achieved this when the following three items are true:
1. Your reports regularly bring their biggest challenges to your attention. "A hallmark of a trusting relationship is that people feel like they can share their mistakes, challenges, and fears with you."
2. You and your reports regularly give each other critical feedback and it isn't taken personally. The only way you and your direct reports can get better is if you can tell each other what isn't working. This can feel a little bit awkward; that's normal.
3. Your reports would gladly work for you again. This is one of the biggest indicators of the strength of your relationship: would they sign up to work for you again?
7. The role of expectations
Your job as a manager is to set clear expectations for each direct report before any work begins. In particular, right up front, you should define:
1. What a great job looks like, versus a mediocre or bad job.
2. What advice you have to get started on the right foot.
3. Common pitfalls to avoid.
8. The role of feedback
Your direct reports almost always want feedback; and you're probably not giving them enough of it.
Make sure to give at least two types of feedback:
1. Task-specific feedback: provide detailed feedback on specific tasks as often as you can, and as soon after the task was completed as possible. This should be akin to "coaching," where your goal is to help the person get better at that specific type of task.
2. Behavior feedback: provide higher-level feedback on the themes and patterns you see across many tasks regularly, but not quite as often, and do it more thoughtfully. This is feedback on the employee's skills and career trajectory, and often indicates how you evaluate their performance, so while it's incredibly important to provide (and many managers fail to do it), it can also be more sensitive. Make sure to think through what you want to say, and have plenty of examples to back up what you're saying.
9. Delivering feedback effectively
It's very easy for feedback to be misheard and not have the desired effect. The employee may perceive the feedback as a threat to their career, and when you're threatened, you go into a "flight or flight" reaction, where you'll experience a variety of physiological and neurological reactions (e.g., increased heart rate and blood pressure) that make it much harder to absorb information.
The key to make sure your feedback is heard is to ensure the listener feels safe. There are several ways to make this happen:
1. Make it clear that you care about the person you are talking to and want them to succeed. If you show any ulterior motive (e.g., you're just annoyed), your feedback won't get through.
2. Share positive feedback along with the negative feedback. Recognizing what's going well, and not only the problems, is much more likely to change behavior.
3. Share feedback with a sense of curiosity. For example, state your feedback, and then ask, "Does this feedback resonate with you? Why or why not?" This shows curiosity and a desire to understand; moreover, it gets the person to reflect, rather than just become defensive.
4. Repeat the message many times. Sometimes, you have to hear the same thing over and over before it has an effect. Share it in a 1:1; have others share it in 360 feedback; share it in writing; and so on.
5. Follow up to see if you were heard. At the end of the conversation, ask "OK, let's make sure we're on the same page: what are your key takeways and next steps?"
10. Managers as coaches
Many people work with their managers solely as authority figures. The predominant emotion is, "don't mess up" and "don't let them see weaknesses and think I'm incompetent." This rarely leads to a healthy relationship. In fact, it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy: you're struggling, but you refuse to ask for help, so you keep struggling, and as you never get better, you ultimately are judged incompetent.
A better model is to work with a manager as a coach. It would be crazy for an athlete to try to hide weaknesses from their coach. The same is true with managers. Good managers are their to help you get better: treat them as a coach, not a judge.
11. Defining a vision
One way to inspire a team is to share with them an inspiring vision of what the future will look like. A key point is that this vision must be concrete. It can't be squishy or vague. It should be bold and it should be instantly clear whether you've accomplished it.
For example, compare a political vision like, "America will get wealthier" to "A chicken in every pot."
You know you've done a good job defining the vision if you can ask 5 team members what the vision is, and they all say the same thing.
12. Hiring tip: look for advocates, not consensus
When interviewing a candidate, don't use consensus to make the hiring decision; everyone saying "hire," but no one being enthusiastic, often leads to weak hires who don't perform all that well. Instead, look for one or more passionate advocates who feel strongly about hiring the candidate and are willing to go to bat for them. That's usually a stronger signal of a strong hire.
July 16, 2022
There is nothing groundbreaking in this book, which is a combination of personal experience and the usual quotes from Pareto, Andy Grove, and others who serve to inspire management philosophies. As with most management books, it's very high-level and, just because of NDAs, can't gt into project specifics.
There are two things that are interesting about this book:
1. The writing and digesting into small, friendly chunks.
2. You get the distinct sense from reading this book that the author has become very, very good at corporate politics, but it's not something that's covered at all in the book, everything is under the surface. After reading the book, you feel like this is someone you'd want to meet with in person to pick their brain about what their true experiences were and their true feelings about those experiences.
There are two things that are interesting about this book:
1. The writing and digesting into small, friendly chunks.
2. You get the distinct sense from reading this book that the author has become very, very good at corporate politics, but it's not something that's covered at all in the book, everything is under the surface. After reading the book, you feel like this is someone you'd want to meet with in person to pick their brain about what their true experiences were and their true feelings about those experiences.
April 19, 2019
4.5 stars! While I’m new to the world of management books, I really enjoyed this and tabbed it like crazy. I know I’ll be returning to this over the next several months, if not years. It’s inspiring and honest, motivational and exciting. Let’s do something great - after all, as Zhuo ends with, the journey is only 1% done.
February 25, 2022
I tried my best to read this book but I just can not do this anymore. 25% is end of journey for me.
Feels like the author sat down to write a book one day and ended up compiling all the goody two shoes Medium articles on management into one excruciatingly boring book. Who knew the hardest part of becoming a manager is to force yourself to read such hot air.
Feels like the author sat down to write a book one day and ended up compiling all the goody two shoes Medium articles on management into one excruciatingly boring book. Who knew the hardest part of becoming a manager is to force yourself to read such hot air.
January 27, 2022
Zdecydowanie najlepsze wprowadzenie do tematu jakie czytałem. Konkrety. Dobrze opisuje na czym ta rola polega. Pozwala się przygotować do pierwszych kroków.
Zdecydowanie lepsze niż mocno przereklamowane „The
Manager’s Path”.
Zdecydowanie lepsze niż mocno przereklamowane „The
Manager’s Path”.
March 21, 2019
I'd highly recommend reading Julie Zhuo's The Making of a Manager. It's the perfect resource for new managers and experienced managers looking to improve their leadership skills.
Julie's style is clear, fun, and extremely relatable. I loved the examples she provides and the illustrations that go with them.
The book covers topics such as:
-The true definition of management
-What to do during your first few months in the job
-How to develop trust with your direct reports
-How to prepare for meetings (and what type of questions to ask)
-Best practices to exchange feedback with your direct reports
-The importance of self-awareness (and getting over the imposter syndrome)
-Designing your team intentionally and hiring the right people
-Mastering the art of delegation and processes
-Investing in a positive team culture
-The importance of developing a growth-mindset and constantly working to improve your management skills
I'm grateful I got to read the book before the release date and should say I've become a huge fan of Julie after learning about her experience as a female leader in one of the most renowned companies in the world.
Julie's style is clear, fun, and extremely relatable. I loved the examples she provides and the illustrations that go with them.
The book covers topics such as:
-The true definition of management
-What to do during your first few months in the job
-How to develop trust with your direct reports
-How to prepare for meetings (and what type of questions to ask)
-Best practices to exchange feedback with your direct reports
-The importance of self-awareness (and getting over the imposter syndrome)
-Designing your team intentionally and hiring the right people
-Mastering the art of delegation and processes
-Investing in a positive team culture
-The importance of developing a growth-mindset and constantly working to improve your management skills
I'm grateful I got to read the book before the release date and should say I've become a huge fan of Julie after learning about her experience as a female leader in one of the most renowned companies in the world.
August 25, 2019
Very solid stuff (4.5+ stars). Its initial chapters start very "soft" - I'd even say - focus on more psychological aspects of the role, but the further the better.
The best chapter is definitely no 8 ("Making Things Happen") - Julie Zhuo perfectly (IMHO) captures the idea of effectiveness & pragmatism in goal-oriented organisations.
Keep in mind that it's a book by a manager from Facebook, but it's not really about Facebook or its culture. Some characters are mentioned but there are no "insider stories" that could not have happened in any other organisation. Also - the author has a design background, but this does not mean that the book is about design parts of organisations - it's value is rather generic & widely applicable.
Is there anything "new" or ground-breaking here? Any new "framework"/approach/method? No, not at all, but I wouldn't consider it a problem - what I really appreciate is the very straightforward approach to the topic: the book seems rather personal & direct, there's no preaching, no brand marketing, no buzzwords.
Really solid stuff, worth both your money & the time spent on reading.
The best chapter is definitely no 8 ("Making Things Happen") - Julie Zhuo perfectly (IMHO) captures the idea of effectiveness & pragmatism in goal-oriented organisations.
Keep in mind that it's a book by a manager from Facebook, but it's not really about Facebook or its culture. Some characters are mentioned but there are no "insider stories" that could not have happened in any other organisation. Also - the author has a design background, but this does not mean that the book is about design parts of organisations - it's value is rather generic & widely applicable.
Is there anything "new" or ground-breaking here? Any new "framework"/approach/method? No, not at all, but I wouldn't consider it a problem - what I really appreciate is the very straightforward approach to the topic: the book seems rather personal & direct, there's no preaching, no brand marketing, no buzzwords.
Really solid stuff, worth both your money & the time spent on reading.
April 29, 2020
20% company values & the People Portal, 30% internal training like Fast Feedback & Situational Leadership, 30% various Workplace notes on "This is how you X at Facebook", 10% company PR, plus 10% or less of her personal experience.
The book feels very Facebook and a little less personal, probably because Julie helped to shape its culture but was still at the company when she wrote it. Managers new to Facebook will probably find this very helpful.
The book feels very Facebook and a little less personal, probably because Julie helped to shape its culture but was still at the company when she wrote it. Managers new to Facebook will probably find this very helpful.
September 16, 2021
Хотіла би я прочитати цю книгу 5 років тому!
Одна з найкращих книг про управління. Ніби читаєш «ідесльний керівник» але на новий манер. Джулія ділиться морем прикладів при тому книга дуже проста і дієва. Рекомендую. Однозначно!
Навіть домвіченим менеджерам, але особливо - новачкам!
Одна з найкращих книг про управління. Ніби читаєш «ідесльний керівник» але на новий манер. Джулія ділиться морем прикладів при тому книга дуже проста і дієва. Рекомендую. Однозначно!
Навіть домвіченим менеджерам, але особливо - новачкам!
January 31, 2022
I dont want to be a manager any time soon but this is an insightful book.
May 3, 2022
بسط بدیهیات
June 23, 2019
Was für ein tolles Management-Buch. Die Autorin Julie Zhuo arbeitet so ziemlich seit dem Start von Facebook bei Facebook. Aus ihrem Team heraus befördert, leitet sie seit Jahren Teams bei Facebook und hat einiges zu erzählen. Ich nehme aus diesem Buch so unglaublich viel mit. Die konkreten Ideen natürlich, wobei man das Buch kapitelweise nochmal lesen muss, um wirklich alle Ideen zu erfassen. Aber auch die Management-Philosophie, die hier beschrieben wird. Ich lese selten Management-Literatur, mir fehlt der Vergleich aber ich glaube dieses Buch ist herausragend. Themen u.a.: Feedback, Selbstmanagement, Meetingkultur, Recuruiting, Dinge auf die Straße bringen und wachsende Teams managen.
March 16, 2019
I admit I wasn't aware of Julie Zhuo before hearing about this book but now I am her biggest fan! Zhuo is the VP, Product Design at Facebook, having successfully worked her way up the ranks. She first became a manager at 25 and wasn't sure where to start, what she should be doing and what she should NOT be doing! As you can imagine, she has learned a huge amount from this experience, especially her own mistakes. This book is a really approachable guide for managers, whether you are new or experienced.
I first became a manager of a team when I was 26 and recently moved into a new company where I inherited a team. My first experience was a team that I set up myself, hired and grew. Zhuo labels this a "Pioneer" route. My current experience is the "New Boss" route as I am moving into an already established team. Both have their own challenges but I certainly felt it more in my new role, I'm moving into a new environment, in an industry I haven't worked in before, and need to quickly build up relationships with my team members, proving I can be a good manager and am capable of doing the job!
Luckily I got a copy of this book at just the right time and was able to devour it before starting my new role. In it, aside from breaking down the different routes to management and techniques to deal with each, the book covers areas such as:
- what really is management? How do you tell a great manager from an average one?
- the skills you need to be a people manager - it's not suited to everyone and people should not be forced into this role to advance
- how to build trust
- giving (and receiving) good feedback
- having useful 1:1s and not wasting them
- dealing with issues such as people not pulling their weight or causing conflict in the team
- nurturing your team's culture
- your own personal development as a manager
This really is a brilliant book and one that I will be rushing out to get my own copy of as soon as it is out. I read it all the way through, making notes as I go, but I'll now use it as a guide I can dip in and out of when needed. Thank you Julie for a wonderful book!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I first became a manager of a team when I was 26 and recently moved into a new company where I inherited a team. My first experience was a team that I set up myself, hired and grew. Zhuo labels this a "Pioneer" route. My current experience is the "New Boss" route as I am moving into an already established team. Both have their own challenges but I certainly felt it more in my new role, I'm moving into a new environment, in an industry I haven't worked in before, and need to quickly build up relationships with my team members, proving I can be a good manager and am capable of doing the job!
Luckily I got a copy of this book at just the right time and was able to devour it before starting my new role. In it, aside from breaking down the different routes to management and techniques to deal with each, the book covers areas such as:
- what really is management? How do you tell a great manager from an average one?
- the skills you need to be a people manager - it's not suited to everyone and people should not be forced into this role to advance
- how to build trust
- giving (and receiving) good feedback
- having useful 1:1s and not wasting them
- dealing with issues such as people not pulling their weight or causing conflict in the team
- nurturing your team's culture
- your own personal development as a manager
This really is a brilliant book and one that I will be rushing out to get my own copy of as soon as it is out. I read it all the way through, making notes as I go, but I'll now use it as a guide I can dip in and out of when needed. Thank you Julie for a wonderful book!
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
July 4, 2020
Julie Zhuo had a great career at Facebook starting from managing people at 25 to becoming the de-facto head of design for the entire company.
Making of a Manager covers both the autobiographical aspects of how she started as a manager at Facebook, and adds in a few frameworks, learnings and anecdotes from the journey. Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Zhuo assumes a given set of cultural norms, and much of her advice ends up being applicable only to flatter tech-centric organizations. Books like High Output Management and The Lean Startup are better introductory material for how silicon valley likes to operate, whereas this book is more of an operating manual for this specific management niche.
With the theory out of the way, I took away two main frameworks from the book. First is the inputs that a manager is responsible for as a means of adding value to the team:
1. People - A manager’s first role is to provide feedback and improve the performance of their direct reports. Tips I found valuable include:
a. “Positive feedback that is genuine and specific is worth it.”
b. “Every disappointment is failure to set expectations.”
c. “Feedback as questions is bad.”
2. Process talks more about the mechanics of running a team within the Facebook environment, focusing on areas like: is it a decision or an information meeting? I didn’t take as much away from this section, but I do wish that everybody who was a manager possessed these skills, alas most do not.
3. Vision: I liked the framework thinking about the team as a person with strengths and weaknesses, but didn’t have much else that was super valuable from this section.
The second framework was from Chris Cox around measuring outputs of the team as a 50/50 split between results of the team and happiness of its members.
I’m not sure that I would recommend Making of a Manager as the only, or even the first management book to read, even for a new manager at Facebook. Classic tomes like ‘High Output Management’ take that prize. Still, this book introduces enough shorthand frameworks and anecdotes to be worth reading and pondering.
Making of a Manager covers both the autobiographical aspects of how she started as a manager at Facebook, and adds in a few frameworks, learnings and anecdotes from the journey. Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Zhuo assumes a given set of cultural norms, and much of her advice ends up being applicable only to flatter tech-centric organizations. Books like High Output Management and The Lean Startup are better introductory material for how silicon valley likes to operate, whereas this book is more of an operating manual for this specific management niche.
With the theory out of the way, I took away two main frameworks from the book. First is the inputs that a manager is responsible for as a means of adding value to the team:
1. People - A manager’s first role is to provide feedback and improve the performance of their direct reports. Tips I found valuable include:
a. “Positive feedback that is genuine and specific is worth it.”
b. “Every disappointment is failure to set expectations.”
c. “Feedback as questions is bad.”
2. Process talks more about the mechanics of running a team within the Facebook environment, focusing on areas like: is it a decision or an information meeting? I didn’t take as much away from this section, but I do wish that everybody who was a manager possessed these skills, alas most do not.
3. Vision: I liked the framework thinking about the team as a person with strengths and weaknesses, but didn’t have much else that was super valuable from this section.
The second framework was from Chris Cox around measuring outputs of the team as a 50/50 split between results of the team and happiness of its members.
I’m not sure that I would recommend Making of a Manager as the only, or even the first management book to read, even for a new manager at Facebook. Classic tomes like ‘High Output Management’ take that prize. Still, this book introduces enough shorthand frameworks and anecdotes to be worth reading and pondering.
September 23, 2020
3.5 stars rounding down. I think I did this book a disservice by reading it right after the Netflix book which was awesome but I found myself wanting after finishing this book. It was highly anecdotal and not structured at all, but highly relatable - it’s written for first time manager so it “feels” like you’re making a connection to the author but there’s not a ton of details, more like high level insights into a ton of different topics which is still very valuable. The last two chapters on leading a growing team and nurturing cultures were especially valuable
April 19, 2019
Julie does not go deep into topics, but rather provides a solid checklist build on her long experience as a manager in Facebook.
70% or more is about people skills and process of building a team.
There are some interesting ideas that could be implemented.
Overall a solid book targeted to junior to mid-level managers.
70% or more is about people skills and process of building a team.
There are some interesting ideas that could be implemented.
Overall a solid book targeted to junior to mid-level managers.
June 17, 2019
As you read more books it's hard giving them a rating. One should always drop back to a beginners mind when giving stars.
The book has certainly a fair amount of knowledge I've read before. Yet it provides a good gradual introduction step by step into a managerial role. It's not a comprehensive book, but rather an outline of milestones with some must know pieces of advice.
The book has certainly a fair amount of knowledge I've read before. Yet it provides a good gradual introduction step by step into a managerial role. It's not a comprehensive book, but rather an outline of milestones with some must know pieces of advice.
September 15, 2019
Es könnte auch einfach „The making of a (good) coworker“ heißen. Hier kann man sooo viel für die Praxis mitnehmen! Habe ständig Bilder und Notizen von Passagen gemacht.
Ich würde es jedem schenken. Junior oder CEO - das Buch hilft enorm, um seine eigenen Gewohnheiten auch mal zu hinterfragen.
Ich würde es jedem schenken. Junior oder CEO - das Buch hilft enorm, um seine eigenen Gewohnheiten auch mal zu hinterfragen.
May 20, 2023
Fun, anecdotal and it made me especially envious of the fact that the author could recall random conversations from 2.5 years ago, while I have trouble recalling what I did last week. Overall, the thought that prevails the most is that this book might as well have been an e-mail.
June 6, 2021
I found the book rather bland. Julie's prose is definitely not my cup of tea. Some too perfect examples with perfect outcomes and advice that only make sense in a specific type of environment.
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