The Making of a Manager What to Do When Everyone Looks to You
Reviews
Valuable insights. Very corporate America. And I just learned about the amazing labour laws and culture in some European countries, so this wasn’t that impactful to me.
Highly recommend it to anyone who's switching from a technical role to a manager position
** spoiler alert ** I mean, obv facts for leading teams. One.needs to be liked by everyone, trusted, give great presentation (messaging?) And solve complex problems. And that's it. Managers are made not born is key takeaway. Enjoy building new team! ≥You can be the smartest, most hardworking manager in the world, but if your team has a long–standing reputation for mediocre outcomes, then you can’t objectively be considered a “great” manager. ≥Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together. ≥It may seem backward, but the feedback process should begin before any tasks. ≥Asking questions helps you reflect on your report’s unique strengths or areas of development. ≥Behavioral feedback is necessary because it is deeper and more personal than task–specific feedback. By providing behavioral feedback, you can help your team see how interests and habits can affect their work and growth. • 360–degree feedback is essential for maximum objectivity. 360–degree feedback is feedback obtained from multiple perspectives, which means it provides a complete view of how someone is doing. For this, you can gather data from other managers or staff. ≥be brutally honest with yourself. ≥Having a thoughtful organizational plan allows you to understand your hiring needs and gives you an excellent strategy for evaluating applicants. ≥Once you’ve discovered the values you want to improve within your team, the next step is to develop a game plan to help those values grow. ≥Never stop talking about what’s important: talking about your values makes you a more authentic and inspiring leader. ≥Create the right incentives:reward people who behave according to your team’s values and hold people accountable when they don’t. • Invent traditions that celebrate your values: there is power in rituals. Beyond slogans or speeches, they create actions around which team members can bond. And they can be as unique, quirky, and fun as your team.
Nice collection of management best practices based on the experience of the author at Facebook. I didn’t learn anything new after having read many other business books, but still an interesting read.
Good effort
I just finished this book and I have an urge to start it all over again. If I ended up taking notes, it would probably amount to the same number of pages as the book itself such are the great insights contained in it. One of the, if not The, most valuable management books I’ve read so far, given from the perspective of a person that grew and learned on the job. I’ve identified with so many situations of the book that it serves almost as a tutorial for my case. I won’t take all of it as is of course, but I feel that I’ll come back to it time and time again over the next years. And it will be a book I gift to fellow managers and soon-to-be managers for sure and a guaranteed presence in our company library from now on.
While I'm not currently a manager, this was a very insightful book on management, team building and leadership. Also worth noting that it's very well written.
I liked the way the book is organized and the helpful examples of questions you can ask in specific situations. These are practical and can apply to many different companies. Also, I found it refreshing to hear that accomplished leaders may also have the same thoughts and feelings that I have -- I'm happy I came across this book as it helped me better understand my role as a team lead. Would highly recommend it!
Superb read! I recommend this book for any manager, especially those in technical and design fields. Covers many topics from feedback, recognition, performance, meetings, and goal setting. Effort doesn’t count; results are what matter. Describe over and over again the world you’d like to see. Try to connect every task, project, decision, or goal with the organization’s higher-level purpose. If everyone understands the dream, then the team’s actions will be aligned in making it a reality. I love Julie's philosophy for finding high performing teams (see the book for all the details...). The ownership piece is something I need to work on: "Every task has a who and a by when. Owners set and reliably deliver on commitments."
What an easy and enjoyable read. Full with practical examples and anecdotes this book is a gem for anyone starting their management careers like myself. Will not only keep this at my desk but also give it as a gift to any friends starting their journey too. Amazing work Julie, thanks for sharing in it with us. 🙏🏾🖤
Schwierig. Viele der Lehren dieses Buches würde ich als Common Sense bezeichnen. Was natürlich stark subjektiv ist. War nichts für mich, aber war auch nicht schlecht, oder falsch. Ergibt alles Sinn, aber war für mich alles auf der Hand liegend.
Love love love Julie Zhou. She is such a lovable person and always looking for ways to nurture her team. Lota to learn from her reflections and totally inspiring. As a young product manager, it definitely makes me much more aware about the responsibilities i do have over my team and want to take into account. Love her personality.
Highlights
"Imposter syndrome is what makes you fell you’re the only one with nothing worthwhile to say when you walk into a room full of people you admire. Imposter syndrome is what makes you double-, triple-, or quadruple-check your email before hitting Send so that nobody finds any mistakes and figures out you're actually a fraud. Imposter syndrome is the sensation that you're teetering along the edge of a sheer cliff with flailing arms, the whole world watching and waiting to see when you fall.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel, goes the popular saying.
Good design at its core is about understanding people and their needs in order to create the best possible tools for them.
The rule of thumb for delegation goes like this: spend your time and energy on the intersection of 1) what's most important to the organization and 2) what you're uniquely able to do better than anyone else.
PERFECT EXECUTION OVER PERFECT STRATEGY
In retrospect, here's how I should have clarified expectatinn. tions ng the op- tions; Sarah, can you own defining the visual language?" or "Each of you should take a stab at how yoưd design this. For the aress where you have differing opinions, let's have the three of us get up front: "Dan, I'd like you to take the lead on framing the. together and I’ll make a call."
In my busiest periods, one exercise I turn to is scheduling a fifteen-minute activity at the beginning and end of the day that isn't related to work. Il watch a TED Talk, play an iPhone game, do a crossword puzzle, exercise, or read. It's not a lot of time, but it helps me draw a line in the sand that says, "No matter what, I'll always make some time for me." You can't do your best work unless you physically feel your best, so take care of yourself. It's always worth it.
Perhaps you had a great manager yourself, and you're inspired to do what she does. Perhaps you love mentoring others. Perhaps you want to progress in your career, or make more money, or call more of the shots. Some of these reasons match well with the re- alities of management. Some don't.
In your early days as a manager, what matters most is transitioning gracefully into the role and nailing the essentials of leading a small team. Only when you have built trust with your reports will you have the credibility to help them achieve more together.
Am I doing this? Can I do it better?
…the role of a manager can be given to someone (or taken away), leadership is not something that can be bestowed. It must be earned.
…the best outcomes come from inspiring people to action, not telling them what to do.
Being awesome at the job means playing the long game and building a reputation for excellence.
Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together.
Though I'm a designer, this is not a book about how to build products. You won't find deep reflections on what makes for great design or what I think of social media. I won't sit here and tell you the story of Facebook. This is a book about how someone with no formal training learned to become a confident manager. This is the book I wish I had in my first few years, with all my fears and doubts and am-I-crazies. This is the book that's here to tell you that your fears and doubts are normal, and, like me, you're going to figure it out.
This book appears on the shelf Essays
This book appears on the shelf Essays
This book appears on the shelf genre — essay work
