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1-Page Summary of The Making Of A Manager
Overview
Stepping into your first managerial role is exciting and challenging. However, someone has given you this opportunity to become a manager. You need to step up and learn from the best in order to progress. Julie Zhuo, vice president of design at Facebook, can show you how she became an excellent manager by following her tips about what makes a good manager.
Zhuo explains how to manage a team, based on her personal experience. She covers topics like meetings, recruiting the right people and transitioning from managing small teams to larger ones. These key points help you learn what first-rate management looks like in everyday situations.
In this article, the author will explain how your path to management determines your first ninety days on the job. He’ll also discuss why managers need to think less like fire-fighters and how they should structure their meetings.
Big Idea #1: A good manager’s job is all about outcomes, not activities.
At 25, Julie Zhuo was offered the job of a lifetime – managing Facebook’s design team. This role was her first managerial role and she soon asked herself “What does a manager actually do?”
Zhuo initially believed that her job as a manager was to hold meetings and give feedback on performance. She also thought it was to decide which employees should be promoted or fired. However, she soon realized that those tasks are all short-term activities because they don’t focus on long-term goals. After several years of experience, Zhuo became more strategic in her thinking; she realized that managers’ jobs are actually to ensure their team works effectively together, help people achieve career aims and develop processes without any issues along the way.
Zhuo has been a manager for almost ten years. She believes that the job of a manager is to get better results from her team than she would if she worked alone. This means making sure that everyone on the team works together and achieving goals they couldn’t reach without working as a team.
So, how can we tell if someone is a good manager? Well, many people think that managers are only hard-working and likeable. If they’re both of those things, then they must be good managers. Right?
Wrong. The outcome of the team is what matters, not the manager’s personality traits or characteristics. So ask yourself what kind of outcome you’re looking for from your team, and if you want great design, then look for a manager whose teams consistently achieve that result.
A great manager gets his team to do great work. It’s easy: get the best results possible and you’re a good manager.
Big Idea #2: All routes to management have advantages and pitfalls.
When the author meets new managers at Facebook, she asks them about their experiences. She noticed that there’s a pattern to their responses. The way they get into managing people determines what’s easy or difficult for them in those first three months. There are several paths to becoming a manager and each path comes with its own opportunities and pitfalls during those early months.
There are two main paths to management. The first is the Apprentice path. This happens when you get promoted into a management role because your boss has hired more people and needs someone to manage them. You’ll have guidance from your manager at first, but it can be tough to establish rapport with those who used to work for you as peers rather than report directly to you.
The second route is the pioneer route. Pioneers start new teams and are responsible for all aspects of that team’s growth. One advantage of this path is that you get to build your own team, rather than inherit it from someone else. On the other hand, pioneers may not receive much support because no one will understand their challenges better than they do themselves.
