The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You

by Julie Zhuo

While important and hard-to-reverse decisions deserve deep consideration, be wary of spending too much time on small, easy-to-reverse decisions.

A great feedback meeting achieves the following: Gets everyone on the same page about what success for the project looks like Honestly represents the current status of the work, including an assessment of how things are going, any changes since the last check-in, and what the future plans are

The best idea generation comes from understanding that we need both time to think alone (because our brains are most creative when we’re by ourselves) and time to engage with others (because hearing different perspectives creates sparks that lead to even better ideas).

when we’ve invested time to learn about our colleagues’ values, hobbies, families, life stories, etc.—then working together also becomes easier and more enjoyable.

The change we made to our decision and review meetings was to ask the organizers to send out any presentations or documents the day before so that everyone got the chance to process the information in advance.

If a decision was made, then that should be communicated to the right people. If feedback was given, then that should be acted upon. If ideas were generated, then the meeting organizer should clarify what the process is to take those to the next stage. These follow-ups can then anchor the agenda for when the group reconvenes.

What helped me find my voice were environments that felt safe, supportive, and nonjudgmental. It was easier to share when I saw everyone else doing the same versus just one or two talkative people. Or, when somebody asked for my opinion because she was genuinely curious:

One example is going around the room. If there is a decision to make among three options, you might ask every person which one he or she favors and why.

Be on the lookout for interruptions. If someone starts making a point but another loud voice cuts her off, provide cover by saying, “Hang on, Ann wasn’t finished.”

you can help create an opening: “John looks like he wants to say something.”

Particularly perceptive managers might even try directed questions: “Susan, you look puzzled—what do you think we should do?” or “Rick, we haven’t heard from you yet. What’s your opinion?”

At a growing organization, hiring well is the single most important thing you can do.

hiring is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity to build the future of your organization.

I create a future org chart, analyze gaps in skills, strengths, or experiences, and make a list of open roles to hire for.

No recruiter can possibly know what an ideal candidate looks like for your team.

At the end of the day, you are the person who ultimately owns the team you build. Successful hiring managers form close partnerships with the recruiting team to identify, interview, and close the best people.

it’s helpful to sit down with the recruiter and brainstorm where to look for your ideal candidate. You might come up with specific titles or organizations to search for on LinkedIn, people whom you can ping for recommendations, conferences to attend, or ads you’d like to place.

We also agreed that I should send out the introductory email instead of the recruiter so the experience felt personal right off the bat.

By working in tandem on the interview experience, we avoided common mistakes like leaving days or weeks in between next steps, asking candidates to repeat themselves over and over, or giving them conflicting or confusing information.

After I deliver an offer, I try to check in with the candidate every other day to let her know that I am thinking about her and that I’m excited to welcome her to my team. I ask if she’d like to talk through any questions,

it’s impossible to re-create the actual working environment of a team in a thirty-minute or hour-long meeting.

The next best thing is to dive deeply into their past work. When we interview designers, we put a strong emphasis on the “portfolio review,” where candidates come in and present a few projects of their choosing. By hearing them talk through their process and show us specific examples of their work, we learn a lot about their skills and their approach to problems.

If what’s presented is a team effort, ask for clarification on which pieces the individual was responsible for.

Having multiple interviewers can reduce bias and catch subtle red flags that any one person might have missed. When debriefing, however, each person should independently record their rationale and their final “hire” or “no hire” decision before hearing other interviewers’ thoughts to ensure that the discussion doesn’t lead to groupthink.

What kinds of challenges are interesting to you and why? Can you describe a favorite project? This tells me what a candidate is passionate about. What do you consider your greatest strengths? What would your peers agree are your areas of growth? This question gets both at a candidate’s self-awareness and what his actual strengths and weaknesses might be.

That’s why attracting the best people is a long-term investment. Pay attention to the rising stars of your field and get to know them through conferences, mixers, and other events. Continuously build your network. And develop your team’s reputation as well, whether through participating in the community, contributing new learnings to your field, telling your story in the press, or simply through being known as a class act.

Having a great bench means your lieutenants could take over for you if you’re unexpectedly called out of the office. It means you are not the single point of failure—fires

building the team isn’t just one person’s job, it’s everyone’s job.

Bad process is heavy and arbitrary. It feels like a series of hoops to jump through. But good process is what helps us execute at our best. We learn from our mistakes, move quickly, and make smarter decisions for the future.

Assume you have a magic wand that makes everything your team does go perfectly. What do you hope will be different in two to three years compared to now? How would you want someone who works on an adjacent team to describe what your team does? What do you hope will be your team’s reputation in a few years? How far off is that from where things are today? What unique superpower(s) does your team have? When you’re at your best, how are you creating value? What would it look like for your team to be twice as good? Five times as good? If you had to create a quick litmus test that anyone could use to assess whether your team was doing a poor job, a mediocre job, or a kick-ass job, what would that litmus test be?

Though surprises happen and not everything is within our control, it’s through the process of planning that we make sense of our situation and plot our best shot at success.

Just like you wouldn’t send an army’s cavalry on a spying mission, you shouldn’t create a plan that doesn’t match what your team is well suited for.

Coined by Cyril Parkinson, a twentieth-century British historian and scholar, it states: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Every big dream is the culmination of thousands of tiny steps forward.

From your target date, work backward and figure out who needs to do what every week. Ask people to set and publicly commit to their weekly goals—this creates accountability. Periodic reviews can also be a good way to sustain momentum.

multiweek sprint cycles. On week one, Rachel ran a three-hour brainstorm meeting. As the room munched on pizza, goals were proposed and project ideas were scribbled onto the board. Everyone cast their vote for their favorite concepts, and the group narrowed them down to a handful to build.

Our goal is to build simple, conclusive tests that help us understand which things we should double down on and which things we should cut from the list. If an idea works, we’ll expand upon it in the next sprint.”

Executing well means that you pick a reasonable direction, move quickly to learn what works and what doesn’t, and make adjustments to get to your desired outcome. Speed matters—a fast runner can take a few wrong turns and still beat a slow runner who knows the shortest path.

There is an efficient process for decision-making that everyone understands and trusts.

The team moves quickly, especially with reversible decisions. As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says, “Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.”

management is all about the art of balance.

Define a Long-Term Vision and Work Backward

My colleague makes sure that a third of her team works on projects that can be completed on the order of weeks, another third works on medium-term projects that may take months, and finally, the last third works on innovative, early-stage ideas whose impact won’t be known for years.

One of the most useful tools for improving process is the practice of doing debriefs (also called retrospectives or postmortems).

I created a document called How to Submit a Highlight for the Weekly Digest. In it, I listed the goals of the digest, what made for a good highlight, and tips to keep in mind while writing.

Emphasize that you welcome dissenting opinions and reward those who express them. Own your mistakes and remind your team that you are human, just like everyone else. Use language that invites discussion: “I may be totally wrong here, so tell me if you disagree. My opinion is . . .” You can also ask directly for advice: “If you were me, what would you do in this situation?”

I discovered a few techniques to make this easier: scanning through my calendar every morning and preparing for each meeting, developing a robust note-taking and task-management system, finding pockets for reflection at the end of every week.

As teams grow, managers spend less of their day-to-day on the specific craft of their discipline. What matters more is that they can get the best out of a group of people.

At higher levels of management, the job starts to converge regardless of background. Success becomes more and more about mastering a few key skills: hiring exceptional leaders, building self-reliant teams, establishing a clear vision, and communicating well.

give it to her and step back so she has the space to lead. Tell everyone else that she should now be considered the owner of the problem. Doing so creates accountability, but more important, the public declaration empowers the delegate.