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

by Julie Zhuo

Good design at its core is about understanding people and their needs in order to create the best possible tools for them. I’m drawn to design for a lot of the same reasons that I’m drawn to management—it feels like a deeply human endeavor to empower others.

Running a team is hard because it ultimately boils down to people, and all of us are multifaceted and complex beings. Just like how there is no one way to go about being a person, there is no one way to go about managing a group of people.

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.

A MANAGER’S JOB IS TO . . . build a team that works well together, support members in reaching their career goals, and create processes to get work done smoothly and efficiently.

This is the crux of management: It is the belief that a team of people can achieve more than a single person going it alone. It is the realization that you don’t have to do everything yourself, be the best at everything yourself, or even know how to do everything yourself. Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together.

If the job is defined as getting better outcomes from a group of people working together, then a great manager’s team will consistently achieve great outcomes.

The first criterion looks at our team’s present outcomes; the second criterion asks whether we’re set up for great outcomes in the future.

My own observations are similar, and I’ve come to think of the multitude of tasks that fill up a manager’s day as sorting neatly into three buckets: purpose, people, and process.

The first big part of your job as a manager is to ensure that your team knows what success looks like and cares about achieving it.

For managers, important processes to master include running effective meetings, future proofing against past mistakes, planning for tomorrow, and nurturing a healthy culture.

My performance as a manager would be considered poor because I’m actually operating as an individual contributor.

Your role as a manager is not to do the work yourself, even if you are the best at it, because that will only take you so far. Your role is to improve the purpose, people, and process of your team to get as high a multiplier effect on your collective outcome as you can.

Remember what I said before: great managers are made, not born. But there is one caveat, and that caveat is this: you have to enjoy the day-to-day of management and want to do it.

That said, many organizations today, particularly those that seek to attract highly skilled or creative talent, have paths for advancement that don’t require managing others.

you can either grow as a manager or as an “individual contributor.” Both tracks afford equal opportunities for impact, growth, and compensation up to the C-level, which means that becoming a manager is not a promotion but rather a transition. In fact, in Silicon Valley, the “10x engineer”—someone whose output is the equivalent of ten typical engineers—is so sought after that he or she commands the same pay as directors and VPs managing dozens or hundreds of people.

the best outcomes come from inspiring people to action, not telling them what to do.

Only when you have built trust with your reports will you have the credibility to help them achieve more together.

How do you like to be recognized for great work? What kind of feedback is most useful for you? Imagine that you and I had an amazing relationship. What would that look like?

No matter how you slice it, you are your reports’ boss. You have more impact on their day-to-day than they have on yours. This means that the responsibility of building a trusting relationship lies more with you than with them.

Identify: These questions focus on what really matters for your report and what topics are worth spending more time on. What’s top of mind for you right now? What priorities are you thinking about this week? What’s the best use of our time today?

When we are going through tough times, the thing that’s often the most helpful isn’t advice or answers but empathy.

As a manager, my attention is similarly drawn toward the problem spots. I’m usually focused on the designs that aren’t quite there, the projects that are slipping behind schedule, or the teams that have hiring needs. Whenever I’m talking with my reports, it’s easy to spend all our time on the things that need improvement.

Don’t let the worst performers dominate your time—try to diagnose, address, and resolve their issues as swiftly as you can. This is counterintuitive because your strongest reports aren’t likely asking for your help.

What I later realized is that the team actually becomes better off when brilliant assholes leave. Yes, you lose out on their individual contributions, but the fog lifts for everyone else. They can let their guard down. Collaboration becomes more honest and productive, so the work of the team as a whole improves.

Call it what you want—fit, motivation, chemistry—but the things a person cares about must also be what the team (and company) cares about.

Similarly, if your report has a fundamental skills gap that is affecting her ability to do the job well, it’s unreasonable to expect that even the best coaching will turn things around within a few months.

At the end of the day, if you don’t believe someone is set up to succeed in his current role, the kindest thing you can do is to be honest with him and support him in moving on. Former

You have two options at this point: help someone find a new role in your organization or let him or her go.

If you find that your frequency of feedback is low, one tactic I’ve found helpful is to devote a single 1:1 every month to just discussing behavioral feedback and career goals.

The first is a verbal confirmation: “Okay, let’s make sure we’re on the same page—what are your takeaways and next steps?” The second is to summarize via email what was discussed. Writing can clarify the points being made as well as be reread and referenced in the future.

Hey, I value your feedback and I’d like to be a more effective team member. Would you be willing to answer the questions below? Please be as honest as you can because that’s what will help me the most—I promise nothing you say will offend me. Feedback is a gift, and I’m grateful for your taking the time.

Beyond strengths and weaknesses, the next part of understanding yourself is knowing which environments help you to do your best work and which situations trigger a negative reaction.

It’s helpful to share your triggers and learn what other people’s are. Because we’re all wired differently, your peers may not be aware of how their behavior is affecting you, and vice versa.

When we gather a few data points, we’ll try to construct a complete narrative around it despite not actually having all the facts. And when we’re in the Pit, our story tends to be the worst-case scenario.

Always thank people for feedback. Even if you don’t agree with what’s said, receive it graciously and recognize that it took effort to give. If others find you defensive, you’ll get less feedback in the future, which will only hurt your growth.

Hence, your manager is someone who is on your side, who wants you to succeed, and who is usually willing to invest her time and energy into helping you. The key is to treat your manager as a coach, not as a judge.

Nobody wants to be asked, “Will you be my mentor?” because it sounds needy and time-consuming. But ask for specific advice instead, and you’ll find tons of people willing to help.

“Hey, I’m really impressed with the way you [do X]. I’d love to learn from you. Would you be willing to grab a coffee with me and share your approach?”

I also set personal goals and do bigger look-backs every six months, which gives me a longer time frame to tackle ambitious projects and learn new skills.

When you invest in your personal learning and growth, you’re not just investing in your own future but also the future of your team. The better you are, the more you’re able to support others.

A 2011 study found that, on average, chief executives spend 60 percent of their time in meetings, with another 25 percent spent on calls or at public events.

On the other hand, good meetings are simple and straightforward. You leave them feeling the same way every time: The meeting was a great use of my time. I learned something new that will help me be more effective at my job. I left with a clearer sense of what I should do next. Everyone was engaged. I felt welcomed.

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).

To have a high-functioning team, people need to work well with one another, so you need to find ways to nurture empathy, create trust, and encourage collaboration. Sometimes, you may decide to get a group of people together for the simple purpose of focusing on relationships.

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.

After the meeting, send out a recap to the attendees with a summary of the discussion, a list of specific action items and who is responsible for

each, and when the next check-in will be.

“I’m here to do a Q&A because it’s really important to me that we can have real talk about all the things happening on our team. But to be honest, I don’t get the sense that I’m hearing all of your top concerns. So I want to say this up front: Hard questions are good! Get them off your chest! I promise to be as transparent as I can.”

Another tactic I like is the “Post-it note” opening. Before launching into a discussion about a complex topic (for example, what our marketing goals should be or what success looks like three years from now), give everyone a pad of Post-it notes and ask them to write down their thoughts on the topic. Then, have the room work in quiet concentration for about ten to fifteen minutes. Afterward, each participant puts his or her notes up on the board and talks

through their thinking. Similar ideas are clumped together, and after the very last note has been added, the room discusses the various “clumps.”