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

by Julie Zhuo

But time always reveals the truth. It turns out that as we grew, having managers in our midst who knew what to do when we went from 50 to 250 people was a tremendous asset. Bit by bit, I started to appreciate that their strengths were my weaknesses. We indeed had to evolve how we worked, including hiring for new types of talent, introducing more structured processes, and, yes, better supporting our growing user base by adopting tools like personas and sprints. Prioritizing diversity isn’t just a poster or a slogan. It’s the belief that diversity in all aspects—from gender to race to work history to life experiences—leads to better ideas and better results. The science supports this: A 2014 report of hundreds of public companies found that those with the greatest ethnic and racial diversity in their management ranks were 35 percent more likely to have financial returns higher than average.