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

by Julie Zhuo

If you have the opportunity to get formal training, take it. This might mean signing up for a company seminar, attending an industry conference, participating in a roundtable discussion, hearing experts on a panel, or engaging in a hands-on workshop.

If spending ten hours being trained helps you be even 1 percent more efficient at your job, then it’s a good return on investment (1 percent of time saved per year is about twenty hours).

taking a one-day class several years ago on how to have hard conversations. Those eight hours transformed the way I approached conflict.

Another type of formal training is professional coaching.

Many CEOs and executives work with professional coaches because, at that level, there are fewer people who can naturally serve as mentors, and even small improvements in performance translate to significant impact for the organization.

When you think about formal training, the question to ask

One year from now, will I be happy I did this?

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 s...

“A decade into the job, what’s something you’re still continuing to learn?” My answer is, “How to be the best leader I c...

Managers so often think of the role as being in service to something else—the mission of the organization, the goals of the team, the needs of others—that it’s easy to forget about the most ...

I think about meetings a lot because it’s such a huge part of what I do.

Meetings tend to have a bad rap, like they’re the “necessary evil” of management or the grown-up equivalent of homework.

on average, chief executives spend 60 percent of their time in meetings,1 with another 25 percent spent on calls or at public events. Another study analyzed a single executive meeting at a large company and found that,2 all told, it took 300,000 person-hours to prep for—a staggering number!

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.

talking with someone face-to-face is still one of the best ways to communicate and get work done.

WHAT IS A GREAT OUTCOME FOR YOUR MEETING?

Making a Decision

Success here is both getting to a clear decision and everyone leaving with a sense of trust in the process. You don’t need consensus, but those whom the decision affects should feel that the way it was made was efficient and fair.

If people don’t trust the process, you’ll find that the decision drags on.

ENGINEERING MANAGER: Hey, I just heard that you okayed our moving the design milestone back. This is a problem because I have a team of seven engineers who are waiting for the designs to be finalized, and pushing things back means we’re not going to have enough time to hit the engineering milestone. Can we go back to the original timeline?

The engineering team is mad because they felt that I made a decision without hearing their side of the story.

The best thing I can do now is admit that I made a mistake with my process and gather everyone for a do-over on the decision.

both designers and engineers want to ship a great experience as soon as possible.

sometimes you have to “disagree and commit”4 for the sake of moving forward quickly.

A great decision-making meeting does the following: Gets a decision made (obviously) Includes the people most directly affected by the decision as well as a clearly designated decision-maker Presents all credible options objectively and with relevant background information, and includes the team’s recommendation if there is one Gives equal airtime to dissenting opinions and makes people feel that they were heard

Here are some examples of bad outcomes to avoid: People feel that their side wasn’t presented well, so they don’t trust the resulting decision. Decisions take a long time to make, which delays progress. While important and hard-to-reverse decisions deserve deep consideration, be wary of spending too much time on small, easy-to-reverse decisions. Decisions keep flip-flopping back and forth, which makes it hard to trust and act on them. Too much time is spent trying to get a group to con...

Sharing Info...

they allow for more interactivity.

a well-prepared informational meeting is usually a lot more interesting than a bunch of words on a page.

Often known as a “review,” the purpose of a feedback meeting is for stakeholders to understand and give input on work in progress.

Feedback meetings don’t exist to pass or receive judgment but rather to get to the best outcome.

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 Clearly frames open questions, key decisions, or known concerns to get the most helpful feedback Ends with agreed-upon next steps (including when the next milestone or check-in will be)

to get more out-of-the-box thinking, groups should focus on maximizing the quantity of ideas and withholding judgment of those ideas.

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).

many diverse, nonobvious solutions through ensuring each participant has quiet alone time to think of ideas and write them down

Considers the totality of ideas from everyone, not just the loudest voices

clear next steps for how to turn ideas into action

Sometimes, you may decide to get a group of people together for the simple purpose of focusing on relationships.

A great team-bonding meeting

Creates better understanding and trust between participants

Encourages people to be open and authentic

Makes people feel ...

Don’t try to make a single meeting do too much, and remind the group of its primary purpose when the conversation starts to deviate.

Practice clarity and ruthless efficiency with your meetings, and people will thank you for respecting the sanctity of their time.

more likely to have a great meeting if everyone necessary, and nobody extraneous, is there.

How do you know whom you should invite? Go back to your answer for what a great outcome looks like for your meeting, and ask yourself: Which people are necessary to make that outcome happen?

another manager added, it was a high-visibility meeting with lots of exposure to leadership, and to be in that room gave people the sense that they were valued members of the team.

as a reviewer, I felt I needed to choose my words carefully in front of such a big crowd, which meant I couldn’t be as casual and direct as I would have liked.

the review meeting went back to being lower pressure, more honest, and more effective at doing what it was meant to do.