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

by Julie Zhuo

The key is to find the intersection between what your team does well and what you hope the team values. When you have an hour or so, grab a pen and jot down your answers to the following questions: UNDERSTANDING YOUR CURRENT TEAM What are the first three adjectives that come to mind when describing the personality of your team? What moments made you feel most proud to be a part of your team? Why? What does your team do better than the majority of other teams out there? If you picked five random members of your team and individually asked each person, “What does our team value?” what would you hear? How similar is your team’s culture to the broader organization’s culture? Imagine a journalist scrutinizing your team. What would she say your team does well or not well? When people complain about how things work, what are the top three things that they bring up? UNDERSTANDING YOUR ASPIRATIONS Describe the top five adjectives you’d want an external observer to use to describe your team’s culture. Why those? Now imagine those five adjectives sitting on a double-edged sword. What do you imagine are the pitfalls that come from ruthless adherence to those qualities? Are those acceptable to you? Make a list of the aspects of culture that you admire about other teams or organizations. Why do you admire them? What downsides does that team tolerate as a result? Make a list of the aspects of culture that you wouldn’t want to emulate from other teams or companies. Why not? UNDERSTANDING ...