Summary ofThe Making of a Manager

Stepping into Your First Managerial Role

It is both exciting and challenging to take on your first management role. It's a good thing that someone believed in you to give you the opportunity. In reality, most new managers are under pressure and feel out of their element in their first few months. How can you get off to a good start?

Julie Zhuo is Vice President of Design for Facebook and she's here to help. Zhuo, a former first-time manager herself, explains how to avoid common mistakes and get the best out of your early years. These chapters will guide you through the everyday decisions of managing a team, whether it is holding great meetings, hiring the right people or transitioning to a larger one.

You'll learn:

• How your first 90-days will be determined by your management path

• Why managers should think less like firemen

• How to structure your meeting

Chapter 1 - A good manager's job is all about outcomes, not activities

Julie Zhuo, at the age of 25, was offered a job that would last a lifetime: managing Facebook's Design Team. This was Zhuo’s first managerial position. Zhuo was thrown into the deep end and asked herself:

What is a manager?

Zhuo thought that in her early days of being a manager her job was to hold meetings with her team, give them feedback about how they are doing and decide which subordinates she should promote or fire. She soon realized, however, that her short-sighted approach focused more on daily tasks than long-term objectives.

Zhuo grew more strategic after gaining experience. She realized that the manager's job was to concentrate on broader issues. She also focused on ensuring that her team worked effectively together, helped team members reach their career goals, and developed processes to increase efficiency without any hiccups. Zhuo, who has nearly a decade's worth of experience in management, believes the answer to her question about what a manager actually does is much more concise.

As it turns out the job of a leader is to improve results from your team. You'll soon see the difference between an excellent manager and one who is mediocre as you strive to achieve this goal.

How?

When evaluating a manager, many people adopt a "check the box" attitude. You might, for example, assess if they are hardworking or likable. Or if they have a good presentation skill. If they tick all three boxes then they are a good leader. Right?

Wrong.

In reality, the answer to this question is the performance of the team that they manage. A good manager's team will consistently achieve positive results. Ask yourself what your team or company wants to achieve. If you, like Zhuo are looking for great design then an excellent manager’s team is likely to consistently present you with great designs. A mediocre team, on the other hand, will always pitch you with mediocre designs.

A good manager is someone who gets his team to achieve great results. It's that easy. No need to tick boxes or make long lists.

Chapter 2 - All Management Routes Have Pitfalls and Advantages

The author asks new managers who she meets at Facebook which aspects of their job are easier or harder than they expected. She has noticed a pattern of responses. How they got into management is an important factor.

Each path to become a manager has its own opportunities and potential pitfalls in the early months.

The Apprentice Path

When your boss's team expands and she asks to you manage a part of it, the apprentice path begins. The author took this route to management. She was asked as a young Facebook designer to manage a part of the growing design team.

Advantages

Your manager will be there to guide you and answer your questions during the first few months.

Pitfalls

It can be difficult for an apprentice manager to establish a rapport with the people who work under them.

The Pioneer Route

The pioneers are the ones who start new teams, and they're responsible for every aspect of their growth.

Advantages

You can build your own team, rather than inheriting one. You can choose who you work with, and you can engineer the team dynamics.

Pitfalls

You may be the only person who understands your team. Others may not be able to assist you with your specific challenges.

The New Boss Path

This scenario involves you being brought in from another team or organization to run an existing workgroup.

Advantages

In your first few weeks, people will usually be lenient with you. Why? They'll understand that you are a beginner and will allow you to make mistakes as you learn.

Pitfalls

It is not a good idea to change things too quickly without understanding all the details of your new role.

Understanding your management route and its unique advantages and challenges will help you get started.

Chapter 3 - Great managers give activity-specific feedback that goes beyond their own perspective

Julie Zhuo can still recall the worst criticism she received. A former colleague criticized one of Julie Zhuo's designs on Facebook and asked:

"Is it supposed to be so awful?"

This example may seem extreme, but many of us have trouble finding the right tone to use when providing feedback. We either don't want to hurt someone's feelings, so we refrain from criticism, or we're not sensitive enough, like in the example above.

A manager's role is to provide team members with insightful, effective feedback.

How can you improve your ability to hold these difficult, but important conversations?

• Give Feedback Specific to a Particular Task: A task just completed is ideal. If a member of your team has just delivered a presentation, you can take some time to let them know what went well, and what they could improve on next time. This type of activity-specific feedback is the easiest to understand. Why? It is because it is more about what someone has done than who they are.

• Send Feedback Quickly: It's best to give this feedback as soon as possible so that you still remember the task. You could, for example, send feedback via email the day after a task has been completed. This written feedback is just as useful as a conversation, unless the task in question is of particular importance.

• Make feedback a regular habit: Your team will benefit from regular coaching sessions by making it a habit to provide feedback specific to each activity.

Bringing in multiple perspectives is another way to provide great feedback.

This can be achieved by holding 360-degree feedback sessions. This feedback type takes into account the opinions of a variety of people. You might, for example, share the opinions of others if you are sending feedback to a team member who just delivered a presentation.

This feedback is useful because it gives a balanced and objective picture of the performance of the team member.

Chapter 4: A good meeting has a clear purpose and achieves a clear outcome

Meetings have fallen out of favor in the modern workplace. The weekly team meeting has been criticized as boring, bureaucratic and a waste. As a manager, the author has seen her fair share of disastrous meetings in which each attendee takes their turn to moan about mundane issues while their colleagues quietly get on with other work or simply stare into space.

How can you turn meetings into productive ones instead of meaningless ones?

The author, when she first became a manager thought that the key to a good meeting was to make sure it had a clear purpose. In order to keep her team informed about the progress of their projects, she organized a weekly meeting. Even with this goal in mind, the team found her meetings to be vague and unnecessary. After someone pointed out that they could have just as easily sent an email update on their progress, the meeting was cancelled.

She realized after this fiasco that merely having an agenda is not sufficient.

You must have a clear vision of what you want to achieve from the meeting.

A successful outcome from your meeting could be the team making a decision.

Your meeting should include the following:

• It must be accompanied by a decision.

• It must include all those who are directly affected by the decision.

• All options and relevant information must be presented objectively.

• Any suggestions the team may have should be articulated.

Last but not least, you need to ensure that everyone has equal time and feels heard. Managers can assist in this by asking attendees who haven’t spoken to share their opinions with the group.

Your meeting may be aimed at sharing information, rather than deciding on anything.

In this case, you need to achieve different goals. A successful meeting that shares information should, for example, capture and hold the attention of attendees. You can achieve this by pacing the meeting, encouraging interaction and presenting the information using storytelling.

Chapter 5 - Make smarter recruitment decisions by creating a one-year plan

Hiring the right people to join your team is a critical part of your role as a manager. Why?

You'll struggle to achieve great results if you don't have great people.

Julie Zhuo made her biggest hiring mistake when she was new to recruitment. Facebook's growing design team made her think she had hit the jackpot. An ex-Googler was applying to join her team. His work was excellent, and he appeared eager to accept the position. But despite the seemingly perfect conditions, everything quickly went wrong. He was miserable within months of taking on the job, he failed to deliver the promises he made, and he took regular sick leaves to avoid going to the office.

What went wrong?

It wasn't that the candidate was bad, but the team of Zhuo hadn't been careful enough to think about the position they were trying to fill. This oversight led to the hiring of a candidate who was not right for their position. Zhuo and her team hired a competent manager but they really needed someone who was more passionate about UX design. The mismatch between the candidate and his role was responsible for his unhappiness and poor performance.

Don't hire like the author.

Make a plan for a year before you begin recruiting. Ask yourself where you would like your team to stand in a year. Consider how you would like it to grow, and whether the team needs new skills to reach your goals.

You'll be able to see what skills and experience are required for each position.

When you have identified the essential elements you require, you can break them down into smaller components.

Skills

Is it more important that a candidate has a broad understanding or a deeper understanding of his/her discipline? Do you require someone with strong leadership and mentoring skills?

Experience

For certain roles, experience is essential. A sales team, for example, might require a candidate with experience in working with large accounts.

Talent

It's a bit harder to pinpoint. Consider whether you require someone who is creative or has the ability to work under pressure.

After compiling the list of essential characteristics, you can use it to make better recruitment decisions.

Chapter 6: A great team member is someone who is motivated, humble, and talented

You've created a solid hiring strategy and determined what skills and expertise the new team member should possess. While technical skills are important, a great team member should also have a number of universal characteristics.

The author believes that these three characteristics are motivation, humility and the ability of growing.

Motivation

Motivation is a very personal thing. As a manager you will need to understand what motivates each member of your team. One person may be motivated by competition while another is driven by the desire to make a positive contribution to the world. Ask candidates to tell you a story about a time they felt motivated to accomplish a difficult task. Then, ask them what motivated them to reach their goal. You will get a better idea of their motivation to achieve.

Humility

Does a candidate ask for help when they are unsure of something? Do they have an inflated ego? The first is a sign that they are humble and work well with others, while the second could be a warning sign. Ask candidates about a situation where they made a mistake or failed and were forced to admit it. You'll know if a person is humble if they describe what they learned.

Talent

A final quality that you should look for is the ability of the candidate to learn and grow quickly. When your team is constantly innovating to stay on top of the competition, talent becomes even more important. If your candidate was able to learn new skills quickly in the past, then they are likely to be talented enough to perform the same task in their new position.

If you hire someone who has these qualities, they will be able to grow in their new role.

Chapter 7 - Great managers treat their first few months in the job as an extension of their interview

Julie Zhuo’s first few weeks as a Facebook Manager were a baptism of fire. She claims that every week, someone asked her "Are You Sure That You Want to Do This?"

Zhuo set out to win the trust of her new colleagues.

She understood that the team, for better or for worse, was evaluating Zhuo's competence in order to determine whether she was deserving of her new role.

Asking questions is the best way to succeed in your new position.

We all mistakenly think that in order to be an effective leader, you must know the answers.

But in fact, managers who ask many questions are more successful than those that are afraid to do so.

Why?

You can better support your team by asking questions.

What should you ask?

When you take on a new team, there are three areas that need to be addressed.

1. Ask about the biggest challenges your team faces:

Asking your team what the greatest challenges are for your team or organization will help you gain their trust and demonstrate your expertise.

2. Ask about your team's strengths:

Ask your team what they are best at. You will be able to determine where team members can take on more responsibility and need less support.

3. Ask about the most significant accomplishments of your team:

Ask them to tell you what they're most proud of. This will help you understand your team's motivations and values.

By asking the right questions, and listening to the responses, you will gain valuable insights which will help you navigate through your first few months of being a manager more confidently and effectively.