Pradeep Hoskote

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The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to you (Julie Zhuo) – Book Summary & Highlights

Book in 3 sentences

  • The crux of Management: It is the belief that a team of people can achieve more than a single person going at 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. It’s from this simple definition that everything else flows.
  • THE ONE THING YOU SHOULDN’T TOLERATE ON YOUR TEAM: Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton described this phenomenon in his now-famous book The No Asshole Rule. He defines an asshole as someone who makes other people feel worse about themselves or who specifically targets people less powerful than him or her.
  • GIVING PEOPLE BIG PROBLEMS IS A SIGN OF TRUST –  It’s an error in assuming that nobody wants to take on hard problems. In fact, the most talented employees aren’t looking for special treatment or “easy” projects. They want to be challenged. There is no greater sign of trust than handing your report an intricately tangled knot that you believe she can pull apart, even if you’re not sure how.

Impressions:

  • As a new manager, this book gave me insights on things that I would have only gotten after many many years of experience being a manager. Julie, explains very easily what should be important for a manager and I will try to implement some of these at my work.

Who should read it?

  • I would definitely recommend this book to managers who are trying to figure out this ” How to be a Manager thing” and what does it take to be a good one.
  • There are areas in the book where Julie gives ready “templates ” to implement to have a good conversation with team members. I felt they are very well curated.
  • This book covers almost all areas like , Building –> Designing –> Understanding –> & Leading the team.

Highlights & Notes

  1. I’ve made countless mistakes. But this is how anything in life goes: You try something. You figure out what worked and what didn’t. You file away lessons for the future. And then you get better. Rinse, repeat.
  2. 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. And yet, working together in teams is how the world moves forward. We can create things far grander and more ambitious than anything we could have done alone. This is how battles are won, how innovation moves forward, how organizations succeed. This is how any remarkable achievement happens.
  3. Three things  Managers Think About: Purpose, People, and Process.
    1. The purpose is the outcome your team is trying to accomplish, otherwise known as the why.
    2. People: otherwise known as the who. Are the members of your team set up to succeed? Do they have the right skills? Are they motivated to do great work?
    3. Process: This describes how your team works together. You might have a superbly talented team with a very clear understanding of what the end goal is, but if it’s not apparent how everyone’s supposed to work together or what the team’s values are, then even simple tasks can get enormously complicated. Who should do what by when? What principles should govern decision-making?
  4. 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.
  5. The best outcomes come from inspiring people to action, not telling them what to do.
  6. New Manager Paths:
    1. Apprentice: Your manager’s team is growing, so you’ve been asked to manage a part of it going forward.
    2. Pioneer: You are a founding member of a new group, and you’re now responsible for its growth.
    3. New Boss: You’re coming in to manage an already established team, either within your existing organization or at a new one.
    4. Successor: Your manager has decided to leave, and you are taking his place.
  7. What gets in the way of good work? There are only two possibilities. The first is that people don’t know how to do good work. The second is that they know how, but they aren’t motivated.
  8. You must trust people, or life becomes impossible,” the writer Anton Chekhov once said. This is true of all relationships—friendships, marriages, partnerships—and the manager–report relationship is no different.
    1. My reports regularly bring their biggest challenges to my attention.
    2. My report and I regularly give each other critical feedback and it isn’t taken personally.
    3. My reports would gladly work for me again.
  9. Achieve stellar 1:1s :
    1. Discuss top priorities: What are the one, two, or three most critical outcomes for your report and how can you help her tackle these challenges?
    2. Calibrate what “great” looks like: Do you have a shared vision of what you’re working toward? Are you in sync about goals or expectations?
    3. Share feedback: What feedback can you give that will help your report, and what can your report tell you that will make you more effective as a manager?
    4. Reflect on how things are going: Once in a while, it’s useful to zoom out and talk about your report’s general state of mind—how is he feeling on the whole? What’s making him satisfied or dissatisfied? Have any of his goals changed? What has he learned recently and what does he want to learn going forward?
  10. Conversation Starters for a good 1:1s:
    1. Identify: These questions focus on what really matters for your report and what topics are worth spending more time on.
      1. What’s top of mind for you right now?
      2. What priorities are you thinking about this week?
      3. What’s the best use of our time today?
    2. Understand: Once you’ve identified a topic to discuss, these next questions get at the root of the problem and what can be done about it.
      1. What does your ideal outcome look like?
      2. What’s hard for you in getting to that outcome?
      3. What do you really care about?
      4. What do you think is the best course of action?
      5. What’s the worst-case scenario you’re worried about?
    3. Support: These questions zero in on how you can be of greatest service to your report.
      1. How can I help you?
      2. What can I do to make you more successful?
      3. What was the most useful part of our conversation today?
  11. People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel, goes the popular saying.
  12. WHAT DOES GREAT FEEDBACK LOOK LIKE? – The feedback inspired you to change your behavior, which resulted in your life getting better.
    1. Set Clear Expectations at the Beginning –   “Here’s what success looks like for the next meeting you run: the different options are framed clearly, everyone feels like their point of view is well represented, and a decision is made.
    2. Give Task-Specific Feedback as Frequently as You Can –  Ex: Quick note about the presentation you gave this morning: I noticed you went straight to the proposal without explaining how you got there. This made it hard to assess why it was the best path. Next time, try spending a few minutes walking through your process and what alternatives you considered.
    3. Share Behavioral Feedback Thoughtfully and Regularly: Your recruiting skills are top-notch. Candidates often say they leave a conversation with you feeling more inspired than when they began. You also have a keen sense for suggesting the right people for the right roles. For example, you identified John for Project X a year ago, and now he’s thriving.
    4. Collect 360-Degree Feedback for Maximum Objectivity.
  13. EVERY MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT IS A FAILURE TO SET EXPECTATIONS.
  14. YOUR FEEDBACK ONLY COUNTS IF IT MAKES THINGS BETTER.
  15. Does My Feedback Lead to Positive Action?
    1. Make your feedback as specific as possible.  Ex: At the end, you showed three different directions for where we could go from here, but you didn’t give us your recommendations or how to think about the pros and cons of each option. As a result, people were confused about the next steps.
    2. Clarify what success looks and feels like.
    3. Suggest next steps : Ex: One suggestion that might help you with your next presentation is using the rule of threes—no more than three goals, three sections, and three bullets per slide. Given what we just talked about, what are your next steps?
  16. Everybody feels like an imposter sometimes.
  17. Get to Brutal Honesty with yourself  and ask below questions:
    1. How would the people who know and like me best (family, significant other, close friends) describe me in three words?
      1. MY ANSWER: thoughtful, enthusiastic, driven
    2. What three qualities do I possess that I am the proudest of?
      1. MY ANSWER: curious, reflective, optimistic
    3. When I look back on something I did that was successful, what personal traits do I give credit to?
      1. MY ANSWER: vision, determination (persistance), humility
    4. What are the top three most common pieces of positive feedback that I’ve received from my manager or peers?
      1. MY ANSWER: principled, fast learner, long-term thinker
    5. Whenever my worst inner critic sits on my shoulder, what does he yell at me for?
      1. MY ANSWER: getting distracted, worrying too much about what others think, not voicing what I believe
    6. If a magical fairy were to come and bestow on me three gifts I don’t yet have, what would they be?
      1. MY ANSWER: bottomless well of confidence, clarity of thought, incredible persuasion
    7. What are three things that trigger me? (A trigger is a situation that gets me more worked up than it should.)
      1. MY ANSWER: A sense of injustice, the idea that someone else thinks I’m incompetent, people with inflated egos
    8. What are the top three most common pieces of feedback from my manager or peers on how I could be more effective?
      1. MY ANSWER: be more direct, take more risks, explain things simply
  18. FINDING YOUR CONFIDENCE WHEN YOU’RE IN THE PIT.
  19. Celebrate the little wins: I started a journal called Little Wins. Every day, I’d jot down something I did that I was proud of, even if it was small. Sometimes, I’d celebrate a 1:1 where I gave someone helpful advice. Other days, I gave myself credit for running a productive meeting. Once, on a particularly tough day, I wrote down that I had managed to respond promptly to a few emails.
  20. Ask for Feedback:
    1. Treat your manager as a Coach
    2. Make a Mentor out of everyone.
    3. Set Aside time to reflect and set goals.
  21. Amazing Meetings: What is a great outcome for your meeting?
    1. Making Decisions:
      1. Gets a decision made (obviously)
      2. Includes the people most directly affected by the decision as well as a clearly designated decision-maker
      3. Presents all credible options objectively and with relevant background information, and includes the team’s recommendation if there is one
      4. Gives equal airtime to dissenting opinions and makes people feel that they were heard.
    2. Sharing Information:
      1. Enables the group to feel like they learned something valuable
      2. Conveys key messages clearly and memorably
      3. Keeps the audience’s attention (through dynamic speakers, rich storytelling, skilled pacing, interactivity)
      4. Evokes an intended emotion—whether inspiration, trust, pride, courage, empathy, etc.
    3. Providing Feedback:
      1. Gets everyone on the same page about what success for the project looks like.
      2. 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…
      3. Clearly frames open questions, key decisions, or known concerns to get the most helpful feedback.
      4. Ends with agreed-upon next steps (including when the next milestone or check-in will be)
    4. Generating Ideas:
      • Preparation and good facilitation is key. A great generative meeting does the following:
        1. Produces many diverse, nonobvious solutions through ensuring each participant has quiet alone time to think of ideas and write them down (either before or during the meeting)
        2. Considers the totality of ideas from everyone, not just the loudest voices.
        3. Helps ideas evolve and build off each other through meaningful discussion.
        4. Ends with clear next steps for how to turn ideas into action.
    5. Strengthening Relationships:
      1. Creates better understanding and trust between participants.
      2. Encourages people to be open and authentic.
      3. Makes people feel cared for.
  22. Other things to consider to have a great meeting:
    1. Invite the right people
    2. Give people a chance to come prepared (share agenda upfront)
    3. Make it safe for people to contribute
    4. Be Explicit about the Norms you want to set
    5. Change up your meeting format to favour participation
    6. Manage equal airtime
    7. Get feedback about your meeting
  23. SOME MEETINGS DON’T NEED YOU AND SOME DON’T NEED TO EXIST AT ALL
  24. “DESIGN YOUR TEAM INTENTIONALLY”. — HIRING Well
    1. How many new people will I add to our team this year (based on company growth, expected attrition, budget, priorities, etc.)?
    2. For each new hire, what level of experience am I looking for?
    3. Which specific skills or strengths do we need in our team (for example, creative thinking, operational excellence, expertise in XYZ, etc.)?
    4. Which skills and strengths does our team already have that new hires can stand to be weaker in?
    5. What traits, past experiences, or personalities would strengthen the diversity of our team?
  25. HIRING IS A GAMBLE, BUT MAKE SMART BETS
    1. Examine past examples of similar work
    2. Seek out trusted recommendations
    3. Get Multiple interviewers involved
    4. Look for Passionate Advocates rather than consensus
    5. Prepare your interview question ahead of time
      1. What kinds of challenges are interesting to you and why? Can you describe a favorite project? This tells me what a candidate is passionate about.
      2. What do you consider your greatest strengths? What would your peers agree are your areas of growth? This question gets both at a candidate’s self-awareness and what his actual strengths and weaknesses might be.
      3. Imagine yourself in three years. What do you hope will be different about you then compared to now? This lets me understand the candidate’s ambitions as well as how goal oriented and self-reflective he/she is.
      4. What was the hardest conflict you’ve had in the past year? How did it end, and what did you learn from the experience? This gives me a sense of how the candidate works with other people and how he approaches conflict.
      5. What’s something that’s inspired you in your work recently? This sheds light on what the candidate thinks is interesting or valuable.
    6. Reject Anyone who exhibits Toxic behavior.
    7. Build a team with a Diverse perspective.
    8. Hire People who are capable of More.
    9. Build a great bench.
  26. START WITH A CONCRETE VISION – Making things Happen
    1. Create a believable game plan
    2. Craft a plan based on your team’s strength
    3. Focus on doing a few things well
    4. Define who is Responsible for what
    5. Break down a Big goal into smaller pieces
  27. PERFECT EXECUTION OVER PERFECT STRATEGY
    1. Balancing short-term and Long term outcomes
      1. Hiring, Planning, Managing performance
    2. Define a long-term Vision and work backward
    3. Take a Portfolio Approach
    4. Talk about how everything relates to the vision
  28. GOOD PROCESS IS EVER-EVOLVING
  29. LEADING A GROWING TEAM
    1. Direct to Indirect Management
    2. People treat you differently (they don’t disagree with you upfront and it shows later that your approach was not accepted)
    3. Context Switching All day, Every day.
    4. You Pick and Choose your battles
    5. The Skills that matter become more and more people-centric.
  30. THE TIGHTROPE ACT OF GREAT DELEGATION
    1. Dive in too much, and you’re the micromanager . At the other extreme, if you step back too much, you’re the absentee manager. — Finding the right mix is the KEY !
  31. AIM TO PUT YOURSELF OUT OF A JOB – “The best managers I know all agree on one thing: growing great teams means that you are constantly looking for ways to replace yourself in the job you are currently doing.
  32. NURTURING CULTURE:
  33. UNDERSTANDING YOUR CURRENT TEAM
    1. What are the first three adjectives that come to mind when describing the personality of your team?
    2. What moments made you feel most proud to be a part of your team? Why?
    3. What does your team do better than the majority of other teams out there?
    4. If you picked five random members of your team and individually asked each person, “What does our team value?” what would you hear?
    5. How similar is your team’s culture to the broader organization’s culture?
    6. Imagine a journalist scrutinizing your team. What would she say your team does well or not well?
    7. When people complain about how things work, what are the top three things that they bring up?
  34. UNDERSTANDING YOUR ASPIRATIONS
    1. Describe the top five adjectives you’d want an external observer to use to describe your team’s culture. Why those?
    2. 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?
    3. 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 result ?
    4. Make a list of the aspects of culture that you wouldn’t want to emulate from other teams or companies. Why not?
  35. UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
    1. On a scale from one to nine, with nine being “we’re 100 percent there” and one being “this is the opposite of our team,” how close is your current team from your aspirations?
    2. What shows up as both a strength of your team as well as a quality you value highly?
    3. Where are the biggest gaps between your current team culture and your aspirations?
    4. What are the obstacles that might get in the way of reaching your aspirations? How will you address them?
    5. Imagine how you want your team to work in a year’s time. How would you describe to a report what you hope will be different then compared to now?
  36. NEVER STOP TALKING ABOUT WHAT’S IMPORTANT & ALWAYS WALK THE WALK.
  37. INVENT TRADITIONS THAT CELEBRATE YOUR VALUES.
    1. “Personal prompts (like “Favorite childhood movie” or “Best gift you ever received at Christmas”) at the start of a meeting so people can get to know their teammates better.
    2. Monthly “Learn how to paint/sculpt/craft” nights to encourage creativity and beginner’s mindset.
    3. A gigantic “customer love” stuffed teddy bear awarded to the person who went above and beyond to help a customer in the past month.
    4. An annual Oscars-style award ceremony so people can recognize all the ways in which their coworkers are awesome.
    5. Monday morning yoga sessions to promote mindfulness.
    6. “Fail of the week,” where people share their mistakes in a safe forum to encourage authenticity and learning.
  38. As a leader, nurturing culture may not be the first thing on your mind. You may be dreaming about the changes you want to create in the world or sketching out the master strategy that will get you there. But success or failure aren’t usually the results of a few sweeping decisions. Rather, how far you get will be the sum of the millions of actions taken by your team during the small, quotidian moments. How does everyone treat each other? How do you solve problems together? What are you willing to give up to act in accordance with your values?
  39. A group of people working in unison is a wonderful thing to behold. Done well, it ceases to be about you or me, one individual or another. Instead, you feel the energy of dozens or hundreds or even thousands of hearts and minds directed toward a shared purpose, guided by shared values. If you or I do our jobs well, then our teams will thrive. We will build something that will outlast us, that will be made stronger by all who become a part of it.

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