The Making of a Manager

Monthly Book Review

Whether you are currently a manager or aspiring to become one, there is a lot to learn and no shortage of problems you’ll face. So, how can you prepare yourself?

A former colleague of mine recommended The Making of a Manager to me several years ago and it has been on my reading list for a while now. Since I often talk with product people early in their careers and who are looking to take the next step into management, I thought this could be a good book to explore.

Overview

The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo is a guide for new and aspiring leaders, particularly those stepping into management for the first time. Zhuo became an early leader at Facebook, managing and growing their design organization. She draws on many of those experiences, though (fortunately) it isn’t too heavy on the Facebook side, and leans more on her experience of becoming a manager.

As someone who has been in product management and management roles for over 15 years, I am always skeptical on taking advice from people whose primary experience is only in a rapidly growing company where the “problems” are relatively small since high growth makes up for most of the issues that many of us face in normal companies. So I’m wary of the experience of early employees of Facebook or Airbnb or (insert other rocket ships here). Most of us are unlikely to be on a rocket ship.

That said, I found this book to be better than I expected, and there is plenty of good advice, especially for those early in their careers. You’ll likely find many of these ideas in other places as well, but there’s benefit in the summarization and repetition of good points.

Let’s dive into a few key ideas.

Key Takeaways

Managers are multipliers

As you move from an individual contributor to a manager, your role changes significantly. For most individual contributors, your role is to do your job well. If you’re a product designer, it is about understanding users and creating great experiences. For project managers, it’s about running efficient projects and delivering.