Review: The Making of a Manager

In the Making of a Manager, we get to follow Julie Zhuo through her journey at Facebook, from starting out as a manager to VP of Design. The book is part biographical and part practical hands-on advice. Since this book covers such a range of roles it’s has something for both new and experienced managers.

It starts with a topic new or aspiring managers would be very interested in, what management actually is. We then get a few different paths into management with things to look out for and take advantage of for each. Don’t skip this if you’re already a manager, it has plenty of useful ideas you can leverage when start managing a new team as well.

Throughout the book Julie touches on many common and important topics like having 1:1s, feedback, managing yourself, having great meetings, hiring, setting expectations, delegation, and building culture.

As I read through this book I kept thinking “this chapter would be a great resource to look back at later”. The structure makes it easy to find relevant chapters so it works well as a reference material.

The one thing to be aware of though is that the book is from the perspective of Silicon Valley hyper-growth. I think most managers would get something useful from this book, but you’d get the most of it if you’re at a company that’s growing and scaling up.

Overall this is a book I’d recommend if you are working with people management, or aspiring to do so in the future.