Otto Rask reviewed The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo
Okay primer for new managers
4 stars
This book was written by someone who seemingly has managerial experience solely at Facebook. Not a deal-breaker, but one should keep that in mind, as no two organizations are the same, and managers will deal with varying people and problems in varying contexts. Someone who has had a successful managerial career within a single company might make it seem like that kind of success is the default thing to expect on your career.
If you can look past that, you have to remember that this book was written with an USA audience in mind, meaning some guidance might even be bad for you, as some countries have labor laws in place to prevent certain styles of management for instance. Hiring and firing for instance can be very different between countries. Make sure to check local labor legislation and regulation when applying learnings from books like this one.
And if you …
This book was written by someone who seemingly has managerial experience solely at Facebook. Not a deal-breaker, but one should keep that in mind, as no two organizations are the same, and managers will deal with varying people and problems in varying contexts. Someone who has had a successful managerial career within a single company might make it seem like that kind of success is the default thing to expect on your career.
If you can look past that, you have to remember that this book was written with an USA audience in mind, meaning some guidance might even be bad for you, as some countries have labor laws in place to prevent certain styles of management for instance. Hiring and firing for instance can be very different between countries. Make sure to check local labor legislation and regulation when applying learnings from books like this one.
And if you can get past that, you will find a very okay book about how the author became and manager at Facebook and how their role and skills evolved over the years. Some of it is mainly making sure that you act like a human being towards others, some of it is about strategy-building, some of it is more about tactical choices as to how to manage specific situations, and some of it is how to nurture culture, and some of it is of course about handling negative situations, such as firing someone.
If you're a new manager, it is a good read.
I liked how they ended the book with a clear message that no matter where you are on your career, you are always on a journey that has not finished yet.