Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Katie Greifeld and
Speaker 1: I have been in here chatting about what it's like
Speaker 1: to be a manager. And you know what, spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: neither of us are managers. Know somehow, I'm not in
Speaker 1: charge of a single person other than myself. It's probably
Speaker 1: a good thing for both of us. I know, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of work. It's really interesting because it's something
Speaker 1: that Julie Jaal writes about. She's the co founder of
Speaker 1: In Spirit and also the author of the new book
Speaker 1: The Making of a Manager, What to Do When Everyone
Speaker 1: looks to You. Julie joins us this afternoon from the
Speaker 1: Bay Area out west. Julie, how are you. I'm doing great.
Speaker 1: How are you all doing? We're doing well. Thanks. Um.
Speaker 1: Take us back to your mid twenties and when you
Speaker 1: got this promotion and you became a manager. That is
Speaker 1: sort of the genesis of this book. So I was
Speaker 1: years old. I had just joined a scrappy startup three
Speaker 1: years prior. It was a little college social at working
Speaker 1: at the time called Facebook. Heard of it locally for me,
Speaker 1: you know, to start up, grew and grew, and so
Speaker 1: within a couple of years we had added a lot
Speaker 1: more people. And since I was one of the early
Speaker 1: people there, one day my manager turned to me and said,
Speaker 1: you know, we have four new designers joining next week
Speaker 1: and I don't have time to meet with them. Why
Speaker 1: don't you be their manager? And at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: I had no training at this about how to lead,
Speaker 1: how to manage. But yet I found myself in this
Speaker 1: situation needing to ramp up new people and help our
Speaker 1: team grow. And this is a very common story in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley or in any context where a small team
Speaker 1: starts to take on bigger and bigger goals. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that is how I found myself in that role. Um,
Speaker 1: without that preparation, I made every single mistake in the
Speaker 1: book about learning how it is to manage and lead people.
Speaker 1: And ultimately, some years later, I decided to write all
Speaker 1: that down and UM, hopefully I can seem like I'm
Speaker 1: having a coffee chat with somebody else finding themselves in
Speaker 1: that situation. And so I mean, if you could go
Speaker 1: back in time and talk to younger Julie Newly in
Speaker 1: that situation, what would you say? What would be the
Speaker 1: main bullet point there. The most important thing I would
Speaker 1: tell somebody in that situation here is what the job
Speaker 1: of a manager is. Because here's the thing. We grow up,
Speaker 1: we watch movies. We have a sense of like, what
Speaker 1: does the boss do right? And we think about the
Speaker 1: boss as the person who makes decisions, the person who
Speaker 1: hires and fires people, the person who gets to tell
Speaker 1: everyone else you know, what's right and how things go.
Speaker 1: And the reality is, in my experience, like, that's not
Speaker 1: really what great managers do. So the first thing I
Speaker 1: want from to understand is what exactly is the job
Speaker 1: of management? And very simply I define it as the
Speaker 1: manager's job is to help a group of people be
Speaker 1: able to achieve more together. So how do they do
Speaker 1: that right? How do they actually get a group of
Speaker 1: talented people to achieve more together? There are three main
Speaker 1: levers that a manager has. The first is people. You know,
Speaker 1: you need to bring in talented people who have the
Speaker 1: skills to be able to do what the group wants
Speaker 1: to do together. The second is process. So do you
Speaker 1: have all of these great people, okay, how should they
Speaker 1: work together? You know? How do they come up with
Speaker 1: new ideas? How do they resolve disagreement, who should do what?
Speaker 1: You know? How does their work get divided? And finally purpose,
Speaker 1: which is defining what does success look like for this
Speaker 1: group of people? How do we know what a good
Speaker 1: job is? How do we know what a great job is?
Speaker 1: How do we know what a mediocre job is? All
Speaker 1: that has to be shared in terms of all of
Speaker 1: the members on the team in order for this to
Speaker 1: team to go on and do great things. I'm wondering
Speaker 1: about people who may not be managers yet and may
Speaker 1: not even aspire to be managers. And how you know
Speaker 1: we talked about this idea of managing up and the
Speaker 1: idea of working with your bosses in a way that
Speaker 1: is productive. What if I do you have for people
Speaker 1: in those situations? The most important advice I have for
Speaker 1: somebody when they think about managing up is make sure
Speaker 1: you know these two things. Make sure that your manager
Speaker 1: knows what you aspire for, what your goals goals are
Speaker 1: in your career. Do you want to get a promotion?
Speaker 1: Do you want to manage one? Did? Do you want
Speaker 1: to take on big projects? Or or you know, are
Speaker 1: you very happy doing what you're doing? You know, what
Speaker 1: kind of projects are you excited to take on? What
Speaker 1: kind of challenges are meaningful and what kind of things
Speaker 1: do you hate doing? Make sure your manager understands that
Speaker 1: a right, So ask yourselves, does my manager understand what
Speaker 1: my aspirations are, what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are?
Speaker 1: And if not, go ahead and tell them right, tell
Speaker 1: them in a one on what make sure they know.
Speaker 1: And the second question is do you want to understand
Speaker 1: what success for my manager looks like in regards to
Speaker 1: what I can do to help them? Because if you
Speaker 1: don't feel like you know what your manager is is
Speaker 1: aspiring for in regards to the team that you're a
Speaker 1: part of, or what success for you looks like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be basically talking past each other. So both
Speaker 1: of these things need to be true. And if they're
Speaker 1: not clear, that's what time with the manager in one
Speaker 1: on one setting is for. Right. Make sure they understand
Speaker 1: your goal. Make sure you understand their goals. And Julie,
Speaker 1: what would you say, not necessarily to a new manager
Speaker 1: entering a situation, but a manager that maybe has already
Speaker 1: had some struggles with their team with the reports, who
Speaker 1: has you know, maybe lost faith? How do you rebuild
Speaker 1: that sort of trust there. It's super critical that managers
Speaker 1: have the trust with their team. And you know, everyone
Speaker 1: makes mistakes. I've certainly made many as a manager, and
Speaker 1: in those cases, what helped me the most was being
Speaker 1: able to admit my own vulnerability and uh and and
Speaker 1: come clean with people. Right. The thing is a lot
Speaker 1: of times managers have immense pressure on them. You know,
Speaker 1: they might think I'm the manager and the boss, I'm
Speaker 1: the person who should have all the answers. But that's
Speaker 1: just too high of an expectation to have on anyone.
Speaker 1: There's no single person and a company who should feel
Speaker 1: like they have the answers to every single problem. That's
Speaker 1: why we have a team. That's why people come together
Speaker 1: to work on big problems. And so in the cases
Speaker 1: in which you know, as a manager you made the
Speaker 1: wrong call, something happened, just to own it. Just admit
Speaker 1: that there was a mistake, you know that you made,
Speaker 1: you thought certain things, it didn't happen the way they expected,
Speaker 1: and and complete and ask for help. Ask the team, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, this is one of the things that we
Speaker 1: need to do together as a team. I don't have
Speaker 1: all the answers. I would like ideas from all of you,
Speaker 1: what do you think we should do? The best thing
Speaker 1: I've found for myself as a manager, the thing that
Speaker 1: gave me both a lot more impact but also a
Speaker 1: lot more power, is to be able to leverage the
Speaker 1: expertise and the wonderful talent among the people on my team.
Speaker 1: Julie Jow we got to leave it. Their co founder
Speaker 1: at the Advisory Firm in Spirit. It's an organization that
Speaker 1: partners with tech companies to help scale and build products.
Speaker 1: Julie Wi also spent years at Facebook, where she helped
Speaker 1: build the app into one that's used by more than
Speaker 1: a billion people. She's the author of the new book
Speaker 1: The Making of a Manager, What to Do When Everyone
Speaker 1: Looks to You. Joining us this afternoon from the Bay
Speaker 1: Area in California. Julie, thanks so much for taking the time.