Lessons from Julie Zhuo

"Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together." [1][2] This is the fundamental definition of a manager's purpose.
"This is the crux of management: It is the belief that a team of people can achieve more than a single person going it alone." [3]
"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." [1][3]
"A manager's job is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together through influencing purpose, people, and process." [1][4] These are the three key levers for a manager.
"Great managers are made, not born." [2][5] This emphasizes that management is a skill that can be learned and developed.

"I learned then one of my first lessons of management – the best outcomes come from inspiring people to action, not telling them what to do." [1][3]
"If you can pinpoint a problem and motivate others to work with you to solve it, then you're leading." [1]
"Leadership is a quality rather than a job. While the role of a manager can be given to someone (or taken away), leadership is not something that can be bestowed. It must be earned." [6]
"To truly change someone's mind, you first need to truly care about them." [7]
"Listening to people is not the same as acquiescing to them." [8]

"Your team's culture is like its personality. It exists whether or not you think about it." [5]
"Valuing diversity means valuing disagreement. But I know many people (including myself sometime) who want to pursue the former while avoiding the latter. Disagreeing may be uncomfortable, but done respectfully it leads to better outcomes." [7]
"At the end of the day, a resilient organization isn't one that never makes mistakes but rather one whose mistakes make it stronger over time." [1][9]
"A manager has to be trusted and respected in order to be able to influence others." [10]
"Invest in a healthy and positive team culture." [5]

"Ask people all the time for feedback. Make your asks specific, and your tone curious so it's safe for the other person to tell something critical." [7]
"If you think he is the epitome of awesome, tell him. If you don't think he is operating at the level you'd like to see, he should know that, too, and precisely why you feel that way." [1]
"You can't help them if they don't tell you how they're really feeling. You may miss early warning signs that lead to bigger problems down the road." [2]
"The most important and meaningful conversations have that characteristic. It isn't easy to discuss mistakes, confront tensions, or talk about deep fears or secret hopes, but no strong relationship can be built on superficial pleasantries alone." [3]
"Repeat yourself until you wonder if people are annoyed by you sounding like a broken record (hint: they aren't. In my experience you can feel like you've said something ten times before most people hear it for the first time)." [8]

"Being a manager is a highly personal journey, and if you don't have a good handle on yourself, you won't have a good handle on how to best support your team." [5][9]
"Great managers are self-aware." [5]
"With a growth mindset, you're motivated to seek out the truth and ask for feedback because you know it's the fastest path to get you where you want to go." [5]
"I've learned largely by doing, and despite my best intentions, 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." [11]
"Every single week I felt like an imposter. I had no idea really what I was doing." [12] This highlights the common feeling of imposter syndrome, especially in new roles.

"Delegate Effectively & Empower Your Team: Managers shouldn't try to do everything themselves." [5]
"The best managers are constantly looking for ways to replace themselves in the job they are currently doing." [5]
"Delegating tasks, especially those where your reports can excel, frees you up to focus on strategic priorities and develops your team's skills." [5]
"Mastering the art of delegation empowers both yourself and your direct reports." [5]
"Delegate responsibilities to draw in associates and build their assurance." [13]

"For every meeting, ask yourself 'What does a great outcome look like?'" [9]
"Your strategy should acknowledge your team's strengths and weaknesses." [9]
"Good processes keep tasks from becoming too complicated." [10]
"Run effective meetings. Poorly-run meetings are a major time-waster, while effective ones can boost collaboration and decision-making." [4]
"Codify processes into playbooks to save time — this will also ensure that you're not a bottleneck when you are on vacation or if/when you leave." [9]

"Hiring is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity to build the future of your organization." [4][11]
"The most important thing to remember about hiring is this: hiring is not a problem to be solved but an opportunity to build the future of your organization." [11]
"As the manager, it's your job to bring in the right people for your team." [4]
"When hiring, ask yourself: 'Would I be excited to have this person be in my team?'" [14]
"Be clear about the role and what success looks like." [10]

"Good design at its core is about understanding people and their needs in order to create the best possible tools for them." [11]
"To design products is to understand what needs, wants, or problems people have, and to construct something that will help solve that problem." [7][15]
"Spend the vast majority of your energy ensuring you got the defaults in your product experience right. Never use 'but we added an option...' as a crutch. Only power users use options." [7]
"A well-honed eye for design is critical for a design leader to set and hold a high bar." [16]
"What I thought would make me a great design leader was being great at design. But after years of experience, she realizes the pie is much bigger than that." [16]

"The first big part of your job as a manager is to ensure that your team knows what success looks like and cares about achieving it." [1][5]
"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." [1][11]
"Connect every project, every task to the why, until you start to hear the why evangelized by others around you." [8]
"An inspiring vision is bold. It doesn't hedge. You know instantly whether you've hit it or not because it's measurable." [4]
"Nothing worthwhile happens overnight. Every big dream is the culmination of thousands of tiny steps forward." [1]

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