Quote
“Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together.”— Julie Zhuo, in The Making of a Manager (2019) · The Making of a Manager →
Why it was said
Julie Zhuo, who became a manager at twenty-five and later ran design at Facebook, opens The Making of a Manager with this definition and returns to it whenever the job gets confusing.
What it actually means
New managers measure themselves by their own output and by being liked, and the definition removes both. The job is outcomes, and the outcomes are the group's, not the manager's; the manager's own work counts only insofar as it improves what the group produces together. Zhuo's sentence is a compass for the moments when the day was full and nothing moved: was the group's outcome better because of what you did?
How to use it
- 1At the end of each week, write what the team produced that it would not have without you.
- 2When you are tempted to do a task yourself, ask whether it improves the group's outcome or only your comfort.