Book Club, November 2019: The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You

I just downloaded Julie Zhuo's book, The Making of a Manager: What to do when everyone looks to you. I'm only a few pages in, but Audible has been telling me I'd like this one for so long that I'm excited to see where it goes. So far I like Julie's writing style, which feels quite chummy and down to earth. She is incredibly humble for being a boss lady at Facebook, and I already know I'm going to need this one in print to use as a reference book in the future.

Why did I finally listen to Audible's all-knowing algorithm and download this book? Well, mostly because I'm a nerd and really do love books like this one. Also, we're changing our labor structure next season and will be promoting one of our long-time employees to a managerial role. Of all the tasks on the farm, managing has been the most draining and least desirable one for both Jake and myself. Usually we'd rather just go and seed the thing or move the other thing rather than ask someone else to do it, but we also recognize that our farm is a business and if we want to run it as such we need help. We also genuinely like our employees and generally have a great time working with them. The part that gets tough is planning out the day so that everyone has a task that is helping us all reach our goals. Then doing it again the next day, and the next, usually with little sleep and too much adrenaline.

Since we've had employees we've always worked right alongside them, but next year we're hoping to transfer some of that responsibility so that one of us can sneak away to do computer work, run farm errands, or do tractor work. That means that we are going to need to learn how to teach someone else to understand the goals, workflow, and expectations of our business and to communicate that with others. So, yeah. Let's learn how to be better managers this month.