Lessons in leadership | Scaling an org, developing yourself, and tactical management advice | Jack Altman (Lattice)

In Depth

Jack Altman is the co-founder and CEO of Lattice, a people success platform for building engaged, high-performing teams. Lattice has raised over $330M, and was last valued at $3B. He is an expert in building company culture, and wrote a book on the topic, titled: “People Strategy”.

In today's episode, we discuss:

• The importance of self-awareness and how to develop it
• The value of difficult conversations and advice for having them
• Common mistakes when scaling a company
• How to approach firing decisions and the associated internal optics
• How to think about low-performing but “well-liked” employees
• How to get drastically more out of your team members
• Adapting to the challenging new economic environment

Referenced:

Jack’s book: https://www.amazon.com/People-Strategy-Culture-Competitive-Advantage/dp/1119717043

Jack’s company, Lattice: https://lattice.com/

First Round Capital's Newsletter: https://review.firstround.com/newsletter

Where to find Jack Altman:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackealtman

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaltma

Where to find Brett Berson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

In this episode, we cover:

(2:40) Founders must continually grow with their company

(7:23) How to identify hiring errors vs management errors

(9:46) Managing the tension of delegation vs control

(11:51) How to cultivate self-awareness

(14:59) The one thing founders should never give up

(17:22) How to build a product org

(19:06) Hot take on micro-management

(21:05) The importance of context setting as CEO

(22:09) What founder transparency actually means

(23:43) Examples of “context setting” as a leader

(26:09) The value of uncomfortable conversations

(27:16) How to have uncomfortable conversations

(28:30) Founders must own their most difficult decisions

(31:48) Optimizing speed vs accuracy in decision-making

(33:50) The hidden biases in group discussions

(35:05) When Jack experimented with removing himself from all meetings

(37:48) The most unusual element of Jack’s leadership approach

(38:34) 4 pieces of advice for CEOs

(41:20) How to talk to customers

(42:59) The many sources of learning for CEOs

(46:45) Instructive framework for maximizing employee performance

(49:56) When long-time employees don’t scale with the company

(55:07) How to think about low-performing but “well-liked” employees

(58:19) Identifying team members that “aren’t a fit”

(59:57) Should you tell people why someone was let go?

(62:42) Managing in the challenging new economic environment

(68:18) Aligning an employee’s career goals with company goals

(74:27) You're probably underestimating your team's potential