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People Strategy: How to Invest in People and Make Culture Your Competitive Advantage
The Wall Street Journal bestseller! Learn to unlock the potential of your employees and colleagues with this definitive resource for people management People How to Invest in People and Make Culture Your Competitive Advantage provides readers with a powerful framework in which to develop high-performing teams, increase employee motivation, and use data to build an inviting and effective company culture. Author Jack Altman, cofounder and CEO of Lattice, an award-winning HR and performance management platform, shows you how Perfect for executives, managers, and human resource professionals, People Strategy also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone with even an interest in how to develop, nurture, and unlock the potential of their employees and colleagues.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published April 6, 2021
39 people are currently reading
930 people want to read
About the author
Jack Altman
1 book4 followersJACK ALTMAN is the CEO and cofounder of Lattice, a performance management and employee engagement platform Lattice serves over 2,500 leading companies, including Reddit, Slack, Cruise, and more. Lattice has been called the next billion-dollar startup by Forbes, and Altman is a frequently requested speaker at HR industry conferences.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 26, 2023
A quote from the book:
"Community is very important to employees today and there are a couple of reasons why. One potential reason is because work relationships have become stronger as companies have taken a more important role in employees' lives, as more traditional communities like church or neighbourhood have perhaps become less important. Another possible explanation is that the rise of the internet and technology has lead to a more globalised world, and as a result the city, the nation and the neighbourhood have then become less important constructs for people. You could even point to the decline of religion in major cities, where this third community outside work and home has become less deep in our lives, and as a result employees are seeking this more at work".
- what are my thoughts on this? mixed.
"people crave community", yes, wherever they go. this is a better quote. people see other people, so, naturally they would want to connect with them, as opposed to the alternative.
people need to stop themselves from drinking the "COOL-aid" from the first quote. work should not be your next "religion", even if companies would want you to give all your life for them to make them a profit. invest in yourself, in your home, in your family, not just in work, as much as you can.
in my opinion, modern (tech) company culture happened though incremental additions to the culture brought forward by generation 1 industry giants, like, mainly, IBM, which then got significantly up-levelled afterwards by generation 2 tech giant Google.
let’s be honest everyone cool and hip today is following, with not much deviation, the path set up by Google’s values, which are not new at all at this point (what this book tries to tell you kinda). so this is just yet another “state of the art” 10+ years ago book. too many have been written like this already, so, at most, you can view this as a weak enforcer of already broadly established values.
reading about the giant Google’s value strategy first hand, around building and maintaining a company, will bring you up to speed with what everyone else is already doing, or will try to, in the future, if they haven't already.
i think reading that will make people less confused about who did what and came up with what “new” idea, definitely not this author, or his company (Lattice).
whatever other well know companies did, Google or IBM did it first, depending on which generation type they can be classified as.
this book feels more: how our company hired a well prepared consultant to elevate our company brand and profit, hired consultant company that has learned from, or developed within, one of the industry giants - not this author’s company though - so props to all those people, please! (with the all the proper props missing in this book - please understand, i am certain at this point this company, Lattice, that the author has founded and extensively talks about in the book - founded 2015!!! - is a consultant company that hired better consultant companies to teach them to do their now job, and it all came to be like that, “founding” all that “new” - pass on hiring this company, unless the fees are significantly less than the ones from companies that they used :), but investment like that can bring profits big enough to cover the upfront cost in time, sure!)
if you want to read about community in the industry, i don’t think this is the best book. it came too late to bring new insight.
i was in college in 2013 and already Google was making a big fuss all over the place, all the way in Europe, with their community building strategies for the workplace, and when i walked into their Zurich office for the first time, way back then, it did actually feel “WOW” to me. and that was not the start of it, they did it years before in Silicone Valley first.
values around community were there already. i think the modern challenge is now forward movement and rapid growth without dilution of community values.
“state of the art” TLDR:
- community is important, makes people happier
- if people are happier, they can feel better at work doing more things, companies can have more profit
- make people feel like what they have to do at work matters according to some universal approved standards (“we help others” like this, “we bring value” like that, we do good and matter like this, implicitly you do good and matter like this)
- how can you create this in practice: say you care, try to mean it, enforce what you say over and over, give people more benefits (they will like you more, and more positive conversations will result from that between employees), organise more team-building activities (and show you love this for your people, even though this cuts into the profits, don’t get upset, don’t get upset for real, don’t roll this back), solve problems that employees have between them better and faster
when starting a business, make sure to add the standard well known trick:
-> pick names for things that mean something from your core values, that ideally are set now, well enough to not have to change them in time, or something that is catchy and general enough to work long term (bad/good move “Facebook”/"Meta" :)), unnecessary move "Google"/"Alphabet"- teaching us our "abc"s - , but yes, that consultant said “Lattice” works, the word definition means "support", you offer support, fits!)
you hear “Lattice” so much in the book, that let’s be real, this sounds more like it’s about writing a book to promote the company Lattice and convincing people to hire them, then it is about actually teaching others what they should or shouldn’t do to build better communities in their workplaces, without hiring them :)
next question: what can we bring new to current industry culture that would make both employee and employer better?
looking forward to finding and reading that book in the future...somewhere...
"Community is very important to employees today and there are a couple of reasons why. One potential reason is because work relationships have become stronger as companies have taken a more important role in employees' lives, as more traditional communities like church or neighbourhood have perhaps become less important. Another possible explanation is that the rise of the internet and technology has lead to a more globalised world, and as a result the city, the nation and the neighbourhood have then become less important constructs for people. You could even point to the decline of religion in major cities, where this third community outside work and home has become less deep in our lives, and as a result employees are seeking this more at work".
- what are my thoughts on this? mixed.
"people crave community", yes, wherever they go. this is a better quote. people see other people, so, naturally they would want to connect with them, as opposed to the alternative.
people need to stop themselves from drinking the "COOL-aid" from the first quote. work should not be your next "religion", even if companies would want you to give all your life for them to make them a profit. invest in yourself, in your home, in your family, not just in work, as much as you can.
in my opinion, modern (tech) company culture happened though incremental additions to the culture brought forward by generation 1 industry giants, like, mainly, IBM, which then got significantly up-levelled afterwards by generation 2 tech giant Google.
let’s be honest everyone cool and hip today is following, with not much deviation, the path set up by Google’s values, which are not new at all at this point (what this book tries to tell you kinda). so this is just yet another “state of the art” 10+ years ago book. too many have been written like this already, so, at most, you can view this as a weak enforcer of already broadly established values.
reading about the giant Google’s value strategy first hand, around building and maintaining a company, will bring you up to speed with what everyone else is already doing, or will try to, in the future, if they haven't already.
i think reading that will make people less confused about who did what and came up with what “new” idea, definitely not this author, or his company (Lattice).
whatever other well know companies did, Google or IBM did it first, depending on which generation type they can be classified as.
this book feels more: how our company hired a well prepared consultant to elevate our company brand and profit, hired consultant company that has learned from, or developed within, one of the industry giants - not this author’s company though - so props to all those people, please! (with the all the proper props missing in this book - please understand, i am certain at this point this company, Lattice, that the author has founded and extensively talks about in the book - founded 2015!!! - is a consultant company that hired better consultant companies to teach them to do their now job, and it all came to be like that, “founding” all that “new” - pass on hiring this company, unless the fees are significantly less than the ones from companies that they used :), but investment like that can bring profits big enough to cover the upfront cost in time, sure!)
if you want to read about community in the industry, i don’t think this is the best book. it came too late to bring new insight.
i was in college in 2013 and already Google was making a big fuss all over the place, all the way in Europe, with their community building strategies for the workplace, and when i walked into their Zurich office for the first time, way back then, it did actually feel “WOW” to me. and that was not the start of it, they did it years before in Silicone Valley first.
values around community were there already. i think the modern challenge is now forward movement and rapid growth without dilution of community values.
“state of the art” TLDR:
- community is important, makes people happier
- if people are happier, they can feel better at work doing more things, companies can have more profit
- make people feel like what they have to do at work matters according to some universal approved standards (“we help others” like this, “we bring value” like that, we do good and matter like this, implicitly you do good and matter like this)
- how can you create this in practice: say you care, try to mean it, enforce what you say over and over, give people more benefits (they will like you more, and more positive conversations will result from that between employees), organise more team-building activities (and show you love this for your people, even though this cuts into the profits, don’t get upset, don’t get upset for real, don’t roll this back), solve problems that employees have between them better and faster
when starting a business, make sure to add the standard well known trick:
-> pick names for things that mean something from your core values, that ideally are set now, well enough to not have to change them in time, or something that is catchy and general enough to work long term (bad/good move “Facebook”/"Meta" :)), unnecessary move "Google"/"Alphabet"- teaching us our "abc"s - , but yes, that consultant said “Lattice” works, the word definition means "support", you offer support, fits!)
you hear “Lattice” so much in the book, that let’s be real, this sounds more like it’s about writing a book to promote the company Lattice and convincing people to hire them, then it is about actually teaching others what they should or shouldn’t do to build better communities in their workplaces, without hiring them :)
next question: what can we bring new to current industry culture that would make both employee and employer better?
looking forward to finding and reading that book in the future...somewhere...
January 30, 2023
This book is most helpful as a reference guide, with examples of questions to include in interviews, engagement surveys, and performance reviews.
While I certainly agree with the importance of a positive and people forward culture in the workplace, I do feel the importance of workplace community was overstated—described as replacing neighborhoods, churches, and more in this day and age. Especially considering that this book was written since covid-19, I would have liked to see discussion on how both the pandemic culture shift as well as the rise of remote work has in many cases encouraged employees to prioritize their personal communities more highly than before.
While I certainly agree with the importance of a positive and people forward culture in the workplace, I do feel the importance of workplace community was overstated—described as replacing neighborhoods, churches, and more in this day and age. Especially considering that this book was written since covid-19, I would have liked to see discussion on how both the pandemic culture shift as well as the rise of remote work has in many cases encouraged employees to prioritize their personal communities more highly than before.
May 22, 2023
Some solid insights. Did a bunch of highlighting and I will transfer some of those to notes that are more easily referenceable. I do think that the several mentions of Covid-19, especially in a printed book, make it feel a bit outdated already, even though there is a lot of evergreen advice.
September 9, 2021
No real unique insights or nuggets if you are already in HR and have any reasonable amount of experience. Just ok.
May 30, 2022
There wasn't a lot of net-new information for me, but what IS new is that it connects the dots to a wide range of best practices for developing healthy workplace cultures, and discusses how exactly those practices result in strong business outcomes. Its not "just" the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do.
Honestly, this book was a harrowing read, and slow going because I had to frequently stop for deep breathing breaks. So many memories came up of past jobs with unhealthy cultural practices. One thing I appreciated is that Altman mainly focuses on telling the story from a "do this" perspective, not a "don't do that" perspective, which minimize those flashbacks and keeps the narrative overall positive. This is a smart approach because while are a few counter-examples, the reader's brain is perfectly capable of generating them 😂, and readers may actually be less acquainted with what "good" looks like.
(I feel like I have to add a conflict-of-interest disclaimer! I'm about to start my job at Lattice, the company co-founded by the author, and they sent this book to me as part of my sign-on package.)
Honestly, this book was a harrowing read, and slow going because I had to frequently stop for deep breathing breaks. So many memories came up of past jobs with unhealthy cultural practices. One thing I appreciated is that Altman mainly focuses on telling the story from a "do this" perspective, not a "don't do that" perspective, which minimize those flashbacks and keeps the narrative overall positive. This is a smart approach because while are a few counter-examples, the reader's brain is perfectly capable of generating them 😂, and readers may actually be less acquainted with what "good" looks like.
(I feel like I have to add a conflict-of-interest disclaimer! I'm about to start my job at Lattice, the company co-founded by the author, and they sent this book to me as part of my sign-on package.)
July 4, 2022
A good collection of modern "best practices" for companies to hire, support, and develop their employees. There wasn't particularly a lot of new information here for me, but over the past decade I've seen startups beginning to adopt practices like these and for those that are still developing and figuring it out I think this book could be very helpful. From the practice of continuous feedback through the importance of clear, well-crafted growth frameworks, newer managers and first-time company founders should find a lot of useful ideas here.
August 27, 2021
I thought this was a great book with a lot of actionable items for a small amount of reading. I know from experience the impact you can have on a team but focusing on the people of the business. Focus on the people and they will come through for the business. Some of the advice I’ve read from other books but if you only had time to read one, this has a good chunk to make your work environment healthy and a safe space.
April 25, 2021
I had been anxiously waiting for this book for months! It really exceeded my expectations. It is insightful, practical, and meaningful. Loved that it is uncomplicated, successfully giving you both all the reasons and more why your company should be people centric, and the tools to get there. If you’re looking into how to develop your People strategy, you should start here :)
May 30, 2021
Definitely a great read. Speaks to HR professionals and executives alike. More beginner topics but a quick read that can get others to understand why people strategy is so important! Love the modern examples as well using well-known start-ups for reference points. Really modernizes the content and differentiates it from other similar books in the genre.
May 25, 2025
Pretty average book on how to encourage business leaders to focus on investing in their workforce. Nothing particularly novel, and the author writes rather unprecisely. Worth a glance but not much more than that.
August 28, 2021
In your people strategy:
- Hire for Values
- Continuous Feedback = No surprise
- Develop Employees
- Hire for Values
- Continuous Feedback = No surprise
- Develop Employees
August 31, 2021
Has some helpful nuggets useful for anyone managing a team but is very HR focused otherwise.
December 18, 2023
I like the sample questions to ask, not just of the employees, but leadership as well to help get a feel for how a company is doing.
October 8, 2023
Investing in people is paramount for any organization's success, making the need for an effective people strategy non-negotiable. 'People Strategy' sparks initial excitement with its compelling title, suggesting a roadmap for building such a strategy. Unfortunately, the content that follows feels less than satisfactory. It often seems to serve more as a promotional tool for the author's services rather than an in-depth guide on the subject. Nonetheless, it does provide a basic framework that can guide readers on where to dig deeper and which areas to explore for a more comprehensive understanding of the topic.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews