E9: Navigating the CEO-CPO Relationship with Lattice's Cara Brennan Allamano

Cara Brennan Allamano is the Chief People Officer at Lattice and previously at Udemy, Pinterest, and Adobe. Nolan and Kelli talk to Cara about the intricacies of building relationships with CEOs, different career paths for people leadership, undergoing layoffs with dignity, and the importance of saying "no" when necessary for the health of the organization. HR Heretics is part of the Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: www.turpentine.co

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SPONSORS: Lattice | Continuum

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High performance and great culture should never be at odds; they’re better together. With Lattice People Management Platform, companies efficiently run people programs that create enviable cultures where employees want to do their best work. Serving 1000s of customers of all sizes. Learn why companies from Slack to the LA Dodgers choose Lattice. https://www.lattice.com/hrheretics

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RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

Check out Run The Numbers! Kelli and Nolan were guests on the most recent episode: a deep dive into FIRING CEOs and EXECS. This one's hilarious. Listen here, wherever you get your podcasts: https://link.chtbl.com/runthenumbers

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KEEP UP WITH CARA, NOLAN, + KELLI ON LINKEDIN

Cara: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carabrennan/

Nolan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolan-church/

Kelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellidragovich/

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Episode Preview

(03:16) Being a people officer but having low tolerance for pain

(05:40) On getting excited about helping other people become successful

(06:55) The meta thing of careers according to Cara

(10:58) How do you get to that point where you can say no to your CEO?

(13:24) Sponsors - Lattice | Continuum

(14:52) How do you pick the right CEO to work with?

(17:17) On building a CPO career: Shiny object syndrome and focusing on the relationship with the CEO

(22:36) The paradox of choice

(30:40) On leaders coming outside of HR into HR

(37:34) Cara's insight on rolling layoffs

(41:46) Cara's biggest screw up in her career

(45:42) What does it look like to be an effective people team?

(46:56) All anybody wants is to be heard and respected

(50:50) On the biggest things to build successors in Lattice (and the idea of meritocracy)

(53:59) Cara's best hire

(54:40) Cara's favorite interview question that gets the best signal on candidates