November 2025
- Nov 19, 2025Work SkillsHow Careers Actually ProgressLauren Rivera sat in on hiring and promotion deliberations at elite banks, law firms and consultancies and found that when performance evidence was ambiguous, committees fell back on shared cultural markers: the same schools, mutual acquaintances, familiar activities. Candidates already known to the room got more favorable readings of identical evidence. The article breaks the gap between performance and promotability into six drivers.
- Nov 19, 2025Work SkillsGrowth Plateaus ExplainedA plateau is a structural mismatch, not an effort problem: you are succeeding at work that no longer demonstrates what the next level requires. The five types, skills, visibility, political, structural, and motivation, each need a different fix. Herminia Ibarra's research on career transitions found that identity clarity follows experimentation rather than preceding it, so small provisional experiments beat trying to figure out what you want first.
- Nov 18, 2025Work SkillsPromotion Myths ExplainedSylvia Ann Hewlett's study of 12,000 employees for Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor found that people with active sponsors, senior leaders who argue for them in rooms they are not in, were likelier to be promoted even after controlling for performance ratings, experience and credentials. Among women and minority professionals the gap reached 30 percent higher promotion probability. Private encouragement does not do this; public advocacy before decision-makers does.
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