Blog

Why Careers Fail?

There are a lot of reasons why leaders fail. Knowing what might cause you to fail — and responding to it — helps you succeed. That matters because 1 in 4 leaders fail. What do I mean by fail? It is not necessarily losing your job. In some ways, it might be worse than that: it is not meeting expectations, not living up to your promise, becoming ordinary, being (just) good enough—the kind of performance that is not bad enough to cost you your role, but probably bad enough to co

May 304 min read

The Most Important Career Conversation of the Year Just Happened. Without You.

At any one time, we are doing three things. Even if we aren’t conscious of it. Delivering results. Building our reputation. Working toward something bigger. And while we do that, our organisations are quietly assessing who's performing, who has potential, and who will be getting more development and faster career growth. That assessment has a name. It's called a Talent Review. In most organisations with a serious approach to people, leaders gather periodically to assess ta

May 144 min read

Leaders Eat Culture For Breakfast

Culture is built (and destroyed!) by what leaders say, do and tolerate every single day. Leaders directly shape culture through three levers: the expectations they set, the behaviour they model and the accountability they enforce. All three. Together. Consistently. Simple, right? You are doing it… Of course, you are. And yet. We see three archetypes show up consistently across organizations and geographies. To bring each archetype to life, we'll use a leader by the name of Bo

May 93 min read

Leaders Eat Culture for Breakfast

May 93 min read

Is Your Job Actually Making You Grow?

When it comes to development, it’s the quality of the challenge that matters. There's a phrase for it: developmental heat. There's an emphasis in professional development today: growth is associated with being given a coach, being assigned a sponsor, or maybe having your MBA supported. High-touch, white-glove development. It has to be the best strategy, right? Wrong. Roughly 70% of meaningful development happens through the work itself: through the stretch, the pressure,

Mar 294 min read

Still living in the 90's? Performance Management Needs a Rethink. Again.

by Angela Lane and Sergey Gorbatov Performance has long been one of the central levers of talent management. Most organizations still rely on a familiar formula: set goals at the start of the year, review progress along the way, and evaluate performance at the end of the year. That model made sense in a stable world. It makes less sense now. AI is reshaping work. Business priorities are shifting faster, roles are evolving in real time, and teams are being reconfigured more of

Mar 283 min read

It's Time To Get Political.

Let's talk about power. Not leadership power. Not empowerment. But power. The uncomfortable kind. The kind that determines who gets noticed, who gets promoted, and who gets passed over despite exceptional work. The politics of your career. Now pause. Notice how you're feeling. If our opening paragraph made you tense up — if something in it makes you want to click away — this article is for you. The Uncomfortable Truth About Value We've spent decades studying and advising o

Mar 73 min read

Ask Better, Receive Better: Why Your Feedback Isn’t Working (and the edge you need to fix it)

Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: feedback is one of the most overused words in corporate life… and one of the least effective behaviors in corporate life. We tell managers, “Give more feedback.” We tell employees, “Be open to feedback.” Then we act surprised when nothing changes. But here’s the punchline from our recent LinkedIn Live : feedback doesn’t just fail sometimes. In a meaningful chunk of cases, it actively makes performance worse. One major meta-analysis

Jan 314 min read

Talent Management in the Age of AI: Vital or Obsolete?

By Angela Lane & Sergey Gorbatov AI is transforming work and business at an extraordinary speed. It promises to automate not only manual tasks but also decisions, problem-solving, interactions, and even creative processes. When talent is scarce (and most will agree it is), this must be good news. But it raises a provocative question: If AI can alleviate talent scarcity, will talent management remain relevant? Our answer is yes — though the reasons may evolve. How We Got He

Nov 9, 20254 min read

Choose the “Ignored but Important” Problems

If you scroll through any thread on Reddit's r/CareerGuidance asking people what changed their careers, you’ll notice something fascinating. It’s often stories about saying yes to something everyone else ignored. One user wrote, “I work in land surveying. I was a field guy, and the company wanted another person in the office. No one wanted to do it, so I did. I’m now on my way to being licensed and I work from home. I guess doing what other people don’t want to do.” (u/ cam

Nov 1, 20253 min read