“What gets measured gets managed.” Every December, otherwise intelligent people sit down to write their year-end review and suddenly discover they have apparently achieved nothing since February. This is not because they did nothing. It is because twelve months of work has disappeared into a fog of meetings, deadlines, client calls, small wins, difficult conversations, rescued projects and the occasional miracle nobody remembers because by 4pm everyone had moved on to the nex

“Marry in haste, repent at leisure.”— Proverb There is a peculiar moment in every recruitment process when common sense quietly leaves the building. You have spent three weeks trying to convince a company that you are brilliant, and then, suddenly, they agree. They want you.Champagne! Validation! Tell your mother! Except somewhere between the final interview and the offer letter, we often forget something rather important: you were supposed to be interviewing them too. A job

“Your reputation precedes you.” Years ago, someone explained promotions to me in a way I have never forgotten. By the time you are officially told that you are being considered for promotion, quite a lot of the deciding has already happened. Somewhere, perhaps over coffee, perhaps in a talent meeting with a terrible sandwich, your name has come up. Someone has said, “She’s excellent.” Someone else has said, “Yes, but is she ready?” A third person may have said nothing at all

How healthy is yours? “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” Forget the org chart for a minute. There is another chart that may matter considerably more to your career. Your work family constellation. The people around you who collectively influence how well — or badly — your working life works. You probably have a few characters already. The Work Mum: tells you when you're being ridiculous and makes sure you eat before the 4pm meeting. The Big Sibling: slightl

Advice is lovely. Advocacy changes careers. "A mentor talks to you. A sponsor talks about you." Most women have heard the phrase: "Go find yourself a mentor." or "Join this mentoring programme." Let me be very blunt here, I have not met a single person whose career moved through a mentor. What moves careers is people dropping your name for opportunities, in rooms you don't have access to. "What about Nina. She worked on this client project in Asia last year. This is just the

Stay? Go? Step up? Change direction? Start something? “Your reputation has compound interest. Don’t cash it in too quickly.”— Nora Stolz There comes a point in most careers when the next move stops being obvious. Maybe the job feels too small. Maybe you’ve stopped learning. Maybe someone else’s promotion has made you wonder whether you should be moving too. The instinct is often: I need a new job. Maybe. But “new” and “better” are not the same thing. Before you leave, check w

Some career lessons are considerably cheaper to borrow. “Smart people learn through their mistakes, but the smartest people learn from others.” There are two ways to acquire career wisdom. You can learn everything yourself. Take the wrong job. Trust the wrong person. Stay too long. Leave too soon. Spend several years believing you need to have every answer before opening your mouth. Eventually, you become very wise. It is just a rather expensive educational model. Or you can

8 questions to ask before accepting a job offer — before the flattery wears off. Getting a job offer does something funny to otherwise perfectly sensible people. After weeks of interviews, waiting and wondering whether they liked you, someone finally says: We’d like to offer you the job. Lovely. The brain hears: THEY PICKED ME. And suddenly all those intelligent questions you had disappear somewhere near the bottom of your inbox. Before you sign, stop. A job offer is flatteri