SERVICES
Making progression visible.
Most of this work starts with a conversation. It's about the specific people you can't afford to lose, and what it takes to keep them.
Built on doctoral research with 45 senior partners. A global professional services firm is currently embedding these progression frameworks into its onboarding and leadership development across its international business.
HOW WE COULD WORK TOGETHER
From that first conversation, the work takes one of four forms.
Some I deliver, some I build alongside your team, some your team runs with my support. Here's how each one works, and when it fits.
I DELIVER THIS MYSELF
Speak
Keynotes, masterclasses and panels
A keynote or masterclass that makes the unwritten rules of progression visible to a leadership group, conference or team day. Evidence-based, brought to life in a way people recognise, and always with something practical to do next. Often where the relationship starts.
Fits when you want to open the conversation and set the tone.
ALONGSIDE YOUR TEAM, OR END TO END
Build
Materials and programmes
I create the onboarding guides, manager tools and leadership materials, built for your teams to deliver or delivered by me, globally and in your firm's own voice. Grounded in how progression decisions actually get made in your organisation, not a template applied to it.
Fits when you want lasting change built into the business, not a one-off event.
I REVIEW AND ADVISE
Sharpen
Review and advisory
I review and advise on what your teams have already built and rolled out: the onboarding, the development programmes, the progression frameworks. Then I tell you where the thinking lands, where it does not, and what to change so it works where it matters.
Fits when you have already invested in this and want to know whether it is doing what you hoped.
YOUR TEAM RUNS IT, WITH MY SUPPORT
Equip
Train and licence your team
I train your talent or L&D team to deliver the material themselves, and licence the Rules of the Game diagnostic and toolkit to your organisation to run internally. The capability lives in-house and scales across teams and regions, so the thinking keeps travelling long after I step back.
Fits when you want to roll this out at scale and own it yourselves.
Delivered in more than ten countries, to audiences from graduate intake to partner group.
THE RULES OF THE GAME FRAMEWORK™
Five things decide who progresses. None of them appear in a job description.
These came out of the interviews, which means each one can be measured.
01
Who looks ready
Some are assumed credible before they have proved anything. Others are asked to prove it twice.
THE SINGLE MOST COMMON THEME
03
Who gets sponsored
Support isn't sponsorship. Sponsorship is someone spending their own capital on you, in a room you're not in.
MOST TIED TO ADVANTAGE
05
Who can see it's possible
You cannot aim at something you've never seen. And being the visible one carries its own tax.
THE MOST STRONGLY FELT OF ALL
02
Who knows the rules
Some navigate the informal path without noticing. Others decode it alone, years too late.
RAISED UNPROMPTED BY 6 IN 10
04
Who is expected early
Being expected to make it carries people through their own doubt. It arrives unevenly.
EARLY EXPECTATION, FASTER PROGRESSION
WHERE THIS SITS
Where this sits alongside what you already run
This does not replace your performance, promotion or talent processes. It works on the layer underneath them: what people actually understand about how decisions get made, and how evenly that understanding is spread. In most firms the process is sound. The knowledge of it is not.
What the baseline measures
Against each of the five, how consistently people at a given level can describe what really drives progression, where they learned it, and whether that differs by group, level or region. Run it again after the work and you can see what moved.
"Joanne doesn't just understand the unwritten rules, she understands what it costs when organisations don't. She brings the rigour of a doctorate, the lived experience of someone who navigated these systems, and the pragmatism to actually change how organisations work. That combination is rare."
Sophie Pender
CEO & Founder, The 93% Club