I work with professional services firms and large global organisations, where progression is competitive and the rules that decide it were never written down.
THE COST
When the rules stay hidden, you pay for the same talent twice.
They stall
Capable people plateau a level below where they should be, and get quietly recoded as not quite ready. The label sticks long after it stops being true.
The relationships go with them.
In professional services the client relationship often sits with the individual rather than the firm. When a senior person leaves, the trust they built can leave with them, and it sometimes turns up at a competitor. That is revenue, not headcount.
They leave
Regretted attrition concentrates exactly where you can least afford it: mid-tier, post-promotion, after years of investment. In McKinsey's research, the most common reason people gave for leaving was a lack of career development and advancement, ahead of pay. (McKinsey, The Great Attrition, 2022)
You rehire
You replace them at a multiple of salary and rebuild the same capability, often with someone who will hit the same invisible ceiling. The Society for Human Resource Management puts the cost of replacing someone at 50% to 200% of salary, and for senior people at the top of that range. (SHRM, 2025)
This is talent you have already paid to develop. Make the rules visible and you keep the people you would have lost, and the ones who have stalled start moving again.
THE PROBLEM
For the future leaders you have already backed, performance gets them noticed. On its own, it will not get them promoted.
01
Performance
Results and capability. Necessary, and the only part most people are ever taught to manage.
02
Perception
​How that performance is read by the people who decide. Credibility is granted, not earned, and it is granted on cues nobody writes down.
03
Progression
Timing, readiness, sponsorship, opportunity. The distance between deserving the promotion and being given it.
In my research, 6 in 10 partners raised the rules of the game unprompted. The people who get there understand the second and third columns. Everyone else is still optimising the first.
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ABOUT
Dr Joanne Conway
For twenty years inside complex global organisations, I watched how progression really worked, and who it worked for. It was not always the most capable people who got ahead; it was the ones who already understood the unwritten rules.
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That took me from a master's to a doctorate, interviewing 45 senior partners about how promotion decisions actually get made. When those rules stay invisible, talented people stall or leave, and organisations lose the very people they spent years developing.
I built this practice for the brilliant people who shouldn't have to work twice as hard to be seen, and for the organisations smart enough to stop losing them.
Ways to Work Together
Most of this work starts with a conversation. From there it takes one of four forms. Some I deliver, some I build with your team, some your team runs with my support.
Speak
A keynote or masterclass that makes the unwritten rules visible to a room.
Sharpen
A review of what your teams have already built, so the thinking actually lands.
Build
Onboarding guides, manager tools and leadership materials, in your firm's own voice.
Equip
Your talent or L&D team trained and licensed to deliver the material themselves.
DIVE INTO
Resources & Insights
Practical tools, insights and ideas to help leaders navigate progression with clarity and confidence.
"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
Practical talks that make the invisible rules of progression visible, and give people something to do about them.
A global professional services firm is currently embedding these progression frameworks into its onboarding and leadership development across its international business.