Report: Unwritten Rules: Why Doing a Good Job Might Not Be Enough

In this report, sixty-five women and men from a variety of industries and roles described many behaviors and individual skills that are helpful to advance or valued when it comes to promotional opportunities. Insights from participants include:

• Building professional relationships, whether through networks and affinity groups or with mentors, supervisors, and other individuals who can share knowledge emerged as particularly important.
• Effective communication and defining career goals were also deemed important to success.
• Respondents sometimes learned about important career rules by trial and error or simple observations, but many were proactive in asking colleagues and supervisors for information to understand how things work in their organization.
• Respondents also said that they wished they had known that “just” working hard is not enough to succeed or that they had been more aware of organizational politics and about the advantages of self-promotion.

Partnering Sponsors: DuPont; IBM Corporation; Time Warner Inc.
Contributing Sponsors: Campbell Soup Company; Key Foundation; Xerox Corporation