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  Forté Signals

  The Myth Of The Career Ladder

  A colleague of mine said something the other day that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. We were talking about career ladders, the metaphor, the model, the whole idea, and she paused and said: Why did we all assume the ladder went up? I mean, what are ladders for, other than to get […]

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  Forté Signals

  The Graduation Speech I Wasn’t Asked to Give

  This is the time of year when people who are famous, accomplished, or both get invited to stand in front of a room full of graduating students and say something memorable. Graduation speeches are supposed to be inspirational. They are meant to give you good advice. And they are supposed to send you out the […]

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  Forté Signals

  The CFO Path Works. But the On-Ramps Are Closing.

  In the last post, I introduced the difference between signs and signals. At the simplest level, signs are the observable inputs. Signals are what those inputs get interpreted to mean. From an individual perspective, that shows up in familiar ways: your resume, your experience, your credentials. These are the signs. What people believe those things […]

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  Forté Signals

  Signs vs. Signals: The Two‑Letter Difference That Explains a Lot About Work

  For reasons that probably say something strange about me, I’ve been thinking about traffic signals a lot lately. Not because I’m secretly passionate about municipal infrastructure or have taken up a side hustle in urban planning. If anything, I’m the person who still gets irrationally annoyed when a left turn arrow takes too long. But […]

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  Forté Signals

  Rethinking the Elevator Pitch

  The 30-second pitch has been in the world of career advice for so long that it now feels less like advice and more like a professional rite of passage. We are told to keep it polished and ready, just in case someone important appears and asks us to summarize our entire professional existence before handing […]

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  Forté Signals

  Why “Let Your Work Speak for Itself” No Longer Works

  Many of us, ahem, professionals of a certain age, were given the same advice early in our careers: Let your work speak for itself. Focus on the work. Good work gets noticed. No one sat me down and delivered those exact words, but it was definitely in the air. And at the time, the advice […]

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