Melissa’s Memos

Most career advice is written for two seasons — the search and the role. Almost nothing is written for the in-between. The season where you’re still in the role but quietly outgrowing it. The months between resigning and starting somewhere new. The stretch where you took the leap and you’re not yet where you’re going.…

A director I worked with last quarter said the same thing in three different sentences during our first session: “Sorry, I’m rambling.”“This might not be helpful, but…”“I know I’m probably wrong here…” I asked her if I could share a pattern I was noticing. She nodded. I told her: in the first 15 minutes of…

Senior leaders are told constantly to “be coachable.” I think it’s the wrong frame. “Coachable” suggests being open to whatever someone wants to teach you. Accepting feedback. Adjusting. Improving. That sounds healthy. In practice, at the senior level, it often produces a specific kind of damage: leaders who absorb every piece of feedback indiscriminately and…

Something I don’t talk about often: I spent 20+ years on the corporate side of talent acquisition before I started this business. In rooms where senior hiring decisions got made. Reviewing resumes that would land senior leaders the rest of their careers, or wouldn’t. Coaching hiring managers through interviews. Watching, repeatedly, how the same small…