Secrets of the Career Game

The corporate game is more subtle than office politics: your reputation follows you into rooms you never enter.
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Being excellent at your job doesn't mean leadership understands your impact. Kendall Berg explains what the Career Game actually means on Secrets of the Career Game. It's not simply corporate politics, manipulation, or taking credit for someone else's work. It's understanding the unwritten rules that shape career advancement.
Kendall shares how senior leaders overlooked a 10-month project despite regular updates and executive presentations. She reveals five essential rules for navigating corporate America, from communicating your value to building a strong professional reputation. Because career growth requires more than hard work, technical skills, and hoping the right people notice.
Key questions and takeaways:
What is the Career Game, and why isn't it just office politics?

How do you communicate your business impact when your boss doesn't recognize your work?

Why are career advancement decisions made when you're not in the room?

How do you build a personal brand and professional network that advocates for you?

How does your manager influence company culture and your career growth?

The Career Game isn't about becoming someone you're not. It's about understanding the rules, taking ownership of your career, and making intentional moves.
About Your Host: Kendall Berg | That Career Coach
Kendall Berg, known as That Career Coach, is the host of Secrets of the Career Game, a career development podcast helping ambitious professionals navigate corporate politics, get promoted, and advance their careers.
Kendall shares practical career advice on workplace communication, leadership, executive presence, performance reviews, and building visibility at work. Her mission is to help you understand the unwritten rules of corporate America, advocate for yourself, and make strategic career moves without compromising who you are.
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Connect with Kendall Berg
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatcareercoach_/
🌐 Website & Career Resources: https://thatcareercoach.net/
▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thatcareercoach_

Office politics can make speaking up risky, but strategic communication can earn respect when leadership underestimates you.
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Being underestimated in the corporate game is frustrating; being expected to agree with every executive decision is worse. On Secrets of the Career Game, Kendall Berg and executive coach Katy McFee examine managing up and workplace communication. A former VP and EVP, Katy recalls challenging her CEO's misaligned strategy without damaging trust. They tackle executive presence, workplace bias, and how to speak up with authority without changing your personality. Katy's three-step framework shows how to push back professionally, suggest alternatives, and build influence without becoming a yes person.
What's one "corporate game" rule you've learned the hard way?
About Your Host: That Career Coach, Kendall Berg
Kendall Berg is a career coach and creator, helping ambitious professionals master the unspoken rules of corporate life. Through Secrets of the Career Game, she shares honest conversations and practical tools to help you communicate clearly, lead confidently, and navigate work with strategy — not stress.
☕️ Want personalized career advice? Book a free 15-minute Coffee Chat with me — let's talk strategy, leadership, or your next move.
Book your Coffee Chat → https://calendly.com/thatcareercoach/15-min-follow-up
Want to know more about Kendal Berg, that career coach?
Follow her on Instagram: @thatcareercoach_
Check out her courses on the website: https://thatcareercoach.net/

Watch on YouTube:@thatcareercoach_
About Katy McFee
Katy McFee is an executive coach and founder of Insights to Action, dedicated to helping women advance into senior leadership. With 18 years of experience in tech and biotech sales, including VP and EVP roles, she has built commercial teams and driven nine-figure revenue growth. After navigating her own challenges moving from Manager to Director to VP, Katy now helps ambitious professionals develop strategic thinking, executive presence, and leadership confidence. Her mission is to close the gender gap in senior leadership and help women thrive as executives without burning out.
Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/katy-mcfee-3880b4a 
Website: https://insightstoactioncc.com/

Being right at work doesn't mean you're winning the room. Here's how to build influence without damaging trust.
You can have the strongest argument in the room and still walk away having damaged your professional relationships. Executive communication coach and Powerfully Likable author Dr. Kate Mason explains why effective workplace communication takes more than confidence or being right.
Kendall Berg lived this — earlier in her career, she was told she was excellent at her job, but difficult to work with. Together they break down how to be assertive without being aggressive, how to disagree professionally, handle difficult conversations, respond to resistance without getting emotional, and build executive presence with senior leaders.
You'll also hear why trying to appear confident backfires, what "kill your confidence" really means — focus on value, not performance — and how accountability and owning mistakes protects your reputation and helps you recover faster.
Because winning every argument won't help your career if nobody wants you in the room.
Learn more about Dr. Kate Mason and her book Powerfully Likable: https://katemason.co
What's one "corporate game" rule you've learned the hard way?
About Your Host: That Career Coach, Kendall Berg
Kendall Berg is a career coach and creator, helping ambitious professionals master the unspoken rules of corporate life. Through Secrets of the Career Game, she shares honest conversations and practical tools to help you communicate clearly, lead confidently, and navigate work with strategy — not stress.
☕️ Want personalized career advice? Book a free 15-minute Coffee Chat with me — let's talk strategy, leadership, or your next move.
Book your Coffee Chat → https://calendly.com/thatcareercoach/15-min-follow-up
Want to know more about Kendal Berg, that career coach?
Follow her on Instagram: @thatcareercoach_
Check out her courses on the website: https://thatcareercoach.net/

Watch on YouTube:@thatcareercoach_

Stop listing tasks in your performance review — turn them into evidence for a raise.
Description: Strong performance can still disappear inside a weak self-evaluation. In this end-of-year performance review guide, Kendall Berg shows how to turn accomplishments into evidence with impact, metrics, and stakeholders, plus stretch assignments, leadership growth, and professional development.
You'll learn how to write a forward-looking review, how to mention promotion at work without sounding entitled, how to address negative feedback without writing a case against yourself, and how to get 360-degree feedback your manager can use to defend a stronger rating. Includes performance review examples for documenting fire drills, soft skills like executive presence and delegation, and the Compliment Oreo for giving constructive feedback.
For high performers who did the work but need to articulate their value clearly so their boss — and their boss's boss — can advocate for them.
Drop a comment: What's the one win you need to document better this year?
What's one "corporate game" rule you've learned the hard way?
About Your Host: That Career Coach, Kendall Berg
Kendall Berg is a career coach and creator, helping ambitious professionals master the unspoken rules of corporate life. Through Secrets of the Career Game, she shares honest conversations and practical tools to help you communicate clearly, lead confidently, and navigate work with strategy — not stress.
☕️ Want personalized career advice? Book a free 15-minute Coffee Chat with me — let's talk strategy, leadership, or your next move.
Book your Coffee Chat → https://calendly.com/thatcareercoach/15-min-follow-up
Want to know more about Kendal Berg, that career coach?
Follow her on Instagram: @thatcareercoach_
Check out her courses on the website: https://thatcareercoach.net/

Watch on YouTube:@thatcareercoach_

Hard work alone won't earn your next promotion—executive presence, visibility, and strategic thinking will.
Hard work can make you indispensable at your current level while keeping you out of senior leadership. Moving from high performer to executive requires different signals: strategic thinking, executive presence, and workplace visibility. Drawing on 17 rejections on her path to two VP roles and experience at Microsoft and Google, executive coach Maya Grossman explains how changing what she prioritized transformed her career. She and Kendall Berg reveal how to build a promotion business case around future value, create executive advocates before review season, and eliminate low-value work that drains leadership capacity. If you're stalled at senior manager or director, you'll leave with a practical 90-day plan for proving your executive potential without working yourself into the ground.


What's one "corporate game" rule you've learned the hard way?
About Your Host: That Career Coach, Kendall Berg
Kendall Berg is a career coach and creator, helping ambitious professionals master the unspoken rules of corporate life. Through Secrets of the Career Game, she shares honest conversations and practical tools to help you communicate clearly, lead confidently, and navigate work with strategy — not stress.
☕️ Want personalized career advice? Book a free 15-minute Coffee Chat with me — let's talk strategy, leadership, or your next move.
Book your Coffee Chat → https://calendly.com/thatcareercoach/15-min-follow-up
Want to know more about Kendal Berg, that career coach?
Follow her on Instagram: @thatcareercoach_
Check out her courses on the website: https://thatcareercoach.net/

Watch on YouTube:@thatcareercoach_
Connect With Maya Grossman
Website: https://www.mayagrossman.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maya.grosmn/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayagrossman/
Free masterclass: Visit Maya's LinkedIn profile to identify the biggest gap preventing your promotion and access tools to address it.