Mastering the Corporate Chess Game: Strategies for Advancing Your Career

A playbook for decoding unspoken rules of work culture and accelerating up the corporate ladder

Every workplace operates on a set of unwritten norms that shape its internal culture. While business schools and management programs can provide excellent training in finance, marketing, strategy, and research methods, they rarely prepare students for how to discern these unspoken rules that are crucial for career mobility.

Mastering the Corporate Chess Game is a playbook for deciphering these workplace norms, especially in the formative stages of one's career. Through an inspiring collection of relatable experiences, this book equips readers with the tools and mind-set to make their own moves as they advance in their organizations. Contributors from a variety of business sectors share personal stories that reflect on their early career challenges, beginning with particular puzzles or obstacles and culminating in a solution or a pivot—sometimes several in one career. Despite not knowing the norms, not knowing how to seek guidance, and not being prepared for frustration, each of these successful professionals provides practical strategies for decoding the unwritten rules of the workplace. Whether switching companies, transitioning fields, or launching entrepreneurial ventures, they reveal proactive steps for figuring out the rules of the "corporate chess game."

Mastering the Corporate Chess Game will benefit young professionals eager to understand workplace dynamics, forge meaningful connections, and build collaborative teams.

© 2025 Georgetown University Press (Ebook): 9781647126490

Release date

Ebook: 3 November 2025