Episode 2: Let's Talk About The Club

How invisible power networks shape your career (without you even knowing.)
Ever had that sinking feeling that something important happened… and you weren’t in the room for it? Or that a decision was made before the meeting? Or even that someone less capable got the opportunity, and you’re still “being patient”?

That’s The Club in action. No badges. No invites. But plenty of power.

In this episode of Little Moves, Big Careers, host Caroline Esterson lifts the lid on the informal influence networks that quietly shape who gets picked, praised, and promoted at work, and what to do when you're left circling outside the velvet rope.

We’re talking unspoken rules, invisible handshakes, and the subtle but brutal difference between being relied on and being recognised.

What you’ll learn:

• Why effort doesn’t equal visibility, and what to focus on instead
• How “The Club” forms (Please know it’s not always evil, it’s often emotional)
• The neuroscience of exclusion and why it literally hurts to be overlooked
• How to decode informal power at work and stop blaming yourself for broken systems
• 3 bold career moves to build influence without needing to be loud, fake, or pushy

Segment Highlights:
Are YOU in The Club?
A cheeky, scarily accurate quiz to help you spot the signs.

Real or Rubbish?
Decode whether that weird workplace moment is Club Code or just corporate chaos.

What Would Caro Do?
A listener from Preston is DONE being overlooked. Auntie Caro gives them the rally cry (and the strategy) to reclaim their power.

Quickfire Career Moves
3 bold-but-doable actions to reposition yourself as a strategic player (not just a helpful extra.)

Career Quote Crime
“If you work hard, you’ll be recognised.”
Seriously! You won’t. Caroline debunks this bedtime story with facts, fire, and a much smarter reframe.

BONUS TOOLS:
Download your Informal Influence Mapper
This episode’s free tool helps you spot hidden power players and map your own influence strategy, so you can stop shouting into the void and start whispering in the right ears.
DOWNLOAD IT HERE

If you’ve ever thought, “I don’t know what else I can do…”
You’re not the problem.
But you might be playing by rules no one explained to you.

This episode will help you flip the script and help you start making moves that actually get noticed.

For more tools, transcripts, and cheeky extras:
inspireyourgenius.com/podcast

Send your bold career dilemmas to:
caroline@inspireyourgenius.com

Subscribe to Little Moves, Big Careers - the podcast for brilliant-but-overlooked people who are DONE waiting to be picked.

Ready to make your next bold move? Grab the free Bold Move Audit and join the insider crew.

Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at caroline@inspireyourgenius.com - I read them all.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome To The Club
• 3:49 Understanding Club Dynamics
• 6:47 The Origins Of The Club
• 10:12 The Emotional Impact Of Exclusion
• 12:31 Spotting The Club In Action
• 16:14 Turning Frustration Into Strength
• 20:48 Quick Fire Career Moves
• 23:05 Reframing The Hard Work Myth

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04)
Can you keep a secret? Come a little closer. Come a little closer. There's a club at work. They don't wear badges. They don't have meetings. Well, not the ones you're invited to anyway, but they do have power. The kind of power that decides who gets picked and who gets praised or who gets quietly forgotten. And if you're not in it, ⁓ you feel it in the missed emails, the closed doors, the sorry, we've already moved forward moments.

This episode is your guided tour of what no one explains, but everyone experiences. Thank you for joining me at the Little Moves Big Careers podcast. I'm Caroline Esterson, career strategist and sticker of brilliant humans and your co-pilot through the chaos of the real world careers. And this podcast, well, it's for you if you've ever done everything right and still felt stuck, overlooked or like you were shouting into a team's call on mute. Welcome to episode two.

Let's talk about the club.

This isn't a pep talk, it's a practical guide with a glitch in its eye. Smart moves, slight chaos, welcome to little moves, big careers.

So what is the club? The club isn't formal. You don't get invited. You either get absorbed or ignored. It's built on unspoken trust, early access and casual influence. You're known, not just juiceful. You're in the loop before the loop becomes a loop. You get the pre-meet, the side chat, the coffee nod from someone with budgets. And here's the kicker. It's rarely about capability. It's all about visibility, trust, vibe, timing.

And yeah, it can feel like a secret handshake you weren't taught. Let me give you a couple of real examples. One still makes me twitch. I was 24, desperate for a promotion. A role opened up, I went for it and I prepped really hard. I was naively optimistic and then, enter Mark. Let's call him that though, to be fair, I could call him a lot worse. As I'm about to walk into my interview,

Mark, who clearly had been lurking in the shadows like some low-budget Bond villain, sidles up to me and smirks sarcastically. Caroline, I you didn't spend too much time prepping. You know I've already got the job, don't you? And guess what? You had. So fast forward a few years and I'm on the other side of the table. Literally, I'm sitting on a panel to recruit a new head of shared services. We've got one internal cancer and two externals.

one of those externals, absolutely brilliant, bang on fit, direct experience, sharp, the work, you know the kinds. The internal candidate, well, he was lovely, but he only had finance experience. None of the broader remit we needed. So I'm holding my ground until the director who clearly has his favorite starts pushing. We break for a loose stop because of course that's what we do. And in the ladies toilets, one of the panel whispers,

Caroline, you might as well give it up. Robert was always going to get the job. We're here just ticking boxes. I was livid. Determined not to go down without a fight. But back in the room, the director clearly had had enough of playing the game and he just drops. I've made my decision. Who's with me? And just like that, the club closed ranks. So if you're wondering whether you're in it or you're not, let's find out, shall we? Let's play. Are you in the club?

Speaker 2 (03:49)
It's GAME TIME!

Speaker 1 (03:52)
Zero prizes, mild embarrassment, but hopefully...

Speaker 2 (03:58)
Whoa! You made it to the club! That's right! No interview needed, no application necessary. All you had to do was be in the right WhatsApp group. Your welcome pack includes vague compliments, unspoken promotions, and a secret handshake involving coffee and plausible deniability. Remember, actual competence is optional. And don't worry, we won't tell the others. That's part of the fun!

Speaker 1 (04:27)
Billy, thank you for that wonderful introduction and to our audience, I'd like to introduce you to Bill Esterson, my fantastic husband who is aiding me on this endeavor. So onto the game. Billy's going to read out a few questions for you. All you have to do is count out how many you've seen or heard about firsthand. Keep the score in your head. Are you ready? Take it away, Billy.

Speaker 2 (04:53)
Have you ever found out about an opportunity after it was already filled? Have you watched someone less experienced skip ahead while you were still awaiting your turn? Have you noticed some people get invited to the real decision-making meeting and others get the calendar invite for the debrief? Have you seen a job spec mysteriously shift to match the chosen candidate's experience?

Do certain people get forgiven for mistakes that others would be crucified for? Have you ever had a colleague say, don't bother replying, they've already picked someone.

Speaker 1 (05:37)
So what do you think of those? you've answered yes to more than two, well congratulations, you have seen the club in action. Whether or not you fit in it is a whole different story.

Speaker 2 (05:51)
Club rules apply. No transparency, no fairness. And best of all, no questions asked!

Speaker 1 (05:59)
Now, come on, you know, it's easy to roast the club, isn't it? To sit back, glass of wine in hand, muttering, of course, Greg got the invite. And hey, some of that's fair. There are closed doors in jokes and inside tracks that feel stitched into the carpet. But here's the thing, if all we do is complain about it, we stay exactly where the club wants us. On the outside, eyes rolling and not influencing. So let's flip this.

Let's get curious about why the club even exists. Let's understand how it forms, how it's fueled and how to mess gently with the wiring. Not to play the game the same way, but to stop giving up your control just because the rules are unspoken. So you ready? Let's break this down.

Speaker 2 (06:47)
Time for brain food, the research bit. But make it cheeky.

Speaker 1 (06:52)
Because we all love evidence, especially when it supports our own experiences. So where did all this start? Let's be real, the club isn't you. It used to be the boys club. You know the one, deals done over whiskey, ideas floated on the golf course, promotions decided at the pub. So when people say I'm doing all the right things, but nothing's landing, it's often because they haven't been told the real rules, the ones no one writes down.

Everyone inside just seems to know. And here's something else to chew on. We like to mock the club as this smug power circle of cronies. And yes, sometimes it is. But let's get honest about how it started. The club didn't begin out of pure arrogance. It began with something softer. Loneliness. Because actually, when you're at the top of the hierarchy, it's brutal. Every decision is watched.

Every failure is yours. It's lonely. It's isolating and it's emotionally expensive. So what do people do when they feel exposed? They gather people they trust, people who feel familiar, people who speak the same language and are on their wavelength, people who won't challenge them when things go wrong. Or if they do challenge them, they do it in a way that gets heard. Old friends, loyal colleagues, familiar faces.

people who went to the same school, played the same sport, or wouldn't rock the boat. And boom, the club is born. Not necessarily out of cruelty, but out of comfort. Here's the problem though. When comfort gets confused with competence, power stays in the circle, challenge disappears, and the same people get picked again and again and again. Not because they're best, but because they're the safest.

And when someone new shows up, someone who doesn't already get the unwritten rules, they don't get told you're not in, they just don't get invited. And you know what's wild? The companies that shout the loudest about fairness are often the ones quietly doing the least to check it. There's research on this. Castilla and Bernard ran a set of studies on leaders within organizations that proudly called themselves meritocracies. We reward performance, they said.

We're objective, gender and background don't fit in. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? But in reality, those fair companies were actually more likely to reward men over women, even when the work was identical. Why? Because the moment we believe the system is fair, we stop questioning our own bias. We trust our guts and our guts, surprise, surprise, they're biased. That's what the paradox is.

The more we're convinced we're being objective, the less we see the quiet ways in which we're not. And that, my friend, is the perfect breeding ground for the club because when everyone thinks the system is working, no one is questioning who's being chosen or who never even saw the invite. Meritocracy? Great on paper. Terrible in practice unless someone's really watching the levers closely. So let's dig around those dark corners of organizations a little further.

and talk about what the club actually feels like. It's not just about who gets the invite, it's about what that invite does to people on both sides of the velvet rope. On the inside, it feels comfortable, reassuring. You don't have to second guess whether you belong, you just do. You know the tone to strike, you know when to speak and when to say silence. You're looped in early and you don't even notice it.

because that's just how things work. But here's the thing, that comfort, it becomes invisible. You stop noticing your privilege. You assume your access is normal and earned, which means you stop questioning why others aren't in the room. And that's where the blind spot grows. So now let's flip it on the other side. It's not just exclusion, it's erosion.

It's erosion of confidence, of visibility, of trust in your own brilliance. You're constantly trying to decode what's really going on. You see decisions are being made in WhatsApp groups you're not in. You get copied in on the email after the choices are locked. You speak up and then get blank stares. Then Greg repeats it with a joke and a full report and gets a full round of applause. And even if no one says it out loud,

Your brain feels it because exclusion activates the same neural pain pathways in your brain, the physical pain. Being left out literally hurts. It's not being sensitive. It's neuroscience. The results, you shrink, you start to play safe. You doubt what you know, because without context or clarity, everything feels like a test you just didn't revise for.

And that, my friend, is the emotional tax of being outside the club. It's not just missed opportunities. It's the quiet pressure to contort yourself just to be seen. So how do you spot the club in real life? ⁓ don't worry. We're not done yet because now we're playing a special second game just because the power of the club deserves it.

Welcome to Real or Rubbish, a cheeky decoding of club culture, one suspicious symbol at a time. From shared Spotify pay lists to mysterious calendar invites, from golf jokes to quick drinks after the board meeting, let's separate the subtle clues from the corporate nonsense. Grab your pen or your petty, I don't really mind which. It's time to clock the code. So here are the rules. Billy's going to read you a situation.

All you have to do is guess. it club code or just corporate noise? Is that clear? Okay, let's go.

Speaker 2 (13:07)
So the job spec says must have five years of experience, but the person hired has just two. and by the way, they play squash with the COO.

Speaker 1 (13:20)
Wow, club co definitely. Apparently the only requirement was a decent backhand and a shared WhatsApp thread called Legends on Court.

Speaker 2 (13:31)
the leadership team suddenly starts using a buzzword like especially this one authenticity. ⁓ Yep. By Monday, it's on a banner. It's on a mug. and it's definitely a slack.

Speaker 1 (13:44)
fantastic! Obviously corporate noise, branding bingo, no one is actually being more authentic are they?

Speaker 2 (13:52)
You ask your manager about a development opportunity and two weeks later Dave is doing the job. ⁓

Speaker 1 (13:59)
⁓

Clubcode, you were the pilot, Dave became the rollout and yes now he's owning it all over LinkedIn.

Speaker 2 (14:08)
You have three degrees, glowing feedback, and a killer track record. Barry, on the other hand, once presented a mediocre PowerPoint to the CEO. Guess what? It's Barry that gets FastTrack.

Speaker 1 (14:25)
you're gonna love Barry, haven't you? It's definitely club code. He's got what's known as proximity privilege. You've got actual talent. luck.

Speaker 2 (14:36)
Your boss's boss introduces you as support. That's in a room where you are leading and have done all of the work on the project.

Speaker 1 (14:47)
God, never seen that happen, you? ⁓ Think that might be a little bit of club of code dressed up as corporate noise. I don't think that was a slip to you. It was a subtle power play. And just like that, your work is in the room, but your name isn't.

Speaker 2 (15:05)
about this one. Your project gets taken off your plate that's so you can focus on your demanding business as usual schedule. It reappears a week later but it's got someone else's name on it by now.

Speaker 1 (15:21)
God, definitely club code. You know, the translation is we loved your idea. We just didn't want you to do it. So as you can see, folks, the club is everywhere. And you know what? Once you start spotting it, you can start to navigate it differently. I'm not saying blow up the building.

What I am saying is stop blaming yourself. Stop assuming it's your confidence, your effort or your timing that somehow you're the problem because often it's not you. It's the game behind the game and no one gave you the rule book. So instead of spiralling, start noticing who's in the pre-meets, who set up that quick sync before the real meeting, who gets airtime without shouting, who gets forgiven when they mess up and who just gets forgotten.

Most importantly, who's pulling the strings behind the scene? Clock them, learn from them, ask for advice, even if it makes you cringe a little bit. What's the worst that can happen? They say no, fine. But what if they say yes? I get it. You want to chuck your laptop in the canal. You want to roll your eyes so hard that they get stuck backwards. You want to scream. What's the bloody use of working hard if no one's even looking? But this.

This moment of frustrated truth is the turning point because as we said before, you always have a choice. You can stay pissed or you can get powerful. You can let it eat away at your motivation or you can use it as fuel to play smarter, bolder and sharper. This, this right here, this is where the smart moves lives. Not the obvious one, not the exhausting one, the clever cheeky

visibility boosting, no more waiting. You can decode it. You can decide what power move is in your control. You can learn how to play the long game without selling out. So let's do that. Let's take this sting and turn it into strategy.

Speaker 2 (17:30)
It's time for what would Caro do like a career agony aunt but with less cardigan and more fuck

Speaker 1 (17:37)
because sometimes you don't need permission, you just need better advice. This one's from Still Not Picked in Preston.

Speaker 2 (17:44)
Dear Auntie Caro, I've done all the right things. I've said yes to stretch projects. I've mentored new starters. I even helped my boss prepare for his budget meeting. Everyone tells me I'm doing great. But when the juicy opportunities come up, I disappear. I'm not flashy. I'm just solid. And I'm exhausted trying to prove I'm good enough. People who already seem to have made their minds up.

I've watched less experienced colleagues get tapped on the shoulder for secondments, leadership programs and high profile work while I get told to be patient. Honestly, I'm sick of being patient. I'm starting to feel like the only way to move forward is to become someone I'm not or just give up. What would you do?

Speaker 1 (18:41)
or my love I feel for you. Let me just say it out loud and clear for the people in the cheap seats. Being solid is not the same as being seen. You are not the problem, but the system will absolutely let you believe you are because it benefits from people like you quietly keeping everything running while someone flashier gets the spotlight. And you need to understand this. It's not that they don't value you.

It's that they're used to you. They rely on you. You're just so reliable. It's they stop looking at you as someone with momentum, which means it's time to reposition yourself, not by changing who you are, but changing how they see you. So step one, interrupt the pattern. If you're always the helper, the fixer, the quiet backbone, they'll keep you there. So throw a curve ball. Ask to lead something visible.

decline the next admin sound request and say, I'd love to contribute to something more strategic. What's coming up that would help me stretch. Let them relearn who you are. Step two, make your work undeniable, not just good, not just useful, visible, strategic, outcome based. Stop saying, I worked hard on this and start saying, this project led to 12 % increase in retention. And here's how I did it.

Effort is invisible, outcomes get noticed. And finally, step three, start acting like the person who's already been picked. You don't need permission to lead. So that's what I do. No more quiet brilliance, no more waiting in line. You've got moves to make and they're going to feel it. That doesn't make you arrogant. It makes you intentional. And trust me, once you start doing that,

They'll start wondering why they didn't see it sooner. And now some of our quick fire career moves will help you even further with this.

Speaker 2 (20:48)
Small shifts, sharp impact. These are quick fire career moves, real things you can do before your next coffee refill.

Speaker 1 (21:00)
Number one, make the first move. Don't wait for a brief, don't hover for permission. Instead, when the opportunity lands in a meeting, say, I've been thinking about that. Would it be useful if I pulled together a few ideas or examples for you? The for you is a very subtle yet valuable form of influencing. Or even better, if you're speaking to your boss's boss, I heard you mention X project.

If there's ever a way I can support, I'd love to learn more about how it's evolving. You're not asking for a favor, you're signaling, I'm watching, I'm ready, and I think beyond my job title. Why it works? It works because it shows initiative without ego. It makes you memorable for being tuned in and it opens the door without banging it down. Curiosity with context makes you credible. And number two,

narrate the outcome. You know, this is so worth repeating from episode one. Stop saying I've been working really hard and start saying this cut response time by 40 % and here's how. Show them what changed because of you. Don't leave it up to their imagination. Effort is admirable. Outcomes are unmissable. And finally, number three, reposition the room. If you're always the helper, the fixer, the background brain,

It's time to shake it up. Next time you're invited to support, ask, what would leadership look like on this? And step into that space, even just a little. You don't have to wait to be given a bigger job. You just have to stop performing in your smaller role. Okay, so those were three simple yet pivotal moves to start managing your own success without selling your soul in doing so. And as we slide seamlessly towards the closing of this episode,

We just have one more segment to go and some words of encouragement. So let's cheekily reframe that dodgy quote.

Speaker 2 (23:05)
This quote has the right vibe and the completely wrong advice.

Speaker 1 (23:10)
So let's fix that before someone puts it on a mug. Yep, you've got it. It's your public service announcement with punchline. So here is our career quote crime for this week.

Speaker 2 (23:21)
If you work hard, you will be recognised.

Speaker 1 (23:26)
⁓ yes, the corporate bedtime story. Work hard, keep your head down, trust that someone, somewhere is tracking your efforts and planning your big break. They're not. They're in a meeting you weren't invited to and that role, it went to someone who had a casual coffee with the decision maker last Thursday. Hard work is essential, but it's not visible by default. The club doesn't hand out gold stars for effort.

It rewards familiarity, timing and showing up in the right conversations. And if you're relying on being noticed, you might be waiting a while. So no, don't just work hard, work clever, get seen and get vocal. And don't wait for recognition like it's delivery order that's just running late. You don't need to wait for an invite. The club isn't magic, it's messy. And you, well you,

you're about to play a smarter game.

So that's a wrap on this episode of Little Moves Big Careers, where progress isn't perfect, but it is happening. If your brain's buzzing and you want more magic like this, head to inspireyourgenius.com forward slash podcast for the show notes, cheeky extras and the kind of tools your career has been crying out for. Share it, steal it with pride, start a movement. So if you did enjoy this episode, please subscribe, share.

and send me your dilemmas for what would Caro do and any ideas that you've tried to caroline at inspireyourgenius.com. And if you want to bring fresh thinking into your team or company, that's literally what we do. Drop us a line, we'll make it sing for you. Until next time, make the move. Even if it's tiny, especially if it's tiny.