Work Signals: An Insider's Guide To Winning When Talent Is Not Enough

Work Signals is the practical, empowering guide you wish you had at the start of your career.

Most professionals spend up to two-thirds of their lives working in organizations, yet move through their careers without fully understanding the unwritten rules, the power dynamics, or what it truly takes to get recognized, get ahead, and get promoted. Your career takes off when you understand the game of work and how value gets recognized. Work Signals is the missing playbook for professionals building careers and leaders building organizations who know that talent alone is not enough. Unlike other career books, it takes a systems-based, human-centered approach and shows you how to create value that matters, make your contributions visible without becoming performative or manipulative, build trust that compounds, read culture and power dynamics with clarity, create options, and stay adaptable in a world that keeps changing. Each chapter includes reflective questions, practical tools, and real-world case studies you can apply immediately.

Whether you are early in your career, a student, a middle manager aiming to lead with more clarity and confidence, or a senior leader looking to build a resilient organization, this is the playbook you will return to again and again for winning in the complex world of organizations.

Ruchin Kansal advises senior leaders on transformation, strategy, and leadership in complex organizations. As a former global executive at Siemens Healthineers, Boehringer Ingelheim and Deloitte, he led innovation and change across enterprises. His work spans Brown and Seton Hall University, and has published through Routledge, Oxford, World Scientific, and Wharton Healthcare Quarterly.

Anthony Caputo is a social-organizational psychologist and advisor focused on leadership, culture, and business performance. As COO and CPO, he helped scale Remesh, an AI-native research company, into an Inc. 5000 and Deloitte Fast 500 organization. His work spans Stanford GSB, Mercer, and the UN, and has published in Oxford, Wiley, and Cambridge University Press.