Ask Muriel Anything with Special Guest Damien Faughnan

0:05I'm Muriel Wilkins and this is Ask Muriel Anything from Coaching Real Leaders. In these episodes, I'm joined by some special guests, many of whom I call my friends, who will help me field questions that have come in from the Coaching Real Leaders community or that come up in my coaching client work. Today, I have Damian Falkman joining me. He spent nearly two decades helping leaders transition into the CEO role and knows the ins and outs of the skills needed to succeed in such a transition and afterwards. He's built much of his coaching practice around what he calls contextual feedback, not simply who you are as a leader, but what a particular role, a particular organization, or a particular moment actually requires of a leader.

0:52And in addition to all that, I'm so excited Damien is here because I've known him a very long time. He was one of the first coaches I ever met over 20 years ago, I think. And I'm just happy he's here. So Damien, welcome. Thank you, Muriel. I'm delighted to be here and to have this opportunity for us to have fun and have a good chat. I'm going to put you on the spot here. I remember meeting you, Damien, years ago. I literally probably was two or three years into my coaching career, and we were serving a client at a workshop or something together, some offsite that they had. And it was the first time that I met you.

1:34And I remember just hearing some of the wisdom you were dropping on our way back to the airport. And I was like, I got to get to know this person. I think we had so much fun in the car. All I remember is I think we laughed all the way. We did. We did. And here we are literally, I think, 20 years later. Still standing. Still going. Still standing. Well, the reason you're here with me is because, you know, I am a believer in knowledge and wisdom and questions and answers live in a lot of different places. And as we get these questions from listeners of the show or questions that come up in my coaching practice, I often like to phone a friend and dial a friend and just hear what others are thinking.

2:24So I'm really excited about this conversation with you because I couldn't think of anyone better. You were absolutely on my list of someone who I'd want to tap into to answer some of these questions. Thank you, Muriel. No pressure. No pressure. This is not the price is right. But you know, maybe it's a little Jeopardy-like. Who knows. No right answers here. All right. Well, let's dig into some of the questions that we have. And to kind of just get our juices flowing, I actually want to, before we dive into those questions, get a sense from you, what are some of the biggest leadership challenges that you're seeing come up for senior leaders right now?

3:02What's surfacing for you? I'll back into that question a little bit, Muriel, by getting to the leadership challenges. I think the first thing that I'm hearing from all of my clients is the amount of uncertainty in the environment. And CEOs and leaders are used to uncertainty. It's what you've navigated all of your corporate career. I think what's different now is the compounding of the issues. If you have one variable, for example, like tariffs, but now you have AI, you have geopolitical instability, You have, you know, interest rates, which have a big bearing raising capital and what you can invest in.

3:43So it's sort of a compounding impact. So then you have to ask what is important for leaders to focus on. And there's probably two things. One is to make decisions with confidence when you don't have all the data that you need. It's a time when you have to make decisions that you can explain to people to make sense or make meaning for people in a scenario where there is so much uncertainty. So those are the two skills, kind of making meaning and making confident decisions. I'd also say, and just very quickly, because I'm sure everybody knows this, AI is changing everything. And the particular piece that I'm hearing from my clients is that these projects cost a huge amount of money.

4:31I'm hearing numbers like 100 million being thrown out for an IT project. So that then forces a lot of prioritization and reprioritization. So focus and the ability to prioritize have become much more important. Yeah, absolutely. So that means you have to say no more often, which is really hard. Yeah. So interesting. I can't help myself. But as you're talking through this, I'm thinking back to some of the seven beliefs that I articulate in my book, and leadership unblocked that get into leaders' ways of being able to lead with complexity, right? In the midst of complexity, which is what, quote unquote, uncertainty feels like change, things like AI.

5:23And one of them is, I can't make a mistake, right? And what you're saying is, yes, you need to be able to lead with confidence, even when you don't have all the data. And the other belief that gets into leaders' ways, I can't say no, which again, is what you're saying around, you've got to be able to say no, which is another way of saying you've got to prioritize. You've got to have focus. You've got to be very clear about what you're doing and what you're not doing, which requires one to make choices and trade-offs that often we don't want to make, but are absolutely necessary. And leading from the front more, which we coaches are always kind of lead from behind, but sometimes this is a moment where leading the context requires that you lead a little bit more from the front.

6:08Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's so interesting to me because I concur with you that a lot of what folks are feeling right now is this notion of uncertainty. And I kind of back into it with clients and say, well, help me understand when you have felt certain. because I think what happens a lot of times is people mistake uncertainty with alignment, which are two different things. I question whether things are ever certain. We're under the illusion that they are. I mean, the uncertainty is certain. But when there's alignment, when it feels like, hey, everything that's happening is aligned with what I want, we interpret that as being certain.

6:54That doesn't mean that it's certain. It just means that it's aligned for this moment. And that alignment can get out of whack at any given time. And then in reality, the truth is we're always sort of leading with this context of uncertainty. And if we understood that, maybe we could hold it more comfortably, right? Yes. Rather than resist it. And I just think it points to the need for some, I'm going to use kind of strong language, like self-interrogation, like, so why do I believe this? Or what, you know, why is that comfortable for me? And is it true? You know, is it true what I'm assuming or concluding?

7:34Yeah. Those are the things that a leader needs to develop, that skill of interrogating your own thinking and your own belief system, which we all know. And what you pointed out, there was an article recently, and I can't remember the name of it, but we will drop it in the show notes, but it was an article specifically about what's different about change right now or the way that people are experiencing change is that it feels compounded, right? That it's scaled, that there's a lot coming at once. And I see that also as an opportunity, you know, in terms of re-evaluating and quite frankly, reframing our relationship to change.

8:15because what is causing the tension, again, the difficulty in dealing with uncertainty is in how we relate to everything that's happening. And so when there's a lot of things happening at once, it ups the ante, like we're almost required to change our relationship to all these things that are happening around us. So that really creates a different assignment. And I think a call to action for leaders in terms of if they want to be able to lead effectively during this time and opening themselves up to it. Right. And I'd add to that opportunity, Muriel, we know that teams are made of different individuals who are responding to change differently.

8:56And so a leader who can pay attention to their people and say, well, Muriel needs this from me right now in order to feel that they can navigate and be more certain about what they need. And Damien needs this. So there's a little bit of like becoming more dexterous in how you both read people and support them. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's dig into some of these questions. Here's the first question from a listener. I've seen a few people at my leadership level get promoted recently. One of those positions is one that I also raised my hand for, but I got passed over for it. How do I handle seeing others get promoted, but not me, especially when I feel like I'm ready and qualified for those positions?

9:42That's a little tough thing, right? Like you see the peers or maybe other people. I know somebody, this wasn't a client, but a friend of mine who was seeing people that she trained, who she brought up, who she had mentored, get promoted over and beyond her. and it's this real feeling of like, gosh, like, what do I do with that? Yeah. So what are your thoughts on that? Well, you know, I had that experience myself in my corporate life. I simply wasn't ready for, in my instance, I'm not talking about Bob, but I simply wasn't ready. I had that experience. And I have that with my current CEO candidate clients, where quite often they're in the process because it's a learning exercise for them.

10:29this is the most human of experiences you know you thought you were ready you were you know in the process and it stings you know you're disappointed you're frustrated and muriel as you've said so often these feelings are normal you know this is a very human reaction to a situation where you did not get what you wanted and so the question then becomes, how do I respond? There's the reaction and there's the response. So the reaction quite often I hear from my clients is, oh, I'm out of here, or I'm going to go somewhere where people will appreciate me for all of my gifts and talents. This is where I shift out of coaching and say, my advice to you is to stay put and see what you can learn here.

11:17Use this as an opportunity to get some good feedback about yourself. So if you're listening, sit with the disappointment and then shift to asking a couple of questions. One question I think people don't ask in this situation is, why were they appointed to the role and not me? It's a very blunt question. And first of all, the way you ask it is important because you ask it not to defend yourself, but simply say thank you. So why did they get the job and not me? And what you're getting is some data about how people perceive you that can be actionable. I think the second question that you have to ask of the hiring manager or HR is, what do I have to do to be ready?

12:05This is an internal candidate. And quite often we're in conversations about somebody's readiness for that next level. And so you're asking about what sort of skills do I need to deepen? Or what kind of experiences do I need to have in order for me to get to the next role? And again, that capacity to say thank you and take that data away and start to shape what you want to work on to be ready for the next time you have an opportunity like this. And I'd say if there's one other piece I would say is always have your resume out there in the sense that you want to be in the opportunity for new roles like the one that you were interviewing for so that you can get a sense of, first of all, salary is kind of basic, but how others externally might view you.

12:56First of all, I love, you know, I'm a big fan of triangulation. OK, and so when I hear a couple of people who I respect saying the same things, I'm like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So we had Dave Stachowiak on one of these episodes a couple of episodes back. He's the host of Coaching for Leaders, my cousin podcast. And he said the exact same thing you just did around, you know, you should always have your resume out, even if it's not the formal paper resume. but sort of be demonstrating your value in a way that people are interested in you. And so that really resonated with what you just shared.

13:32I love the question of what can you learn from this? You know, I always when I work with clients and I would suggest for this person, too, it's like, well, what are the choices in front of you right now? And I'm a big fan of, you know, there's a couple of choices always in front of you. And once we see we have choices, then we feel like we have a little bit more agency. You know, one choice is to do nothing, okay, which puts you exactly where you are right now. The other choice is to stay, but stay with purpose. And the purpose can be, what can I learn through some of the questions that you just asked?

14:10The other choice is, well, let me find conditions where I am deemed as ready, which is where most people go, but sometimes miss an opportunity. And then the other choice is you stay, but try to convince everybody else that you're ready. You know, and that sometimes is where people put their energy. How can I, I mean, there's so many times I get the question of like, how can I convince senior leadership that I'm the one for the job? And yes, that's important. But if you're also missing the part around what can I learn about myself? What can I do? Is there anything that I can be doing differently?

14:47That's the part that's most in your control. I like the questions that you pose around what they can ask. I think the other thing that's important here is, I don't know, Damien, I don't know if you've experienced this, but when this happens to folks, this particular situation and a lot of other situations too. Underlying the, I didn't get what I wanted, is something that stings a little bit more, which is the, why was I not chosen? Which comes down to these, you know, fundamental human needs that we all have around belonging, feeling worthy, feeling safe, right? And this one, I think really, it starts conjuring up a lot of people's sense of self-worth.

15:34I would say, okay, you may not be getting the promotion, but how much are you attaching your worth, your self-worth to the promotion? And let's start disassociating those. And how does that then change the way that you respond, the way that you feel relative to this? Not absolving the fact that you're not getting promotion. Of course, I want you to get promoted, right? And it doesn't mean that you have to identify all your worth around it because the identification of the worth is what's creating a lot of these feelings of maybe resentment, bitterness, disappointment, frustration. And so that's something oftentimes with my coaching clients that we work around.

16:16And then the last thing that I'll say is sometimes people sort of take the decision personally, okay? And that can cause a lot of havoc. And then there are times where people are taking it not personally at all, but that then becomes blaming. You know, it's all about what the organization's doing and I have, there's nothing to do with me and they're horrible. And I always say, it's not personal. It's also not impersonal. It's just not all personal, you know? And to me, it's like, what part can you take responsibility for? And I think that gets at your questions around the self-interrogation. What is the part that's in my control?

17:00What is the part that I can take responsibility for? What are the choices in front of me? And let me move accordingly, right? Knowing that I can't dictate the outcome as clearly has happened, but I can do what I can try to do in terms of taking action, but also in the ways that I manage my emotions during this time. Yeah. It's funny. You bring up the whole emotional intelligence aspect of this because people can slip into shame they can get angry they can feel sad and and kind of stay stuck there and not get to what the options are and i think sometimes this can be compounded with an employee who's in a company for a long time and they're feeling like this is some sort of an existential the ladder has been pulled up on my career here and they get stuck and they don't ask for the feedback.

17:56And I think sometimes you have, as a coach, we have to sit with them to unpack that before we can get them to even ask the questions. But I always try to get them to the questions. And the loyalty piece to a company, the employee-employer contract, they can sometimes feel is violated. So it's murky. I mean, that brings up a whole thing, right? Because there is what I would ask Bob is what was your expectation? Meaning because a lot of times we have this expectation of what this employer employee contract ought to be. And I hate to be the person, the coach, but I'm like, show it to me in writing.

18:43like when did they give you the contract that said if you do x y and z by this time you will get promoted it was never a contract my friend it was never contract and i hate to say that because i wish it were but that's part of understanding that even i mean that's a life right like life shows up in the workplace in that there are not always guarantees that if you do A, B, and C, you will get that promotion or you will get that. And at that point, it comes down to, okay, well, what do you want to do with that? Okay. What do you want to do? Which goes back to your questions and this whole notion of what are the choices in front of you versus thinking that there are no choices.

19:31It goes back to beliefs and assumptions. You know, that piece around, oh, I always believed the company would look after me. Maybe. Sometimes. Hopefully most of the time. Yeah. And vice versa, right? I mean, the company thinks you're going to be looking out for it. And look, let's be real. There are times when we don't look out for the companies we work for. That happens. And so it's this tension of what's my agenda and what's the organizational agenda. I would just ask one of them. I will often ask a client, look, there's a lot of tough feelings here. And I want you to think about when this phase of the process might be over.

20:13And what does that look like? Because, you know, people can stay in this kind of what are called the doldrums for 18 months. And so what you're kind of signaling is that at some point this will end and you have some choice in it. And, you know, Damien, so I'm going to share a personal story. Years ago, I had a decision to make, you know, sort of similar, like I wasn't getting what I want. And I was very upset that I wasn't getting what I want. But clearly, I wasn't making a decision. And somebody, obviously, just as wise as you, who actually was my coach at the time, said, okay, she wasn't as gracious as to ask me how what the time period is.

20:55She just said, give it a year. Okay. Give it a year. And if this does not resolve itself, leave. Yeah. Okay. Can I be honest with you? It took me like 10 years to leave that situation or the thing I was struggling with, right? It was a work thing. But it took me 10 years. And I'm laughing now. And at the same time, there's also a level of readiness, right? Until you're ready to make the move. And even if you do leave, I probably would have left but not had that readiness. And how I would have felt, the plans that I put in place would not have worked out in the way that they did when I finally did.

21:36So I agree. Give a timestamp and also understand that that timestamp can evolve and there's some flexibility with it. I think really. But this is the beautiful thing about doing this work for 20 years is that we know that we can bring empathy to these guys. You know, this is such a common experience. And we don't have to do it alone. No. We'll be back with more after the break.

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24:55Get your free guide at netsuite.com slash Muriel. netsuite.com slash Muriel. netsuite.com slash Muriel. Let's move on to the next question. And we'll call this person Sally because we don't want to give the real name. Okay. So Sally is someone who has worked at her organization for a very long time. Okay. Very tenured, very senior, and very experienced in her field, very well known. She is at a point in her career where, quite frankly, she could retire. Most of her colleagues and peers at this point in her career would retire. Financially, it's not an issue. Like, you know, the, what do they call it?

25:43Nest egg? Nest egg is nice and full and abundant. And so that's not an obstacle to retiring. And yet she's struggling with whether she should or she shouldn't. And one of the things that is coming up in her question is what she shared is, I feel such a strong identification to what I've been doing, to my profession, to my career. It is very scary for me to think about what might be next. And as a result, I don't know whether I should retire or not. And that is the question. Should I retire or should I not? Oh, I love it because this also is a very common experience today for a lot of people. The stock market has greatly enhanced a lot of 401ks and people feel that they are financially able to retire.

26:43And the challenges that we have in our culture, always spoken about retirement in financial terms. Do you have the money to retire? And the challenge is that it's a psychological transition. So there is a set of things that you have to navigate. When you described, Sally, you talked about identity fusion. That's where I believe I am my job. I am the role that I've been playing. I see that a lot in the CEO clients I work with. They find it hard to separate the two because they have been so entwined. And the longer you stay, the more deeply entrenched it comes. And then, of course, you have this other psychological part, which is what they call identity foreclosure.

27:30So Sally leaves being CFO at Company X and then decides that she wants to be a fractional CFO elsewhere. So shifting from doing something that you did full-time to doing it part-time. And that's just avoiding some of the challenges of entering into a transition where you're going from having a very orderly life into some sort of disorder and then having to reorder into what your next chapter looks like. The whole retirement word is bogus. We need to just get rid of it because it was a concept introduced in the 1930s to signal when somebody's finished work, they can collect Social Security. The reality is we live 30 years more than 65.

28:17So we have to be thinking about what kind of life we want to create. So Sally, you know, finding a place where you can have conversations about things like, what did you put on hold when you were building your career? I sat with a client, Muriel, who I asked him to draw a vision for his next 10 years or five years or whatever. And he sat down and he picked up the pencils and he drew this beautiful picture. And I was like, I didn't know you could draw. He said, I can. But, you know, I stopped drawing when I was a teenager because my dad told me I would never amount to anything if I kept drawing.

28:59And so we started to talk about how he might rediscover his love of art and his artistic time in retirement. So I think there's a part of this process for Sally to figure out what is it that she might do next. And that is a process. That does not happen overnight. The psychological tendency is to want to stay put. And so it's embracing the idea that this is a transition with discomfort, that there's the messy middle is what Chip Connolly calls it. He calls it midlife is a chrysalis, where we're kind of coming out of the larva to become this butterfly. So there's a little bit of loyalty to the company.

29:45So what am I loyal to now? There's a little bit of purpose work. If my work was my purpose, how do I create a purpose for the future? And the thing about it is purpose is not this big grand thing. You need a purposeful life. What do I do when I get up in the morning to serve my immediate family, my neighbors, my community? You don't need to be like I'm saving the planet on day one after I retire. So there are pieces to work through around identity, around purpose, around leisure, things that perhaps are more challenging and that kind of keep you stuck. Yeah. And I don't mean to assume that, Sally, you are stuck.

30:26I just, it's scary. Let's normalize that it's scary. I think Sally is stuck. Okay. That's the sense I get. You know, I have also worked with clients, you know, similar to Sally. And what's interesting is like the questions that I think you have to sit with are no different than questions you sit with at every point of inflection and transition. It just may feel that for some, this one is like the biggest form of transition, right? And part of what I think is helpful or where I see people get tripped up and I would offer to Sally is before you focus on what am I going to do, I would encourage you to think and reflect and sit with the question of what do I want to focus on?

31:24What do I want to give my energy to? What do I want to face? And what I mean by that is I think so many people are like, well, what am I going to do? Am I going to work? Am I going to get that part-time job? Am I going to be the fractional CFO? Am I going to travel? Am I going to? And I'm always like, okay, but, But pause, right? Let's figure out what it is that you want to express, meaning what is the through line? So, for example, the client that you said used to draw, my question would be, what is it that drawing brought you? Let's say the answer was, you know, I just feel like bringing beauty in the world or creating is something that is important, that is meaningful to me.

32:09And I would then suggest, OK, then creating or bringing beauty in the world is the through line. Now, what are the options around how you can express that? Of which one is you can draw and you can do art or you can go visit museum or you can go build a museum or you can create a new business. There's so many different ways of expressing it. And what most people I find are in touch with is what is that through line for them? You know, one of the questions that I would ask Sally is, you know, is there a problem that you want to solve or something that you're either passionate about or something that's a pet peeve that you want to give some energy to?

32:50I had another client who was working through something similar. And she's like, you know, at the end of the day, like, I just want people's lives to be better. And I said, in what way? She's like, I want them to feel healthier about, you know, physically. OK, so in what ways can you express that? Well, you can be anything from becoming a personal trainer to, you know, she was financially independent, like to funding some big grant making, whatever it might be. But let's not confuse the how for the what, because I think that keeps people stuck. The other thing I would ask, Sally, to your point, Damien, around we can identify so much with the company because of the loyalty that we have to the company and the position, etc.

33:33And I think what makes this difficult for some, and I would ask this of Sally, is maybe this is the first time that you need to ask yourself, what does it look like to be loyal to me? Because you don't have all these other things pulling at you. It is a choice that you're making for yourself. And maybe you're not used to doing that, right? So what would it look like if your choice around what this next chapter looks like is all based on choosing you, right? Being loyal to you. What would that look like? Let's just imagine before we have to put a stake in the ground. Yeah. I think the piece, Muriel, that we want to normalize is that there's a lot of uncertainty here.

34:22take time to wrestle with some of these things around, you know, what does it mean to choose me? It's so interesting, Muriel. I had a client, I asked him about his roles, the roles that he play, father, son, you know, community member, industry. And I asked him to say, look, your role was CEO. So that was 80 % of your life. Now, what are some of the roles you want to play? And he did exactly what you just said. My role now is to take care of me. And he said, that's going to be 40 % of my job going forward. And so you have this opportunity to recalibrate. And the challenge I think that you're pointing out is that people want to jump to the answer really quickly without doing the type of, I hate to go back to the word interrogate, but like just really to examine what are some of my beliefs about my worth, about my roles, about what matters.

35:22That's all in play. Yeah. I mean, Damien, I don't mind you going back to the word self-integration, because what you're pointing to is, it goes back to this thing, your ability to even adapt to the transforming context, which is what it is. Your context is changing. I'm no longer going into that office without transforming something within yourself, right? So people try to change the context without necessarily aligning who they are, who they believe they are to align with that context. And that is what then leads to this dissonance. I think at a tactical level, what's beautiful about or what I love about what Sally is saying is she knows this is coming at some point.

36:05And at a tactical level, what I also suggest to Sally is even though you're not in that next chapter yet, okay, why don't you start practicing it? Practice it. Are there little things like, for example, some of the things that you think you might want to do? Like I have one client who's like, you know, I really want to learn a different language. Okay, great. Pull up Duolingo and start doing that 10 minutes a day. Start practicing it. Okay. I know, you know, another big transition, which is a bit similar, different, but similar is for folks who have kids when those kids leave the house and they call it empty nesting, right?

36:40I went through that at the same time. Twins who both left at the same time. And I remember I was like, two years before they left, I started hanging out with my friends more, going on trips on my own. And people were like, what are you doing? And I said, I'm practicing. I am practicing for when they leave so that there's a little bit of a transition period. And I even practiced it. I love the fact that like we need to stop calling it retirement. People would be like, oh, are you ready for an empty nest? I'm like, I'm sorry. Like my nest is not empty. It's quite full. I'm still there. So I refused even to call it an empty nest because that was my way of saying, no, what do I want it to look like when they are not there because something is changing?

37:30and I get to define how I want to experience that. And I can prepare by practicing in a transitional phase rather than all of a sudden ripping the Band-Aid off and you're like sitting around saying, okay, like now what? I love that starting early. I mean, that's particularly, you know, with CEO transitions, I'm like, you're gonna start three years out. Exactly. It's the rewiring of your thinking. So some people think of this as a cliff event and it's the reinvention and it's rediscovery. So let's scrap retirement and start using this rewiring, reinvention. That's right. Reinventing. You know, this is the opportunity, not a cliff event.

38:16That's right. And preparation, you know, practice, warm up, like prepare, train for it. Yes. Don't just go out there. Like your high rocks, right? Exactly. Right. You don't just want to show up and be like, okay, now what? What? I have to run. how much? That's what leads to injury. Okay, let's move on to our last question from Patrick. And here's what he sent in. Patrick said, I've always worked in finance and made my way pretty far up the ladder. But my dream job is really for a CEO role, not a CFO role. I've been CFO, but I really want to be a CEO. How do I prove I'm ready for that transition and can add value as a chief executive officer instead of the role that I've been preparing for my whole career and have been in, which is the chief financial officer role?

39:07So this is a great question, as they all are, and an interesting kind of career pivot for someone who's built a vertical in a corporate function. You know, I would start just given my work, I have to start with some data. So CEOs, 8 % of them have been the CFO. That's the data. So very few of all the potential senior executives who could make it to the CEO role, very few CFOs. What that data hides or disguises is the fact that if you work at a financial services company, CFO to CEO is a very normal transition. So it is much easier if you're working within financial services. So that would be a question I would have for Patrick.

39:58Yeah, context matters. If you have had controller, treasurer, staff account, all that broad experience, investor relations, you're ready to be CFO. That's not a leap. If you're not, your opportunity is to find a role that gives you P &L experience. And you may not necessarily jump into that immediately. Most boards, when they're assessing a candidate's readiness, they want to see that you've led at scale. They want to see that you have extensive experience of managing a P &L strategy product, really a big role. So the question then is, Patrick, if you're not in financial services, how do you make a pivot to get there?

40:40And I have a few suggestions that might be helpful. The first would be to take a role in a business unit where it is finance, but you have access to decision making that is around customers, product, strategy, organization, talent. A role where you have a real seat at the table with the enterprise leader, with the enterprise C-suite person. Because you want to have the opportunity to, first of all, have exposure to that. And then when you get that, there's a second kind of pivot to make, and that is to show that, and you talked about this in our last conversation, to show that you think like a CEO.

41:25So people will think that you're a finance expert and look at you as a finance expert, and that's where people will trust you with. But the pivot is to find the role that will allow you to show that you're growth minded, that you think about value creation really broadly, and that the enterprise leader sees you as a much broader executive. And that takes a lot of discernment is to figure out, does this role give me that opportunity? And you probably have to ask for it. Yeah, yeah. There's a different skill set. I was talking about like you're valued for your functional and financial expertise, but in a business unit, you're going to be valued for how you relate to people, how you communicate to people and how you build your influence skills.

42:11So it's a broader kind of leadership skill set that this role should give you an opportunity to build and then act like, you know, just act like the CEO. like the CEO. Act like, you know, think, you know, show them that you're thinking about growth, show them that you can put the headlamps up. And yeah. And yeah. And that's sometimes, you know, when I am working with folks and they're like, well, how do I do that? I'm like, again, practice it. Right. So start looking at all of the issues and questions and situations and say, what if I were CEO? How would I deal with this? How would I respond to this question?

42:44How would I think about it? How would I communicate it? Who would I approach? What if Thinking the what if is a different, and I actually think way more helpful version of fake it till you make it. I do not like fake it till you make it. I like imaginary play. What if, which is different. I would suggest to Patrick that he do that. I love that you brought data, Damien. I'm a data geek. And so the data of only 8 % of CEOs are past CFOs, if I understood it correctly. That's important to understand, not from a place of demoralizing or discouraging, but from a place of looking at your situation eyes wide open, okay, around what's possible.

43:32And again, what choices, Patrick, do you have in front of you? In practical terms, a couple of things. The P &L experience must do, must have. Every client that I've worked with who has aspiration to be in the C-suite and particularly CEO, COO, I tell them, when you have the opportunity to get P &L experience, get it. To me, getting the P &L experience creates optionality. I call it C-suite optionality. right so when i work with individuals they're like yeah i've been offered this thing it's pnl experience but i don't know if i want to move to you know xyz place and i'm like um is your partner aligned around you moving or can you do it you know by flying get the pnl experience because it helps it gives you optionality even if you don't stay in that lane in the long run the other piece that doesn't come up clearly in Patrick's question, which I would want to know about context is, are you a private company CFO or are you a public company CFO?

44:46Because that is a huge difference in what you bring to the table. Okay. There are different levels of preparedness, different opportunities that are in front of you, depending on whether it's privately held or publicly held, what types of transactions you've done. So experience is big. And, you know, one of the things that Patrick may want to look at is the reality of it is it may be difficult for you to be the CEO in the current organization that you're in, particularly if you've grown up there, because they see you in a particular way. But potentially, you could be a bigger fish in a smaller pawn.

45:29So I've seen clients who have moved to other smaller organizations where, guess what, the biggest need that company has at that point is a financial turnaround. So it is primed for somebody with very deep CFO experience to take over as CEO, even though they may not have the CEO experience. So that's one. Or they move into an organization where the current CEO is only going to be there for maybe another five or six or seven years. And the agreement coming in, not guarantee, but the agreement coming in is, Patrick, I am coming in being sponsored and mentored by the CEO in preparation for the possibility of me being a candidate for the CEO role when that individual leaves.

46:22So again, that depends on the timeframe that they have as well. Okay. But some things for him to think about. I love this because private equity, love operators who have finance background. And I'll also tell you, Patrick, when you get to the final mile, as I call it, of being a CEO candidate. Boards like candidates who have finance experience because they have credibility with investors. So there are many paths that you have. It just takes a little bit of figuring out. Yeah, you got to be creative. And it goes back to an earlier part of our conversation. It's like, what are the skills I want to build?

47:02What are the experiences I need to get? And how do I read the context and if that's available to me. So this is like good discernment, good interrogation of your default thinking, because sometimes we're in survivor mode or we don't see the path. And having a coach who has some experience in the area to be able to bat these ideas. Not that I'm giving ourselves a plug, but we see such a broad spectrum of possibility. Of possibilities. And you talked about helping people see their options. That's what we do at our best is we help you see that you've got many paths. Yeah, many paths, many paths. Well, listen, this is one path I am so glad that we took together.

47:45I love this conversation. We could keep going and go, and I know we will offline, but we got to wrap it up for the people. Yes, thank you, Miriam. We could spend a whole session talking about one of these. one of these of course and damien where can everyone find you you can find me on linkedin damien faulkner uh in i'm sure you'll put my name in the uh show notes because it's not immediately easy to remember and i do have a personal substack i write a lot about what sally is experiencing how to how to build a next chapter yes i have read that substack i'm a subscriber it is wonderful It is one of my favorite reads.

48:25It's a joy to read. So Damien, so many feelings. I just want to know how much I appreciate you and I'm grateful for you and grateful we met so many years ago and just super happy that you were here and that we got to do this. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Muriel. Take care.

48:49All right, y 'all. We will see you next time with another episode of Coaching Real Leaders. And when that one drops, it'll be another coaching session. If you want to unpack the episodes from Coaching Real Leaders, you can join me at coachingrealleaderscommunity.com, where I host live discussions about coaching sessions you hear on this podcast. And I also answer questions just like I do here, but you can ask them directly of me. And you can also follow me on LinkedIn at Muriel Mignon Wilkins on Instagram at Coach Muriel Wilkins. A reminder that if you love these coaching conversations, it would mean the world to me if you could head over to Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts so that you can subscribe to the show.

49:34And please, please, please leave a five-star review. Thank you to my producer, Mary Du, sound editor, Nick Krenko, music composer, Brian Campbell, and my chief of staff, Emily Sofa. Much gratitude to the leaders who join me in these coaching conversations and to you, our listeners, who share in their journeys. I'm Uriel Wilkins. Until next time, be well.