Behind the Scenes: A Coaching Debrief

0:04I'm Muriel Wilkins and this is Coaching Real Leaders, the show where I take my decades of experience as an executive coach and bring listeners into real coaching sessions as I help leaders work through all kinds of professional challenges. I'm bringing you a little something extra and different today, a bonus and companion episode to the coaching session that dropped just last week. In case you missed it, it was called Why Haven't I Made It to the C-Suite? And on it, I coached an executive who's done everything he believes he needs to do to reach the C-Suite, yet he keeps coming up just short of getting that top role.

0:41If you haven't checked out that episode yet, go back and do so now. Because what you're about to hear is a debrief about that coaching conversation. It's from my Coaching Real Leaders community, where I dive deeper with listeners to discuss the coaching sessions you hear on this show, answer all types of questions and provide more context. Listen in now as I share what was really happening during my coaching conversation with Randy as he struggled to find answers as to why he's been locked out of the C-suite thus far. If you enjoy this debrief, join me at coachingrealleaderscommunity.com where we unpack all the coaching sessions you hear on this show, just like we're about to do right now.

1:26And we will begin. Okay, so first of all, let me see with a show of hands who actually listened to the episode that was assigned for today. Okay, great, good. Sometimes people come on, they're like, I haven't listened to the episode, which is fine, but it gives me a little bit more context what we're starting with. So this was the episode, why do I keep getting passed over for the CEO role or for the C-suite? Basically, the gentleman, Randy, who has climbed the corporate ladder and has been a final candidate for C-suite roles and has gotten passed over several times, not just one time, but as he shared in the episode more recently, three times.

2:09So he is seeing a pattern. And he came to the coaching wanting to know what is he doing wrong. So why did we end up choosing Randy as one of the guest clients? There were a couple of factors. First of all, very rare that you get somebody to admit that they're getting passed over for a C-suite role. And yet it happens all the time. When we have somebody who's like raises their hand and says, this is happening to me. And I know that this is happening to a lot of people that always perks my ears. So just the surfacing issue was one that was very intriguing to us at that level. And where he worked, where he was coming from, his current role was not a small company.

3:02It was, you know, like a large company, not something where it would be easy to kind of climb the ranks. So the fact that he had had that type of career, that nuanced with him sharing, you know, I'm more mature in age. So there was the potential ageism factor and the fact that he is a black male. And that was another factor. factor. So those three things combined were very appealing, not just for the episode, but for me as a coach. So for him, I had to check myself because I think like before even talking to him, before even starting the coaching session, I already was like, I wanted to write by him.

3:57So I was already too attached to the outcome. There's not even too attached. I was attached to the outcome, which I can't be as a coach. I cannot attach myself to the outcome. And so I had to do some work before we actually started the coaching meeting. Once I realized what was going on and why was I attached to the outcome? I mean, I'll be very honest, black male who is trying to climb the corporate ladder, get to the C-suite and he's getting passed over. The attached to the outcome is that there was me as the coach and then there was me as Muriel with a personal agenda. And I think that I feel my philosophy is that, again, this is not any other coaching association rule.

4:47Maybe it is. I don't know. This is just Muriel's philosophy around coaching. I don't think your personal agenda should get intertwined with you as the coach. And I think that it then creates your own bias, your own projection, which that's not your role. So I think it kind of deteriorates the integrity of the coaching. So I had to check myself, like, what is going on? I didn't have to deconstruct and self-reflect for long. right I knew I was like oh my gosh and I had to watch going in with an assertion and the assertion would be you know why you're getting passed over so I had to check that assertion which was very hard because if he was my friend I would be like dude right like let's be real what is going on Are you serious?

5:46Right. It would be a very different way of approaching it. So I had to put that to the side. I really did. It's not dismissing it. It is not entering in with an attachment to the outcome. I had to go in with, which is what I go into all my coaching meetings with. I go in with, I'm going to try my best to serve my client in the way that they need to be served. And whatever that means for today, that's what that means for today. So I had to kind of recenter myself around that. So that's the context. This is everything before we even get into the coaching conversation. and I had to keep checking myself on that throughout the coaching conversation right it's not like it's like a one-time thing and then I'm done so like I had to as we were going check myself check myself and maybe I'd love to hear from you guys when I listened to it I could recognize that I was probably a little more measured than I usually am a little more purposeful with my words and my questions.

6:56I found myself, but I'd love to hear if you feel similarly. So I think a big theme, so there were a couple. So he came in with the like, what do I need to fix? And what I recognized is that for him to actually be able to look at his situation, I was curious around, could he look at his situations in different ways? And so what that really meant is broadening the way he looked at it and being able to hold both him as the individual as well as the context in which he's in, you know, or the system. And to be able to hold both. Right. Because what tends to happen with most people I coach, either I attribute everything to the individual.

7:44What can I do? What can I do? Or what did I do? Blah, blah, blah. Or we attribute everything to the system. And it's an and. OK. And so the question really is, like, what is happening with you within the system? And there's no way the system doesn't impact you. It does. I don't care who you, you know, it doesn't matter. All of us are impacted by it. And all of us have a choice as to how we respond to the system. And so what I found is by his question of what do I need to do to fix it? He wasn't responding to the system. He was responding to himself. It was like, what do I need to do to fix something?

8:26And even in the word fix, inherent in that was that there was something wrong with him. Now, I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know if he was showing up to the interviews and messing up. I don't know. You know, that's the part that I had to hold. I couldn't assume that he actually was, like, knocking these interviews out of the park. Now, the fact that he was getting to the final rounds tells me he was doing pretty well. I had to sort of hold that the truth lies somewhere between the two. or that there are two versions of the truth here. And that's okay. It's okay to have two versions of the truth.

9:09But since he's my coaching client, it's like, okay, let's ground it in your truth. Is it possible that you see this any other way? And then how do you respond? He also had some scripts in his head, right? And the script was one that is very, very common, which is that you've got to work twice as hard. It's all on you. You've got to work twice as hard. And I think what happened is he, you know, he got to a point, he's like, I've been working twice as hard, three times as hard, four times as hard, and it's not getting me to where I want to go. What's the problem? Right. So that's where the frustration lay for him.

9:44And so there was a moment in the coaching, which for me is where he was able to open up sort of his perspective when he recognized his interpretation of working twice as hard was not just doing the work. It was whatever you tell me I need to do, however I need to be, I will bend myself to be that. And I didn't say it on the episode, but basically it's like you can bend only up until a certain point and then it becomes unsustainable. Right. And I think that's the point he was reaching. and so then you do have to say okay well what are you requiring of me and how much does the system need to bend to me and if it doesn't then is this the place that i need to be and so i think he left the coaching session with in fact i think he used this word or i used a word with more sense of agency that he didn't always have to be reactive to the system that he also had a say as to which system he wanted to be a part of.

11:01And he came in sort of without feeling that as a choice. So I didn't at any point in the coaching session say, well, I think you're not getting it because there's bias going on or there's some ageism going on. I said, it could be, it could be, but let's like figure out what that means for you. How are you allowing this to impact you, right? You obviously can't change these people. You're going back, you're asking for feedback. So what's your part of the dynamic? And is there a pattern there that we can change for you? He was very non-emotive. He was very like, I have an answer for everything. And also kind of the type of client who feels like they have to have an answer for everything, right?

11:59They have to like have the very composed, measured answer. That's how he showed up. And it wasn't till we got to that place of like, you know, the chameleon part that he had a moment where he was like, yeah. And he told me afterwards when we stopped the episode, because I always ask them afterwards, Once we're done, once we turn the recording off, I always ask them before they sign off, I said, how, you know, how are you? Right. How are you doing? And he said, you know what? Like, my kids have been telling me this for years and I haven't listened to them. And I still maybe listen to your kids more.

12:44You didn't even need to come to coaching. So I think he knew he didn't want to admit. And I could understand that, right? Because it's a different script than what he grew up with. So that's what happened in the whole thing. And then I'll turn it to get your observations. I will tell you, I got an email. Sometimes I, well, not sometimes, a lot of times, more frequently now, I get emails from listeners. I got an email from someone. Unfortunately, I didn't see it until first, because it went into my spam. I got an email from somebody who had listened to this episode. and it was very cordial like the tone is probably going to come out harsher than what the way was written i was trying to find it so that i could read it but basically this person said hey i love your podcast this was great however i questioned with this episode because i feel like particularly as a black woman you failed this client by not basically calling out

13:49that racism was at play. And, you know, I don't feel any type of way about that email. I'm not like, oh my God, how dare she? Blah, blah, blah. Not at all. Because I can understand. It's what I grappled with, right? So in a way, when I read that email, I was like, yeah, yeah. You're right. I don't, I mean, whether I failed or not failed, that's anybody's judgment. Right. At the end of the day, the only person I care if they feel like I failed them or not is the client or if I feel like I if I failed myself. But the tension that she held, I was like, you're right. That's the tension I was holding before going in.

14:35It was actually almost like full circle, you know, and I had to sit with it. I had to sit with it and I was like, I'm going to respond to her. and I never did. It's still sitting in my inbox. And the reason I never did is because I feel like a written response doesn't do it justice. I feel like that's one of those things where I'd have to sit like I would want to ask her like I would want to have a conversation about it. I wouldn't want to just send an email. So at some point I still have it there, which means I'm not done with it. Because when I'm done with something, I'm done with something.

15:09The fact that it's still sitting there means that I'm still marinating with it. But as I was preparing for today and I was thinking about that email, I was like, maybe I'll just like email her and invite her to have a conversation because I want to learn from what I know I understand. I don't know what would come out of it, but I think it would do it more justice and just sending an email. We'll be right back after this. If you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break. Hoping the right people see your job posting isn't the best growth strategy. When the pressure is on and you need the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs.

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18:00And that's why I want to tell you about a new expert-created business guide called Aligning for the Agentic Era, how AI is changing everyday work. It's free to download, and it looks at how AI could reshape work across your organization and how you can prepare your people and your business to make the most of it. If I had needed this product, it's what I use. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to NetSuite.com slash Muriel. Get your free guide at NetSuite.com slash Muriel. NetSuite.com slash Muriel. NetSuite.com slash Muriel. So I'd love to open it up. What are your thoughts on the episode?

18:43What resonated with you? What did you question? What resonated with you about the coaching, the situation, this nuance that I brought up, like the tension I was feeling? So we'll have to hear. So who would like to share? Okay. Thank you so much for that, to set the background for us, because I think that with that, we can understand better, you know, the context. I think it was a masterful session. I listened to it twice because the first time it was a couple of months ago. So just between yesterday and today. I did another listen, and it set in very nicely. So I'll take just one issue that you raised, you just raised, is whether, first of all, the struggle you had and the effort that you made to hold the line, which is extremely, extremely, extremely difficult, because the tendency would be to jerk into what looks blatant and evident.

19:43But, you know, there's nothing that says that this is what was happening. Because at some point, for example, I was asking myself whether the explanation has some truth to it. You know, you're going to be disruptive. So maybe this is a go-getter. Because he did talk about being an agent of change. And maybe there was some apprehensions, okay, for management. Maybe. So we could speculate as much as we want. Which leads me to the real problem that we'll find in almost all corporate environments where can we tell the truth? Can we give a message to an individual that this is what you need to work on?

20:23Or you know what? It's going to take you 20 years to get there. So you need to make a choice. I've seen it so many times. so to me the fact that you you know very very carefully manage him until that point where he realized he was a choice and that there was other avenues that he could look at was an excellent outcome for the session yeah so i think this question around can we tell the truth as a coach i mean that's like i mean we could get into whole conversations that like how do you define truth Right. So the truth. And I think I said it in this episode was when I said, yeah, ageism exists.

21:07Racism exists. The possibility of what has happened here. It is definitely a possibility. Right. you know it would even be different if I had talked to some of the people I'd experienced if I had even more context on him but I don't so I have to work with what I have now if I am in a company with a client that I'm working with over the long term I know the people like this happens more with my female clients I have been in situations where it was very blatant but it was cultural. Like she wasn't the only one there. I had enough data to be able to say, yeah, like this is going to be a tough haul for you here, you know, but you decide, right.

21:52How do you want to do it? So I have had more direct, but we had the data, you know, we had the data. We could look at the pipeline, like how many women got promoted last year vis-a-vis who's getting passed over. Oh, you know, so like it was systemic versus just the individual. So that's different. If I had more data like that, I could have maybe been a little bit more direct. But I think in this case, I had to have him speak his own truth. And so that's why he was rationalizing his way through it. I don't know if you remember the part where I said, hey, I hear what you're saying up here. What he was saying up here was I need to fix something.

22:31And then I said, I think what I said was like, let's drop it down a bit. What's your gut telling you? And when I said, what's your gut tell you he was like oh it's racism right so this to me reflected the ant what i was talking about earlier it's the individual and it's the system whereas before he wasn't paying attention to the system because you know if we really dissect it why doesn't he pay attention to the system and he even said later we we got at it a little bit he didn't want to say it because it's out of his control and so it was very frustrating to him that here he is at the pinnacle of his career and what's stopping him is something that's out of his control.

23:11So this question of do we tell the truth, he got to the truth, all the things that I'm saying he got to, all I can do is sort of offer up the questions. Now, offering up the questions is not so I can corner him into those answers. That's not the point. If he had said, you know, my gut tells me that like, yeah, there's something that I'm not doing right. and I need to figure out what it is, then we would have followed that path. So the truth, I think it has to be grounded in your client's truth. I don't think your role as a coach in the same way that you can't be evaluative of the individual, or I believe as a coach, it's not my role to be evaluative.

23:58Evaluative meaning me making an assessment as to whether they can be promoted, not be promoted. I cannot be evaluative from a performance standpoint. I also can't be fully evaluative around what decisions the company makes. Ultimately, it's your decision. But I can reflect back and mirror back what's happening so that you can make some sense of it. And maybe you're going to make sense of it a bit differently based on our conversation. And then you can make a decision, whatever decision you want. Okay. So I don't really know if it's, do I tell the truth? I don't know. What is the truth? But patterns, we can share.

24:42Thank you for that. Other thoughts, reactions, questions? You say you have a framework before you start. Did anything from your framework change? a framework in terms of well you that's the word you use that going into the coaching session you haven't really you haven't really predetermined where it's going to go but you have a little bit of a framework that you start with to see where they're going and sometimes you have to adjust you know they take you somewhere else other times other times I mean you're did I say that today the framework or was that are you that's that's something you talked about i've talked about yeah okay so thank you i was like did i say it for this okay so framework loosely held okay so i go in with the sense of like what do i think the issue is going to be based on what they presented and so yeah that didn't throw me off right we started off with what do you need to fix right which is why i asked him you know have you asked like have you gotten some feedback how do you think you're showing up?

25:48What's happening? So we did start with that for sure. I think because he was a client who wanted to have the answer, you know, kind of have an answer for everything. I did let him give those answers. It's fine. And then when I needed to, if I had, if I felt like he was just trying to give the answer that I wanted to hear or give an answer, but not really thinking about the question, then I would reframe the question to kind of get him out of the circular that he was in at one point. So, you know, this was so interesting. And my takeaways were the agency when you got him involved in kind of owning it and owning what he was feeling and, you know, the path forward.

26:33And I'll say I was incredibly triggered by it because I'm trying to fix and I was already, well, you know, he should this and that. So my awareness of triggers is really important. And, and what I do with that, just as you had described, it was just really interesting to see my, I'm curious, like, what was the trigger exactly for you? You know, I felt that he was a victim and, and that triggers me. That just sets me, sets me sailing. And, you know, I wanted to, you know, have my voice because I've had to pull myself up by the bootstraps is well, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and don't be the victim.

27:17And that's, that gets in the way. It's not, it's not inviting him to really develop his agency and to see his agency. So it's a, and that happens in coaching because I coach it, you know, I coach all sorts of people, but it was interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think it also, So, you know, again, I mean, as I try to do, and I'm sure many of you do as well, one of the things that I will say as a, you know, approach, I do try to get my clients to see the and, right? The both and. And I think in this case, the both and is there's the individual and there's the system. So I think that's the part, right?

28:00Like he had to have been doing something right to get to where he got. Again, this would have been a very different conversation if he would had been a more junior person. You know, because then I'd be like, you know, if you really put in the work, like what have you tried? What's your network like? He couldn't have gotten that far in his career without doing something right. That's why it was like, you kind of got to look at the culture. And if the culture can't change, then you change your response to the culture. It's a tricky one, for sure. After you took him to his guts, which was a very revealing move, you said your endeavor to figure out the why is not helpful.

28:51I'm not sure. I thought that's what I understood. Yes. Which would give the impression that you want him to go to the why, but not to marinate in the why because you want also to move him out to look at the choices is that okay yes yes because we didn't know the why and we weren't going to figure it out we can hypothesize which we did you know could be ageism could be racism could be i did something wrong yeah okay so we put all that on the table but we can't we could keep talking about the why all day long, we knew all of the whys that could contribute it. But to pinpoint it exactly was not going to happen in that conversation.

29:31I would not be able to see if there was something that he needed to fix unless I saw him in action, unless I talked to the search person and said, OK, what feedback did they give? Like, what's this really about? You know, if I knew some of the people that he was interviewing with searching for the why, I think he needed to. He did. but staying in it as you said marinating in it was not gonna move us forward so we want to acknowledge it and now okay what do we want to do with it and if he was like nope i gotta figure it out then he'd be like okay then this is where we're getting to and that's it you know i never really know why something happens but it happened okay so let's deal with the fact that it happened that's the reality of it but the why is not going to change that it happened nor is it in this situation going to explain what he needs to do moving forward very cute so what should i respond to this woman and i don't engage in like social media stuff like if somebody says something off but her tone was not off i for one would love to be a fly on the wall as you talk through it with her i mean i i don't think i have i don't think i have anything to add but i mean i'd be curious um maybe i'll have you stand in for me and i'll be a fly on the wall she would be so disappointed no it's all good it's all good um but i felt like she you know what it is what i loved about it is it takes courage first of all to ask those types of questions and i think her question, quite frankly, represents what I'm pretty sure a lot of people had as they listened to it.

31:10So that's why I'm like, I don't, I really did not feel any type of way about it. It takes a lot for me to actually feel a certain type of way about what somebody has to say. You know, there was a part in the episode when he said he admitted it, you know, the feedback I'm getting is that I'll be too much of a, you know, I'd be a disruptor, you know, the change I did. And he said maybe my sheer presence is what the disruption is and i i just feel at the end of the day his gut was telling him he didn't want to face i mean we've all been there right we're like our brain is telling us this is what's happening because it kind of makes us feel better and it makes us feel like we can do something about it and then our gut is telling us hell no like you know i mean my first heartbreak.

31:59My head was telling me, we'll work it out. He'll come around. And my gut was telling me, girl, he does not want you.

32:09You know? And so we've all been there, but you don't want to listen to it until you're ready. Until you're ready. And that's okay. It's okay. If you don't want to listen to it, then you're just not ready to make a move. You're just not ready to do it. And I think he wasn't ready, really to come face to face with it because it wasn't his gut as he told me. And it wasn't just me, as he said, you know, his kids had been sort of telling him this. In fact, he said his kids are the one who pushed him to come on the podcast. I was like, how did you even find this? He's like, oh, my whole family listens to this.

32:45My kids were like, you need to apply, dad.

32:51so um so i was like yeah listen to your kids very good thank you i've been wanting to process this one for a while and i keep saying we're gonna do this episode and then i never do it right because i wasn't ready yes yes i wasn't ready that's a gift that's right thank you for holding the space for me yeah and and containment with this so i really appreciate you all debriefing these episodes. It is a gift for me.

33:24That's it for today. If you enjoyed this debrief, join me at coachingrealleaderscommunity.com, where we unpack all the coaching sessions you hear on this show. Next week, we'll be back with my producer, Mary, for an Ask Muriel Anything episode. And stay tuned for a whole new slate of coaching sessions coming this fall. If you want me to coach you through an issue or have a question you want answered, head on over to coachingrealleaders.com and let me know. You can also follow me on LinkedIn at Muriel Wilkins and on Instagram at Coach Muriel Wilkins. A reminder that if you love these coaching conversations, it would mean the world to me if you would go to Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to subscribe to the show and leave a five-star review.

34:10Thank you to my producer, Mary Du, sound editor, Nick Kringko, 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.