An esteemed career spanning almost thirty years, Sejal Gulati is a passionate, compelling, people-first leader. She has vast experience working in Finance, Media, and FinTech with organizations such as Met Life, American Express, Real Simple, InStyle, Time Inc. and Genpact. If that wasn't enough, she is President of the Harvard Business School Global Alumni Board and an Aspen Global Leadership Network Fellow and Moderator. MindsOpen Founder and Principal Neil Jacobs sat down with Sejal to talk about her experiences of executive coaching and the secrets to being a good coachee. This is a series of three articles focusing on how coachees can get the most out of their executive coaching experience.
NJ: I want to go back in time and ask why you decided on executive coaching?
SG: I was at an inflection point in my career. There was dissatisfaction with my current job but I didn't know what was next. I felt really strongly I didn't have a North Star nor the rubric to find what I wanted to do. I realized I was chasing different opportunities that weren’t satisfying like a title, or money, or prestige. I decided I really needed someone who I selected to help me think this through. To have the tools and assessments to get understand how I was looking for the job and the larger issue of what I wanted in my career.
NJ: I liked what you said about this being a coach you chose. What was important to you about that?
SG: To me, fit and chemistry are very, very important, that there's mutual respect and a coach with a philosophy that’s in line with what you're looking for. I wanted someone who merged the left and the right brain. I didn't need a therapist, but I needed someone who would bring the emotional part, the unconscious part into our discussion, while being really practical. When I worked with you, I felt like I got a toolkit and the human behind the tools, which I still use today. It felt both rational and emotional. The two together was like weight training, an exercise I could go through. I also had a coach who evolved with me. At the start it was reflective and then it was quite pragmatic, with strategies and tactics to get to the end result.
You need a coach who will speak truth to power and push you when you need to be pushed. Someone who can say, “If you really want to get X, you’ve got to put the work in. And the work is this, this, and this.” It's a level of accountability that everyone needs. I don't know a human on the planet who can have that level of accountability on their own. It would take an incredibly strong person with enormous self-awareness and discipline to do that on their own. I have engaged my coach when I'm in a job trying to navigate the dynamics and when I’m looking for a job. These are two different situations but both incredibly helpful and insightful. Like elite athletes, executives need a coach, not every day, maybe not every week, but someone who keeps you accountable and who knows your goals so you stay on track with them.
NJ: You've brought to life some of the qualities you were looking for in a coach. I'm curious whether the race or gender of the coach was a big consideration for you? You and I share a number of values and perspectives about the world, but we’ve had different life experiences because of our identities.
SG: So, it's funny, I didn't actually think about it. I was looking for an alignment of values. What I've discovered over the years is that there isn't always the Venn diagram of your demographic makeup and your values. It’s not a full overlap at all. Our society wants easy lines but that doesn’t allow for the complexities of identity. I needed someone who would appreciate me. You didn't have to know my lived experience but have empathy for it. And I felt like you did. You understand what it's like to be marginalized, right? That gave you a level of empathy that was sufficient. It didn't need to be the same empathy. I felt like the chemistry was there and what I really, really like is the parts where we are different. I always said I am shoot, ready, aim and you are measured. I appreciated that because you didn't get carried away with my tactic or my coping mechanism where I can manipulate a situation. I couldn’t do that in our dynamic because you held me accountable. That's really, really good.
NJ: During the coaching, what were your new discoveries and what was reinforced for you that you already knew?
SG: There were a lot of aha moments. One of the more meaningful moments was when we did an exercise looking at the high and low points of my career. Slowing down and talking it through, I was able to see the patterns. You can fool yourself but when someone puts up a mirror and says, “What happened here?” that’s really important and powerful. The second thing, and I still have the Post-it notes, was when you helped me decide on the CEO role. You asked me about all the things that were important to me in a job and to rank them one to ten. I hadn’t thought about it this way. It allowed me to make a hard decision and say no when I didn’t have another job lined up. I could reflect and make a hard decision.
The aha moment where I really had to marinate, and which I still think about today, was when you called out something I was holding as a truth and I was like, “Oh my God, it's not true. Why am I bringing this to the table?” I still think about it. I listen to a podcast by Ellen Langer and she has this quote. “Don't worry about making the right decision, make the decision right.” That’s a little bit like out work. Coaching can help you optimize the position you’re in because the institution and colleagues aren’t doing that for you.
NJ: We’ve talked about why you wanted a coach and the role coaching played in your journey. What does it take to be a good coachee, a good recipient of coaching?
There has to be an agreement between the coach and the coachee of radical transparency and truth telling. You have to be open. You can’t go into coaching thinking you’re right or that you’re the hero and everyone else is the villain. You have to be a player in the process and you can’t take anything personally. You have to go in clear-eyed saying, “This is going to help me.” If you’re not open, it’s a waste of time and money for everybody.
It's easy to be the hero and to make everyone else the villain, it’s like candy. In coaching, you reflected that back at me and I realized that no-one was being the villain, no one has time to be the villain. Other people are trying to optimize their own lives and you might be collateral damage. Coaching is a little like meditation. It allows you to get out of your head and to look at things clear-eyed. The most successful people are the ones who can be egoless and understand others’ behavior without judgment. It’s up to me how I interpret their behavior. That’s magic, it’s like a superpower. A coach can really help you do that and the rewards are immediate.
NJ: To be a good coachee, how important is doing the reflection exercises and homework?
A hundred percent. You only get out of it what you put into it. What’s the point if you don’t do it seriously. It’s like garbage in, garbage out. If you spend time doing the work you’ll get real data and insights back. The homework is part of your job. You can’t fix whatever you want to work on just in the coaching sessions.
NJ: What does it feel like to receive homework in coaching?
I love it! It feels very tactical and tangible. I go back to our notes even now. In times of stress you forget so it’s a nice touchstone to see what you said was important to you and if you are behaving in line with that.
NJ: It’s been a couple of years since we wrapped up the main body of our coaching. Reflecting back, are there things you wish you’d done differently as a recipient of coaching?
I did the homework but I wish I had spent more time on some of the homework and really challenged myself and dug deep. Like anything else, if you follow the process you get the results. I remember you had me talk to another of your coachees and she said, “You just need to do the work. Make the list, call the people, tell them what you want. It’s not rocket science.” To this day I think about that. It’s time on task. To be coachable, you have to want whatever change or evolution you are looking for.
NJ: What are the real issues that get in the way of doing the homework other than being busy because executives are busy most of the time?
You are scared that what you’ll find out about yourself is different than who you think you are. That cognitive dissonance, people try to avoid it at all costs. If the homework will somehow enlighten you about your own path or psyche in a way that’s scary, that’s why you avoid it.
NJ: What were the tactics you used to move beyond those fears? Did you talk through the coaching with your husband? Did you phone a friend? Did you create the environment for yourself to be vulnerable?
I remember phoning in one of our first assignments and then I realized, “Who am I manipulating?” Myself. I had the realization that I wasn’t helping myself by not challenging myself. I realized that phoning it in is a waste of time. I wanted results. I engaged with you for me so I had to make it work. No one was telling me to do it so if I wanted to see change, I had to do the work.
NJ: Credit to you for doing that. It’s not easy. A lot of what you are talking about makes me think about conversations on being vulnerable, being open, holding up a mirror to ourselves. Those things are hard to do. When I held up a mirror to you, you weren’t at all defensive. What does a good coachee do to overcome the defensiveness that comes from fear and self-protection?
It's testimony to you that I always felt you respected me and my journey. I didn’t feel judged because I felt safe. If you were showing me the mirror it was for my own good. You have to get to a point in your coaching relationship where you say this person is helping me and is not against me. I get defensive if I feel I am being criticized, or judged, or someone thinks less of me. I don’t get defensive if I think, “He’s helping me.” I’m sabotaging myself and he’s showing me I am doing that so I can stop that behavior. A coachee has to come from a place where they say, “I want to be better than I am right now,” and that is a hard journey. It’s like Shawshank Redemption, chipping away at the wall and then crawling through all the crap. If you know your destination, then you know it’s okay to go through all the hard parts. Self-awareness is pretty painful but if you have it, it’s a superpower. The beauty of a coach is they have no agenda other than to make you better. Your boss, your family, your team, they have their own angles. A coach is helping you get to your goal. What a gift. If you have the capacity, time and the emotional and financial resources, it’s worth every penny. When you are starting out in your career budget in coaching, like you’d budget to have your apartment cleaned.
NJ: Last question. If someone is just starting out with an executive coach, what advice would you give them about the must dos for a coachee.
Two things. Keep your appointments and do your homework. Being open and vulnerable is the price of admission. Life gets busy but you will only see results if you do the work. Not every session is going to be a breakthrough. You need the time on task to have the breakthrough. The discipline of it, keeping the appointments for yourself, helps with the breakthroughs. You can’t get coaching done in three sessions. It takes time to get underneath the layers. It’s like working out. You don’t go to the gym once and get strong. It’s the cadence, the showing up that makes it impactful.
For more information about exeuctive coaching with MindsOpen or any of our other services, contact us at info@mindopen.co
