WFM Unfiltered | Workforce Management Podcast

How to Lead Without Faking It: WFM, Coaching & Confidence - Danny Green

• Paul Banks • Season 1 • Episode 48

Share episode

Message the show!

What happens when you stop pretending and start leading? In this week's episode of WFM Unfiltered, Irina sits down with Danny Green—a former contact centre sales pro turned respected operations and leadership expert. His career didn’t start with a polished plan. It started in the trenches, facing real problems and learning from hard-won experience.

From sales floors to 24/7 global operations, Danny’s journey is packed with insights that challenge how we think about leadership, coaching, and personal growth. He shares the awkward truth about interview anxiety, the evolution of recruiting processes, and what truly builds leadership credibility (spoiler: it’s not a shiny title).

We dive deep into how Danny’s approach to authentic leadership has helped teams navigate time constraints, coaching gaps, and performance pressures—while still keeping work-life balance a non-negotiable. His perspective on listening, trust-building, and skills development makes this episode a masterclass in leading with impact, without the ego.

If you’ve ever felt like you needed to “fake it” to lead effectively—this one’s for you. Because as Danny proves, the most powerful leaders are the ones who show up as themselves.

Subscribe to never miss an episode: www.youtube.com/@WFMUnfiltered?sub_confirmation=1

 

Support the show

Thanks for listening.

If you'd like to contact me about the show, you can email me HERE.

If you have questions about working with me on WFM projects and Consulting, you can find The RightWFM website HERE.

Please remember to subscribe and leave a review of you've enjoyed the show!

Irina:

Hi everyone. Welcome to WFM Unfiltered. I'm your host, Irina, and I hope you had a fantastic weekend, and you're very well rested because I have a great guest today for you. with that, without further ado, Danny, I'm so happy to finally be talking to you. How are you doing?

Danny:

I am very well. Thank you, Irina. and thank you for having me on for my first ever podcast appearance. I am honored.

Irina:

I want, you, I'm so happy about it. You cannot imagine. But before we start giving some tips and tricks on different topics, can you please introduce yourself?

Danny:

my name's Danny Green. I am Anglian Water, so Water utilities company in the uk. currently learning and development business partner. However, I. Most of my career has been around sales and contact center environment. that's what I'm passionate about, leadership's, what I'm passionate about, and coaching and mentoring. So no doubt we'll get into some of that today.

Irina:

Absolutely let you know what, let's start from scratch. Tell me about the early career, about the salesy part that they really liked. When we were talking about.

Danny:

Okay, I won't go through it line by line because I know, I probably don't look it, but I've been working for over 20 years, right? I kicked off with various odd jobs leaving school from laboring on the building site to working in factories, that sort of stuff. And that's when I realized hands-on work. Absolutely wasn't for me. so I got into sales. My older brother was in sales, he was earning decent money, and I thought, you know what? I think I want a piece of pie. I realized fairly early on that I was pretty good at sales and I could get people to buy things from me. and I moved around various. Organizations back in the day,'cause that's what you did back in the two thousands. You could move around and that was the done thing. So I did that for a little while and then I started managing telesales offices at around 19, 20 years old. I was a fairly young manager, I'd say. definitely made some mistakes, definitely made some learnings along the way to shape my career that it is now. I, I also had a, stint as a, duty manager for High Street Bookmakers for a period of time. And then I realized I wanted to get into customer service, so I wanted to try and get some hours back in my home life because when you're working in sales and when you're working for a bookmaker, you don't necessarily get those hours back. and then I started with my local water company 13 years ago. Started on the front line, as a contact center agent in the billing department, showed that I was very capable of, doing that job and got my first opportunity to start supporting my colleagues in a floor walking capacity relatively quickly. if truth be told, My boss at that time spoke to the person who was looking after the new starters coming into the, contact center to see if I could work with him as a mentor. And quite honestly, his first reaction was, you've got to be kidding me. So bearing in mind, I'd come from probably eight or so years in sales to come in here and smashing the targets out of the park. I probably was one of those giving it a bit of the big, and probably coming across as is a bit arrogant if I'm honest. But do you know what, once I got working with him, we absolutely hit it off straight away. The, great thing working with him was he taught me his principles of coaching, many of which I still use today and. Then he went on sabbatical. So I got my first opportunity to step up into a team leader role within the billing contact center. I did that for around four years, and then my boss was retiring, so he had the confidence in me that I'd be able to step up and, do his job. I had the confidence and belief as you do as a previous salesperson. but I didn't get it. So I, applied for it, I interviewed for it, and I absolutely flopped the interview. Afterwards though, I sat down with the hiring manager after the decision. I had a really, good chat with them and realized that, do you know what, if I want to grow professionally, I've got to step outside of my comfort zone. I've got to do something I'm not comfortable with. So then I joined the operational management center, which is our 24 7 critical contact center. and started leading on all things related to that contact center. I built up a great network. I built up relationships with our field operations team, the resource and planning teams, internal senior leaders. and then a couple of years into that, the role was created, as a contact center manager, and I was successful. During interview and became responsible for the contact center as well as two other proactive teams. So I circa a FTE and six managers at that point. and the rest is history that, they say. But do you know what it probably is worth mentioning as well, Irina, that I wouldn't have been able to do any of what I've done. If it wasn't without the support of my wife, who put her career on hold, Irinabled me to go out, push myself and build my career while she stayed at home to bring up her children. yeah, I, had a great support network at home that's allowed me to do the things I've done today.

Irina:

I think at this point, I don't know what to say. First of all, thank. For getting us on your journey. But second of all, I don't think ever anyone has given a public shout out on the show their, significant others. wow. thank you so much on behalf of all of women that are probably staying home and are taking care of the children and of the house and of everything. So I, I think it was a great shout out also. you. Great of you to do that. you mentioned a couple of things that really piqued my interest to go in different directions about this conversation, but one of which is, I have said that many times. I'm notoriously bad in interviews, like I suck. Like I thank them so fast, like I can't get out of that. I know that a lot of folks from WFM really resent the interview process as such, so you. Spoke about confidence part, and I feel like our profile might be a bit lacking confidence in terms of interviews at least. So what, do you have any coaching tips, tricks? How do not take interviews right from the get go.

Danny:

do you know what Irina, I'm probably fairly similar to you in, the fact that, I absolutely hate interviews. going for a job interview scares the absolute life out of me. And when I, speak to people now about, about that, they say. But you are a senior. you are a senior manager. You've employed hundreds of people in your career into different roles, into management roles, into frontline roles, into technical roles, into analytical roles. so I have interviewed hundreds of people. I know exactly what I'm looking for as an interviewer.

Irina:

Yep.

Danny:

I don't, I can't necessarily practice what I preach when I'm on the opposite side of the table. but I can talk a good game. If someone comes to me for interview help, I can talk them through what, it is they need to do. It's them being able to do that when I'm on the other side of the table. So I, dunno. I think for me, the interview process is probably still a little outdated. We're still doing the same thing now that we did 40 years ago. We're bringing people into a room. Putting them in a really uncomfortable situation, asking them questions off the hook that they don't know what we're gonna ask. So they're off, they're on the back foot straight away, and it just feels really, old school. One thing that, One thing that we've started doing at Anglia Mor probably only about nine, 12 months ago, is we started sending over to the applicant some of the questions we're going to ask in the interview, so it gives, so that it gives them the opportunity to prepare for at least two or three of the questions so they can feel a bit more relaxed. A, as an interviewer, I always try and make PII, I'm probably more on the informal side than I am the formal, so I try and make it a conversation. I try to make it a place where someone can be comfortable, where they can be themselves, and, that's probably the biggest piece of advice I'd give anyone is don't try and be someone you think they want to see, because that won't showcase your best skills. Just be yourself. Ultimately, your CV's got you in the door, so your experience speaks volumes. Now you've got to go and show them your personality.'cause personalities really do matter.

Irina:

no, I absolutely fully agree with this one. I have noticed that sometimes we're getting so stressed that we go blank and we block and we can't really. Show that personality. That might be differentiator between the different candidates and what they're actually looking for. Because if they have invited you already for interview, they have probably checked your resume and they tick out that you do have the experience. So yeah, a good

Danny:

Yeah,

Irina:

Okay. Shall we talk 24 7 then contact

Danny:

go.

Irina:

Okay,

Danny:

Yep.

Irina:

what do we do with them? one of the things that, we are often ending up in, especially if you're not having different outsourcers party, but you run your in-house 24 7, ultimately the staffing is probably lower right during the evenings and during, Those hours midnight until early morning. one thing that I was always curious about, if you have people that are primarily getting those shifts, the hell are you coaching them? Because it does seem to me like they're being on the disadvantaged part of not been there when the majority of staffing is there. So first they have nobody to necessarily learn from. But second of all, most of the team needs and coaches. And the staff is working during the day. So for me, I'm quite interested in the quality after the busiest hours.

Danny:

Yeah. So, I'll give you a bit of a history on how we operate. So we, the, contact center that, that I was running is 24 7. it's a critical element, of our operation. so for customers who are experiencing operational issues, they could have no water. They may have sewage flooding into the property. It's really, critical stuff. So we have to manage 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So we have our day team who work from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM and then we have our night agent team who just do night shifts. So they will pick up the bat from around quarter past day to half past nine, Monday to Sunday. And then they'll work through till sort of 7:00 AM the, following day. I think, I was probably really, fortunate that I had a great group of managers working for me. and what they did is that they tried to be on shift either late on at night so that they were picking the coaching a one-to-ones up with their night agents. At the very beginning of their shift, or they would start very early in the morning to pick them up at the back end of their shift so that they were able to make sure that they were getting in the support required for their agents. if they didn't manage to catch them at the back end or at the beginning of the shift, what they would do is work with the agent to get them in at a time that was convenient for them, during the day when they're on standby, potentially.

Irina:

That's interesting. From my perspective, team leads are, not from my perspective. From my experience, usually team leads to stick to their shifts during the day, and more often they would be asking the agents or the advisors to come earlier, which. Can kind of mess up our staffing because, we need them in giving for a certain reasons. If you ask them to

Danny:

Yeah.

Irina:

then you have to compensate their hours from when we need them to actually be at work. But what,

Danny:

Yeah.

Irina:

something about coaching tips in the beginning of our conversation that you're still using. I we can't go without, us a little bit of that.

Danny:

I think for, me, when I was coaching pre Anglia water, when I was coaching salespeople, I was probably, I wasn't. Listening to understand what I was doing is listening to answer. So they were talking to me, but I already had the answer in the back of my head.'cause I knew what I wanted salespeople to do. I needed them to sell. So ultimately, I, knew everything. I was the expert. so when I was coaching, it was more about what I could tell them, what I could get them to do. When I started working with my account with, The, team leader when I started here around coaching, he really taught me that the skill of active listening, so the skill of actually listening to what's going on in the conversation between the agent and between the customer list, asking really great open questions to the person that you're coaching, but then listening to their answer and working with them to make sure that. you are getting them to a place. Where they're comfortable because it isn't about, for me, it isn't about guiding people to where you think they need to be. It's about them finding their path to where they want to be. That's the skill in coaching for me.

Irina:

if I'm understanding you correctly. let's say that you are asking a question in terms to check, someone's knowledge, right? You're already going from the position. I know the answer. I'm just waiting for you to tell me that answer and to evaluate you based on that. But if you start focusing on their thought process and how they're actually is behind their answer, then you can adapt your coaching strategy. Oh, that's really cool. One.

Danny:

Absolutely. I think it is really easy just to just, to ask questions to get people to where you want them to be. that's really easy, but that won't change behavior. You have to understand what processes behind the reason that they've said what they've said. If you can get to that's coaching on a completely different level. That's, helping them understand how they improve rather than telling them how they can improve.

Irina:

But isn't that, the same thing that applies to interview process? Basically, this is why we think a lot of us fail because the interviewer, the recruiter already comes with, oh, if I hear that word and if I hear that answer, that's a tick. So this candidate is proceeding to the next level. But if they focus and they start understanding, okay, they actually know their stuff, but they're stressed as well. Right now on the conversation, then it's a completely different ball game.

Danny:

I Absolutely. And do you know what IrIrina, what? What I then started doing as an interviewer is I put my coach hat on. So actually what I was doing is asking the question, giving some context. Listening to what they had to say and then asking more questions. So digging deeper to understand, actually, you are giving me some really great information here, but I know there's more that you can give me. So then I start prompting to get more out of them. That opens up a different conversation. That opens up another level of confidence because they're talking, they, know they're getting some great stuff out, so it makes them actually settle down. The nerves start to dissipate a little bit.

Irina:

Oh, that's a great one. Now you have to tell me more now that you've got me hooked on, give me more tips!

Danny:

Which, which tips do you want? Interviewing or

Irina:

No, not the interviewing one. The coaching ones. Because tell you

Danny:

I.

Irina:

thing that we're really missing on in WFM teams is that we don't get trained soft skills. We basically, if we do get any sort of training, we'll be. Training on the tasks as such. So we are missing on all of the goodies the trainers and coaches and agents are getting. So any kind of tips and advice that you can provide me, something that we can apply to our teams because we're not getting any.

Danny:

A a. Absolutely. I think for me it's understanding what the individual wants to get out of the session before you even begin. Because again, I can go in there thinking this person needs to enhance X, Y, or Z, but actually if they don't want to enhance that and they have a different goal, then. You'll switch them off straight away if you're focusing on something they don't want to focus on. So for me, kicking off every session with, so what is it you want to get out of today? And how can I help you get there? So it is f finding out from them what they want to achieve and then how you can help them. And then just some great really great open questions to, to start opening up that conversation and digging deeper to understand, so what is it behind that goal? Why do they need, why do they think they need to enhance on that element of their, work?

Irina:

How would that apply to, let's say, monthly, one-to-ones and scorecards and type of evaluation sessions? Because. Usually from those evaluations, you do have to provide feedback on performance, right? This is where you stand, where do you think you stand? How can we get you across the board? And so on. But how, do you set it up in the best way for the person?

Danny:

So I think they're two different things for me. So you, the one-to-one conversation and the coaching were, always separate, so I always had monthly one-to-ones where we discussed the performance. We just discussed how they were doing, we discussed them as a person. So how are you really doing as a person, not just an employee? Because one of the, one of the biggest things for me to get people on board was building that level of trust with them. You can't build trust if you set a professional boundary that they can't bring their home life into work. So I always wanted to understand the person, understand what is it behind that person? that makes them tick. It really helped them in the coaching because then if you found out a bit more about their work history, their home life, you could start bringing that into the coaching. So if someone worked at Burger King, for example, pre, Ang, I mortal, I would bring allergies in from Burger King. So, when you were a Burger King and you were doing X, Y, and Z, how would you have done this task? What would you have done in this situation? So you were able to put them back in a place where they were comfortable? At the same time is helping them reflect on the performance that they're currently doing.

Irina:

It did so interesting because do you know what happened to me? I've been in a situation where my manager were, was completely forbid me to speak with people about anything outside of tasks. Like nothing personal, no references, and I was like, I. How do I connect to people? Like I just sit and stare at them and look like,

Danny:

that's not a, that's not a relationship is it? How can you build a professional relationship with someone if you are only ever talking about the task in hand? It makes no sense to me. It makes no sense because you, have to understand someone to be able to. Get, build the trust that you absolutely need when you are working with someone. And to be able to coach effectively, you have to understand what makes that person tick to a degree. Not you don't have to be fully in, but you need to understand the individual.

Irina:

Yeah, you know what I, starting to think, is there any way anyway at all for our profile of WFM people that are mostly introverts? Maybe occasional extroverts from a huge imposter, syndrome, like 99% of the time. it possible to develop salesy qualities so we can start selling our story better to get that confidence to present ourselves better to senior management? How do we get there?

Danny:

do you know what, it's difficult, isn't it? Because ultimately everybody's different and everybody has strengths and weaknesses, and generally an introvert's weakness will be that they don't believe in themselves or they don't want to publicly put themselves on show. but you will have some introverts who are absolutely fantastic at it because what they do is. And I can't, someone said this the other day, it might have even been you now, or I've seen it on LinkedIn relating to, they put themselves into their alter ego. So they pretend they're someone else when they're in a situation they're not comfortable with. because that's the only, that's the only way they can get themselves across in a positive professional. A, I can't remember who it was now, but I saw it was on LinkedIn only this last week. so it is about becoming your alter ego. that's one element to do it. The, other element though for me is as a WFM specialist, that person is the expert in the room. So another great piece of advice that I got from one of my colleagues only a couple of weeks ago and I was having a conversation about presenting is if you think you are the expert in the room, you will automatically be a bit more comfortable in that situation because you know everything that there? is to know about what you are going to say. It's unlikely that there's someone else in the room that's going to have the same level of knowledge about your job that you do.

Irina:

Okay. So I think that explains those insecurities that, we are sometimes feeling when we're going to present our story is because we start to stress, what if I can't reply to this question? What if I can't reply to this question? What if I don't know that information? They're going? It almost feels like you're going to an exam

Danny:

Yeah.

Irina:

fully prepared to,

Danny:

Yeah. Yeah.

Irina:

The teacher is gonna ask the question that have.

Danny:

Yeah, a absolutely, but that's not just related to introverts. So I'm on all personality quizzes that I've ever done. I've come up, come out as an extrovert. I've come out as this real red energy person. and, that is generally how I operate. So in most situations, I am a, competitive driver. I am an extrovert. But you tell me that I'm gonna be presenting. You tell me that I'm gonna be sat in an interview. You tell me that I'm gonna be sat on my first ever podcast. Imposter syndrome comes over me as a, senior leader. and as an extrovert, I still get that, that I'm a human being. People have. feelings, right? it's how you deal with those. And sometimes, and I've given this piece of advice so many times and not listened to it myself. Growth comes. From pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. and that's why I agreed to do your podcast because actually this is outside of my comfort zone. Even as an extrovert, I sat there thinking, why would people want to listen to me?

Irina:

it's a great one, isn't it? I just, and I'm fully like you and people probably won't believe me because by now I'm doing quite a lot of podcasts. I have my own podcast. I have presented in front of hundreds of people live, and every single time I'm like. Sweating, like shivering thinking, oh my God. Like they are gonna see through me and they'll think I'm stupid and I'm gonna forget any single word of English that I know in my gut, and stand there staring at them and walk out. And then I started thinking, not that important for people to live their lives, even if I screw up thinking constantly about me. So they're probably gonna have a laugh or two and they're gonna go home and completely forget about me. And at the moment I start thinking in this way. It's what helps me go to a session. And what if I screw up? I use it as a lesson for everyone that you can screw up and then keep on doing it because it pushes you outta your comfort zone and it you that situation and it does better

Danny:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that, do you know what it is? A, it is just a shift of mindset and that's what people have to do. You have to, be able to shift your mindset away from the negative feelings that you, are feeling, that you're gonna screw up, that you're gonna get it wrong. Because actually, the more positive you are about it, it's gonna be okay. I am gonna get through it. I'm gonna walk off the stage, I'm gonna walk out of the room after and I'll be absolutely fine. You start putting those thoughts in your mind, and it'll just be. a better experience.

Irina:

Absolutely. You know what I actually am thinking about that? that advice like fake it until you make it and then you should basically project, confidence and people will automatically start feeling differently about you. But I was wondering lately, quite the opposite. If you have to present, let's say in front of group of people, is it better to be really confident than to. Wing it for the lack of better word, or you should say, oh, I'm a bit nervous for that meeting today to present in front of you. So what do you think would be better approach, to be honest about how you feel or to be confident?

Danny:

I think for me it's, it's always about being your authentic self. So if you're feeling nervous, I don't think there's anything wrong with letting people know, do you know what I'm feeling a bit nervous. If you're confident? brilliant, crack on. Do what you need to do and just do it. But I don't think there's anything wrong with being a bit vulnerable. It shows that you're human and I guarantee you now. 50% or more of people that you are presenting to will be feeling exactly the same as you if they were stood in your position. So you'd have the empathy of the room.

Irina:

Yeah, you know what, that reminds me of one story with one guy that I used to work with and he's a salesy guy and he is brilliant at his job and he is sometimes, you salesy people cannot shut up. Like he can just talk. and talk and talk. So he started working with me and he would automatically just talk and I couldn't even comprehend the amount of information that he was throwing to different people in meetings. And I was like, Jesus, how are you doing it? Are, you always that confident? He was like. have the biggest imposter syndrome ever. I think. I don't know anything. It's just his personality is this way. He just doesn't show it. You know what, but in his head, not the story that all of us are seeing in the room. And it's so interesting to, understand that,

Danny:

Yeah.

Irina:

You know what? I have one last question for you and I'm gonna let you go. And maybe a little bit side topic, but lately I'm thinking a lot about how W FMRs are presenting themselves and presenting information. And one thing that I have done for, many years in my career is when we had to conduct a PowerPoint presentation or whatever to. An audience, over prepare to the point that you actually write down a script, you memorize it in your head, and then you are in front of people. And then you're, unfortunately, sometimes you get so stressed that whole strip script goes blank and then you are really so I was just wondering in terms of presentation. Is it better to get that overly prepared or how do we wing it if we're so stressed that we know that something will happen?

Danny:

Do, you know what, Irina, I've always been that person that gets stressed about presenting. and I've, done both things. So when I flopped that interview all those years ago, and I'm talking 10 years ago now, something like that, part of it was a presentation. I spent the last day of my holiday preparing for that presentation. I went over it, and over it, to the point where I knew every word, but then I couldn't get it out when I was in the interview. And one of the pieces of advice I got from the hiring manager afterwards was you prepared so much for that interview that it was at your detriment. So actually knowing the topics that you're going to present, having some cue cards with bullet points on of information, and not presenting too much on the slide. Is for me the best way forward. So you have some key information on the slide. You've got more on your cue cards. Go. Go from there. That, would just be my personal view because the more information you put on your slide, the more information people are looking at and likely to question you about. But also it's more information that you've got to talk through. If you have less information and you skip a little bit. Your, pitch or whatever it is, it doesn't matter because no one's expecting you to say it anyway.

Irina:

That's a good one. yeah, I'm always looking from the same perspective that I used to put highlights on my presentations, but I would write down my story, like complete story as if I'm talking to you. It would be scripted and I would be getting showers and going through that same story. I would be going to the meeting, getting through the story, and then at the moment I have to present. It's Good morning, can I have nothing because

Danny:

Yeah,

Irina:

I, feel like it's a lot of people, especially in WFM, it's something that we actually don't talk about and we see some people presenting and we're like, how the hell are they doing it? They're so brilliant. And those same people are like. I'm sweating, like my blood pressure is up. I need to

Danny:

Yeah.

Irina:

now, otherwise I'm gonna faint. So what I started doing is, again. Understanding that I'm that vulnerable person having imposter syndrome, and it's possible that I might make mistakes or do, which I'm going to address, but ultimately nobody's gonna spend their entire life thinking about my ones screw up, have there

Danny:

Yeah.

Irina:

on a presentation, and then you prepare to the most of your abilities and ultimately whatever happens.

Danny:

Yeah, absolutely.

Irina:

Thank you so much, Danny, for this conversation and for all of these tips. As I said, I'm always looking for information and how can we better ourselves because in WFM, it's like we're on our own. So when we're exposed to leaders like you, it can make a whole lot of difference. So thank you so much for this conversation.

Danny:

No worries. Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed it.

Irina:

Thank you. And chat soon. And for everyone listening to us. Stay tuned for the next one. Bye-bye.

Danny:

Thanks.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Irina Hollatz (Mateeva)

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.