Value in Mistakes | Anthony Brady

What happens when you discover your greatest lessons in the middle of your biggest mistakes? In this compelling episode of WFM Unfiltered, Irina welcomes Anthony Brady, a seasoned WFM professional with over 20 years of experience in workforce management. Anthony’s career spans influential roles at eBay, PayPal, Dublin Airport, and Accenture, where he’s led transformative projects that continue to inspire. Today, he runs his own consultancy, sharing hard-earned wisdom with the WFM community.

From Dublin to the global stage, Anthony shares stories of his own “A-Hole Phase,” a period of overconfidence many WFM professionals might recognise. With brutal honesty, he revisits the power plays, ego trips, and missteps that shaped his journey. Have you ever wondered where confidence turns into arrogance? Anthony discusses how he learned to walk the fine line and why humility and collaboration are WFM’s secret weapons.

Irina and Anthony dig into the age-old conflict between WFM and operations, challenging listeners to reframe the narrative. They discuss power dynamics, blame games, and the lessons that come from relationship-building between departments. Discover Anthony’s take on why relationships with internal customers are just as important as forecast accuracy—and how prioritising people over perfection can change everything.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your mistakes could become your greatest strengths, this episode is a must-listen. Get ready for raw stories, practical tips, and the kind of honesty WFM Unfiltered is known for.

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Transcript

Irina: 0:18

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of WFM Unfiltered. And for the first time, I think we're off to Ireland. Usually we're going to the United Kingdom, but today we're going to Dublin. And I'm very excited to speak with my guest today. So, hey Anthony, how are you doing?

Anthony: 0:37

I'm good, Irina. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Irina: 0:40

It's my pleasure. So would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners?

Anthony: 0:45

Yeah, sure. So I'm Anthony Brady. I've been involved in workforce management for probably too long over 20 years, certainly. I fell into it by accident, as I think a lot of people do. I've worked in a lot of multinational companies over the years. I've worked for companies like eBay and PayPal I've worked on some pretty large transformation projects. I worked on a really interesting one, actually, for DAA Dublin airport which was a, which was a lot of fun. I most recently worked for a company Accenture. I think everyone knows Accenture. Working on behalf of the large meta client which that was a lot of fun too. And most recently I've actually been launching my own consultancy WFM Consultancy Business which has been fantastic as well. And I've been kind of working hard on building my brand on LinkedIn. Connecting in with people like Irina here and it's just been, yeah, so that's, that's kind of me. That's my workforce management career outside of that. I'm a, I'm a music guy, I'm a big big music fan heavy metal, rock probably not that surprising, you know, kind of, but yeah. Yeah, and I work from home here in Dublin and I, I'm married, I've got one son he's the best in the world. His name is Charlie, he's three years old and I've got three dogs as well, just to kind of make sure my home is completely chaotic at all times.

Irina: 2:03

You, you won't meet. Just the mention of three dogs and I'm already sold. But I feel like many WFMers are equally chaotic with having lots of animals, children, everything running around. So I think many people can relate to that. But let's kick off with the topic. You came up with something that I actually am very passionate about and deeply appreciate every time talking about and this is the most valuable mistakes in our careers and how we can learn from them. So let, let's kick it off. Tell me something that you have done, which at the time might have been very proper, interesting and intimidating, but in the perspective of time, it actually turned out for the better.

Anthony: 2:47

Yeah, I think yeah, I think this whole idea of kind of looking back on my career and identifying, you know, where, where I did things. Maybe not as brilliantly as I could have. I think there was a time where I used to believe so strongly in workforce management. So I fell into it. I was learning like the pace of learning and workforce management is incredible. Like, so you jump in your, you know, I learned real time management. First, you know, and then I learned a bit of scheduling and a bit of forecasting. And, you know, I eventually moved into capacity planning and, and as you're learning that the pace at which you're learning, you, as well as learning the, I suppose, the, the specifics of the maths of it, as well as, as well as learning that, what you're also exposed to very, very quickly is you're exposed to just how central and pivotal workforce management is. Application and and I don't know, but I mean, I think the things that I think a project can, I think a project can, I think a project can do is, you know, they can do, you know, a little bit of improvement on a template that's a little bit more high end. Want to talk to me, you know, they want to, they want to swing by my desk and go, Hey, Anthony, are you looking after my particular area of the operation? What's your thoughts on this? And what's your thoughts on that? What do you think we should do? And that can be very intoxicating and it kind of, you know, I kind of think of it in terms of it really builds your ego. You know, and very, very easily, very, very quickly, you can kind of, you know, believe your own. I suppose. You know, you can kind of, you know, and you can fall into this, this mindset. And I did, I was definitely that guy who was kind of six months, one year into it. You know, I, I, I became so kind of like intoxicated with this idea of like, You know, I'm doing something that really matters for the operation, for this organization. I get to talk with, I get to liaise with the senior people in this, in this organization. So therefore I built up this sort of attitude in terms of my internal customers, my, my, the team leaders, you know, the SMEs, the people on the ground who would be kind of day in, day out kind of going, Oh, Hey, do you think we could. Do this today, or maybe whatever, and I was completely dismissive. You know, I was, I was like, you know, Hey, no, just no. You know, and if they tried to engage with me a little bit, I kind of, I have no doubt about it. I was a bit of an A-Hole, like I've no doubt about it, but I believe I couldn't, I couldn't really tell I was an a hole. And if, and even if I did, I was kind of like, well, I'm right to be, because it's for the greater good. You know, I know more than you, what I'm doing matters. You couldn't possibly understand the, you know, you couldn't, you couldn't possibly understand the intricacies of what I am doing and what this WFM team are doing, you know, almost being so dismissive and kind of like you know, almost kind of to the point of like, how dare you even try to talk to me.

Irina: 6:01

Yeah, not speaking to the mortals, right?

Anthony: 6:05

Yeah. What are you doing? What are you even doing talking to me? Did you not see the plan? There was a plan there this morning, you know,

Irina: 6:11

I mean, come on.

Anthony: 6:14

I know. Yeah. It's like, you know, and you know, and it's a kind of a double edged sword, Irina, is the way I kind of think about it in so much as that there's parts, there's parts of how I behaved and I, and I don't think I'm alone in how I behaved. I think a lot of people in WFM can

Irina: 6:31

cannot relate, for sure. I

Anthony: 6:35

There's, there, there are elements of it though, like, it's, it is good, it is, I still, I still do think it's, it's good to be confident, I think it's good to be, you know, it's good to, it's good to speak with authority, it's good to speak with, like, so when you're asked, like, you know, if you're asked questions about what's the right next move, you know, operations are saying, hey, maybe our volume or our call volume is hot and whatever it might be, what do you think we should do? I think, I think it is, I think it is a good quality in a WFM professional to be able to speak with complete confidence and say, okay, here's what we should do. This is the right next move. However, there is a line, there is a line where you kind of very quickly can cross over into, okay, this guy or girl is not, is not listening to me, is not really listening to my problem. I, I, so it's this, this is the problem I think. This is one of the things I, I, I kind of, it took me a long time to, to learn and I kind of, I, in my mind, I divided up most of the operations I ever worked in into two sides and it, and it usually looked like WFM versus operations. You know, it was kind of like, you know, you're either an operational person or you're a WSM person. And there's like, you know, they don't really, they don't really kind of go together. You know, it was a case of like, we were very much at cross purposes. I felt, you know, it's like operational people, all they want to do is they just want to give agents more time off the phone. They want to be, they want to be liked. That's all they want to do. They just want to do whatever it takes to be more And I always felt that like WFM was kind of like, you know, and I think I mentioned this to you before in one of our conversations, which is that I kind of felt like the WFM plays the role of the tax man, you know, which is that like, everyone kind of feels like, knows that it's an important department, that the work they do is important, but no one is going to, is going to be our best friend. No one's going to jump up and down and go, yay. WFM, you know, it's kind of like a necessary evil sort of thing. And it took me a long time to realize that this was all a mistake, that this was, you know, and, you know, it's, you know, as the years went by and I kind of looked for, you know, I, I kind of. Talked about, talked about people who I used to work with are now friends and ex colleagues and kind of, you know, you'd be kind of reflecting on how did it go. And I was, you know, it took, for a while there, like I was completely shocked when people would go, Oh yeah, Anthony, you were, you were so great. Workforce management, yeah. You were confident, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, you were a bit of Asshole, you know, you were, you know, you were, and I'm like, what? Sure. I was only, I was only doing what was right for the company. I was only doing what was right for the business. And I think that's the, that, that was the, that's the key message here is, is that doing, doing what you believe is right for the business. Whatever that is, right? May make you feel like you're in a position of complete correctness, complete, I'm right. If I'm doing, if, if what I'm doing is right for the business, then it, it, thereby by default, it's the right answer. But I've come to learn that like, no, it's not, it's like, it can't be. And this, this idea that WFM, if you're not learning to really understand Both sides of the coin. If you're not understanding operations, and you're not understanding where they're coming from, and you're not listening to their concerns, and not being dismissive of their concerns these are all the, this is the, this is the important thing, and I've worked hard. I've worked really, really hard, and maybe I'm on the other side of the coin now. Maybe I'm Mr. You know, like when operations or, or, some of the, some of the, the, the people I work with today, when they tell me, even though internally in my head, I might be thinking going, wow, they want this. They want to figure out how to get extra shrinkage into the day where You know, we've already talked about the plan and the shrinkage has already been discussed. I thought we'd already had this conversation, but here you are looking for more. Even though in my head, I might be thinking going, wow, how's this going to go? Now I'm in a place of like, okay, let's talk about it. Let's talk about. Why you want this? Where is this coming from? And as much as possible, try to bring the conversation back to what we had previously discussed without it turning into kind of a, you know, a lesson, you know, kind of like, Hmm, come here and I'll talk to you. And I tell you about how we carefully constructed a plan. And we had already agreed on various elements that were in the plan and now here you are talking about adding extra stuff into the plan.

Irina: 11:23

I think the main takeaway is that of course we need to be confident for people to listen to what we have to say. We have to be confident, but we absolutely do not have to be arrogant. And I think this is the fine line that sometimes is being blurring and people are misunderstanding and mistaken that speaking with that dismissive tone, people are going to be naturally thinking that you have more authority and be drawn to your role. That's no. And I I'm guilty of the same when I started my career and I understood the importance of it. I was thinking, okay, we're in a more superior position, so everyone should listen to what the WFM team is saying. No, because the plan only goes so far. Like, if you don't have the people on board, like, it doesn't matter what your plan is. And the second thing that you mentioned, and I think this is a mistake that absolutely every single one of us have made. It's thinking, okay, we're going to do what's best for the business. But the business is done by the people that work for that organization, for that company. So, we are inclined to be thinking, okay, we need to get one more call. And service level needs to be above target and whatever. If the next day, because of the pressure, somebody leaves and we cannot replace them fast enough, and we're going to start missing on more goals and more customers, where is the greater good for the business? So I think often we're thinking on a very surface level of what we're seeing right now in front of us. But we're not going in depth about, okay, what is the actual goal? What, what is the long term goal, what we're trying to achieve? So definitely subscribe to everything that you said, but I'm gonna ask you one thing that. Absolutely not a single planner will admit.

Anthony: 13:16

Go on.

Irina: 13:17

Have you ever used power against agents on the workplace? And by power means, mean like declining vacation on purpose cause somebody was annoying you or putting them on a task that you know, they hate cause they were annoying you. Yes.

Anthony: 13:33

Oh, totally. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Particularly, you know, it's like there was one particular contact center where we had a lot of a lot of cross channel, a lot of, a lot of multilingual, like, so we had a, we don't, a lot of. Language markets, but predominantly it was a hierarchy, right? The UK market is that is, was the top priority. So even though we might've had, you know, like we had a Dutch market, we had, you know, we had agents for that. It was, it was always understood that under times of pressure we may need to maybe press the pause button somewhat, or press the brakes somewhat, on Dutch support, or French support, or whatever it might be, in favor of. And, you know, humans, humans are, you know, and, and you're, a lot of different cultures and personalities, and some groups reacted differently to this. You know, to this, you know, some, some were totally cool with it. Some were like, listen, at the end of the day, a call is a call, a customer contact is a customer contact. It doesn't really matter that much to me, whether it's actually performed in, in French or in English. But there were some groups of people who this was a bit of a deal breaker, you know, even though it was kind of, you know, there were hard, there were hard under particular, you know, Terms, let's call it that. It was understood that this was what would happen, but the reality was, is that when, when it would happen, they would express their displeasure at, you know, whatever. They would, of course, do that through a team leader, and then the team leader would then communicate with WFM to try and, you know, Hey, some of my team are currently getting a lot of UK calls. What's, what's the story? We'd be in straight away with, well, yeah, of course they're getting some UK calls because haven't, didn't, you know, didn't you get the memo today? UK is under pressure. We need to pull in resources from here, here and here. And then they'd be like, Oh yeah, but just my agents, they're not very happy and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, and, and I care about this. Why, what, why should I, that's your job. Your job is to care, you know, like, you know, so that was me. And by the way, it's not me anymore, right? This is, this is, this is me saying these, recognizing the mistakes I made in my career. But, but to your question, Irina, did I ever keep or did we, did me, or, Personally, me and my team keep lists of like going, okay, they really caused me a problem. The next time, two days time when the next, you know, kind of like we're looking across, you know, pressures come on again, we're going to need to potentially make somebody's day a little bit less busy. Perfect. Who are we going? Yeah, less pleasant. Who, who are we going to press the button on? You know, absolutely we did that. And I'm sure that that goes on. I'm sure it goes on everywhere, you know? So what's like, what's the message here? The message here is, is that we all need to learn how to get along with each other. The, the, the, the. You know, this idea that WFM and operations are actually a cross purposes while that might be true in the minds of quite a lot of people, it is absolutely is a recipe for disaster. and the, the operations and the contact centers that succeed are the ones who manage to figure out how to get a relationship, a working honest relationship between WFM and operational people on usually team leaders. And the people who are responsible for the agents. That's where the relationship, you know, and what that means is, is that there's gotta be give and take WFM professionals need to have some understanding of what it is like to manage a team of agents and all that goes with that, you know, it's not like, you know, we all know. Well, I think a lot of us have been there. We've all been there with the headset on for eight hours a day, and the only respite is a lunch break and a couple of breaks. You know, we've all been there where, you know, you may have logged in for your shift today, and you might have thought, Oh, great. There's got to be one error of meeting time today. That'll be, that's something to look forward to only to find out that as you get close to that time, that that time has been cut, that that's been pulled. That's no longer happening and you're, you're told well, you just have to get on with it. I think WFM understanding Understanding that and understanding the pressures that that brings is, it can only be good. And it works both ways. Operational people need to understand the pressures that exist within a workforce management team. You know, the, the kind of pressures where, you know, I think we've been there where senior management may say, Where's my service level today? Or where's my average speed of answer today? What's going on? And even though you might explain, well, yes, our forecast is off by X percent, or we've experienced absenteeism today that was high, far and above what we originally thought, and they're just basically saying to you, I don't care. I don't care about these things. I want you to fix it. I want you to get me, you know, it's imperative that for the, I'm trying to get the, I don't know, the overall monthly score or quarterly score. I'm doing my best to chase that score. I need the best result I can get today. Operational people don't hear that or often don't hear that. You know, so it works both ways. But to your question have I ever had a list and, you know, used power? Yes. Yes, I have. And I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed I did.

Irina: 19:07

I, I appreciate that you're saying that and I want to touch on several points before we wrap up this conversation. And first of all, is that I don't think any of us has done something like that before. Just to, to be the bad guy or to punish somebody just because we didn't have anything else to do. But I've certainly been in a situation a lot of times when I'm seeing some agents are doing their best and they're collaborative and they're understanding and they're nice and somebody's taking the piss and they're yelling and they're vocal and who the team leads defend is always the one that's vocal because that's the one that's causing issues. So If I had to prioritize somebody getting good shifts Versus somebody who is very vocal and literally taking the piss. I know where I would go for. And you know what, but looking now back on everything, I think it goes for a certain maturity to, to understand, okay, let's deal with the situation. What, what's causing that, that. If this is a systematic attitude and somebody is working with that person and there is no improving, well, we need to decide whether this is the right person for the company. Or if for example, there is something that we don't see, there is a bad relationship with the team lead, or there is something with, I don't know, any sort of disagreement, and it's just taken out emotionally on the next thing that's coming on their plate, it's Are they both? No, but we don't see that. So definitely now looking back in perspective and with the maturity of being in that industry or discipline for so long, it's like, yeah, I mean, if you're at the stage of paying attention to how much everyone is annoying you, take a pause and like, just, just speak to that person.

Anthony: 21:02

a great example, Irina. There was a, there was a great example. Sometimes you get presented with things and you feel like as a WFM, you are speaking on behalf of the entire organization and you feel like I should speak up here and give an opinion and sometimes it's just not your place to give an opinion. I'll give you a great example. There was one time where I was working in real time management as an analyst and I got approached I was getting I was on the UK market for, for the week and on the Monday I got approached by the operation manager of the UK market to say can I give you the name of an agent? And it's very important that this person actually does not work on phone today, please put them on email. And I kind of looked at it and went going, yeah, it's no big deal. It should be no big deal. Fine. Consider it done. The next day, the request comes again. Please put this agent on to email only. Oh, okay. No problem. Day three, day four. It's kind of like, okay, so by day five, the request comes again and I'm kind of feeling like, okay, I got to say something here and I go, okay, what's going on here? What's going on? At some point, I am going to need this agent to work on the phone. You know, it's just, it's just going to need to happen. So the operation person said, listen, I'm going to level with you. This particular agent, although it was hard for the UK market, doesn't possess the language skills to speak very well on the phone. They can, they can write in English, therefore email only then the whole So, therefore, I felt compelled to jump in and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second. We're talking about one of our resources, we're talking about one of our, one, a member of the workforce who is expected to be here to, you know be available to work on the phone when needed, and you're here telling me that, that's just going to be an impossibility. I was stepping, I was absolutely stepping over the line here. You know, I should have like, listen, the, the, the ops manager was explaining going, yeah, we're working with HR, et cetera. We're, we're, we're dealing with the situation, but I was going to town on it. I was like going, Oh my God, like how? And then I was like, how many more people do we have like this? You're telling me about this one person. How many more are there? Like I've now I'm losing, I was saying things like I'm losing trust. I'm losing trust in, in the, the, the, I, the, the makeup or the constituency of the workforce that, you know, I, I need to know like that I've got x amount available for phone and all this sort of stuff. But like here I was as an RTM agent, like getting way, way, way up, you know, into, into my high chair. You know, kind of like this wasn't my place. And that just kind of, it's just another example of this that, you know, kind of where working in WFM can give a professional. The impression that they've got all of this authority and that they have all of this, you know, and like, this was none of my business. This was a, this was, this, this particular situation was really a matter for that, that Ops Manager and HR to figure that out and work that out. All I should have done was merely made a note left the rest of the RTM And, you know we have a situation with this agent there's no questions to be asked here you know, it's just one of those examples where, you know, at the time I felt like going, I'm standing up for what's right. I'm standing up for, you know, the company, but it really wasn't my place to do

Irina: 24:25

Let's see, I disagree with you because I think it was absolutely your place to know that the information in advance, in full transparency what's going on, but did you handle it correctly? No, I don't believe so, but absolutely, I would say that for me, this is the, on the other coin to kind of defend our position a little bit. We're often not given the full picture, but we're expected to, to work with that incomplete picture. Because for me, okay, I'm putting this person five days on email. Is it because they're ill? They can't speak at the moment. They're struggling with the flu. What is it? This is some sort of a long term solution. So have that team lean. The team lead came to me earlier and said, you know what, let me be clear, we're working towards that. That's completely different. So why did we have to wait a couple of days for you to kind of start losing it? So I'm a little bit on the fence with this one, but let me ask you this final thing.

Anthony: 25:24

Yes.

Irina: 25:25

I think I'm speaking for absolutely Every single one, maybe 99. 9, many nines, after the decimal people in Workforce Management that were seen as the WFM team. And the enemy, and the enemy being operations. And as you said, it's often that we don't collaborate and we are working against each other and we are seen as having different priorities and goals. the thing is, and I agree with you, we need to understand more about the roles of operation and what's important for them and the other way around. But what many times occur is the situation of good cop, Being a bad cop, and it's very comfortable for operations to be like WFM team said no, so go deal with them, so it's not my job. Because nobody wants conflict, so if I can choose to be okay with my agent and place the blame somewhere else, better for me. And I think also goes for a certain maturity in operations to understand that it's not about finding the easiest way for you personally as a team lead or a team manager. It's about working in a group and collaborate. But how, how do we achieve that? Because it's it's easier said than done.

Anthony: 26:49

Yeah, I, it's absolutely. And I think I think how you do it is by recognizing the importance of the relationship. so when you're introducing people into your team as part, like a new hire into either WFM or operations, well, if you're bringing a new hire into your team. And you might have a laundry list of things that we need to, we need to, okay, here is the WFM system, here where all the buttons are, here where all the buttons do, and this is the forecasting team, this is what they do, when you're going to go through a kind of a, what would you call it, an onboarding, a kind of a yeah, kind of getting to know, and the same goes for operations, if you become a new team leader in operations, they're going to be like, okay, Here's how you operate in your role here are all the key reports you're gonna need to, here's where to find them, here's how to interpret them all of these sort of things. But I find no one, it's very rare that anyone would actually talk about right there and then at the start, it's a case of like kind of, Now, another key aspect of your role is relationship. Right? Like right there and then. Often what it's done is that, what we do is we bring people into the team, we, we empower them with a lot of information and knowledge saying, okay, here's this system and that system, and here's how you make this go, and here's how you make this better, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then what you're doing is you're inviting them to inflate their ego. Right, and let them, let their own personality essentially develop and and you might be lucky. You might be lucky. They may have a wonderful personality where this just comes very naturally to them and they do the right thing. Or they may be like Anthony Brady was 20 years ago, where my personality led me into, into an area that wasn't great and no one ever spoke to me. No one ever spoke to me like there and then say, Hey, Anthony, the way you're speaking with operations is not cool. You know, no one ever did that, but they should have. And if, and if they had of, I think it would have helped me. I think it would have helped me, you know, to kind of go, okay. You know, to, to understand the level of importance, to kind of go right. What you're saying to me about making sure I have a good relationship with My internal customers is as important as understanding how the WFM system works, or it is as important as attaining a good forecast accuracy, or all of these things. Like putting it, pitching it at that level and saying that, like, a key success factor for you in this role is is having a good relationship. And how you do that is by having a good understanding of how your internal customers are working and operating. And I would have the same thing on the operation side as well. So that's how I would, if, so if, if I get the opportunity to run a contact center, that's what I would insist on is it's like, you know, don't just leave it up to chance. Don't just leave it up to this, like, you know, oh, well, this is why in the interview process, we, you know, we try to find the right personality and we try to, you know, we try Like, don't just leave it up for chance. Say it explicitly. Say it up, like, say it out loud. We need you to be a people person. You know, we need you to be a people person. And I've said that to people as I was hard at, I, I have, I've like in, in my time, I've had to hire people into WFM and I've had to, as part of the feedback process, I've given some candidates that I didn't hire into my team. This is, this is the truth. I have turned candidates down for workforce management, even though their competency level. Was extremely high. They, you know, they, they got it. They got the numbers, they got the, they got the, the, you know, they, theyre, they could display to me that they really understood what was going on. It's all about call volume, supply and demand. It's about managing that average handle time shrinkage. They knew all of the key elements. But I could tell they were not a people person, I could tell, and I, and so therefore I would much rather take into my WFM team somebody who's got maybe slightly less, lesser competency for WFM, but has a very, but I can tell is a much, is a people person. I would much, much rather take that person into my team any day than have to take in, you know, somebody who, like, is a numbers person, is a guru, but could potentially be an absolute nightmare when it comes to interacting. I don't want somebody in my WFM team who's going to go off and be Anthony Brady from 20 years ago and then I'm the one who's going to have to listen to operations coming along saying, hey, your new, your new, your new person is pretty good, but You know, they're giving me a lot of talk and they're giving me a lot of, you know, that's what I'm avoiding. So, so for me, that's, that's how I would do it, Irene. I would, I would just say it out loud and put it right at the top of here are some of the responsibilities of your role. And one of those responsibilities is making sure you've got a relationship, a good relationship with, with your internal customers.

Irina: 31:51

I love that advice. And thank you so much for ending on this note because that's absolutely something that I am advising everyone that I'm working with as a consultant and previously as a manager, that building relationship with different departments is first of all, if you want to be selfish, it's going to skyrocket your own career. So do it for your own selfish reasons. But second of all, everyone has a different goal and it's a part of that picture. There is no way if just one part of that picture is functioning. Everything to look good. There is no way. So, thank you so much for ending on this note. I will take advantage and sneak in another last question about usage of power. So, have you ever done something let's say to display to senior management that teammates might not have done a good job with something, or operations manager, or someone else?

Anthony: 32:52

When you say sneak in. Yeah, I mean, it's so easy, it's so easy to, whether explicitly or implicitly maybe point, so we've been in those review meetings. Hopefully, most teams have daily review meetings and where we're all sitting there talking about, okay, what went on yesterday? You know, like, did we hit the, did we hit the numbers? If we did, great. If we didn't, why not? And it's when people are invited to offer an explanation as to why not, that's where that sort of sneaky sort of like, you know, that, that's where that can come in. And, and yes, I, I definitely would. That was part of, that was part of it. You know, what I did, what I try to do now is use a lot of phrases of, use a lot of phrases. Like, or try to use, start a lot of sentences with, it appears to be, it would appear to be that our average handle time yesterday was for some reason a lot higher than it has been typically. That's a lot different from saying, yeah, we didn't hit our service level yesterday cause our productivity was in the toilet. Team leaders, what have you got to say about that? That there's a, you know, there's a big difference in how you serve that up. If you serve that up in, so yeah, it's very clear that the reason we didn't hit our, we didn't hit our numbers yesterday is cause our productivity sucked. Over to you team leaders, explain. That's an aggressive, that's an aggressive finger point right there. You're only gonna get, all you're gonna get back from that Anz, all you're gonna get back from that is team leaders now. or Operational Managers. They've got to defend. They're going to go, Oh, hey, don't, don't come at me with my productivity. What about you and your forecast? And what about you and your, your crappy schedule? You know, and you're, and you, you know, we're, we're getting nowhere. The conversation is not fruitful. However, if you can serve it up in a way, which is like, you know, We're saying the same thing. We're, we're, we're shining a light on productivity, which, you know, we don't know why we're over here in workforce management. You guys are over there. You're closer to it. We're shining a light on it. But if you shine a light on it in a way that says it appears to be there's some something going on here, maybe it was technical. Maybe it was, you know, something unforeseen. Maybe, I don't know, maybe all the agents were feeling ill. I don't know. But if you serve it up in that way, which invites then an honest answer where the team leaders might come back with, Yeah, we noticed that too. We noticed that too. And it's okay for them to say, we noticed it too, and as we speak right now, we don't know. We're looking into it. We're trying to find out where, you know, whatever it might be, or they might kind of say, do you know what it was? The team leaders were mostly off the floor yesterday and the agents were left unattended for large parts of the day. And that's probably what happened. Lesson learned. We won't be doing that today. We're going to make sure we have an extra presence on the floor. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you kind of go, even though you may have as, even though you may have actually known that's exactly what happened yesterday, you know, we're You may have known, that's, of course, I mean, you know, we were talking about it at the break room, we know exactly what, what, what went wrong, but it doesn't serve anyone well to be, like you said, sneaky about it, or kind of, as soon as you get into finger pointing, you're just going to get the fingers pointed straight back at you for something else

Irina: 36:21

this is one very valuable lesson that I have learned is when I started my career, I was getting so annoyed about repeatedly asking team leads, don't take away agents without consulting with the team. And they would be taking away agents. So what I would do is I would go to the manager and say, John took away the agents again, again, but I wouldn't go to John anymore. So my first. Don't make it personal, right? Don't ever go and say, John didn't do their job. And the second of the things I wanted to say is just go to them and explain, okay, you know what? I will be asked those questions. I will have to report. So let's work together. If you need an agent, I understand. Let me work with you when it's the best time to do that. So, Anthony, thank you so much for that conversation. Any last words of advice?

Anthony: 37:17

Anywhere as, don't be afraid to listen to feedback and ask for help.

Irina: 37:22

wow, that's a great one.

Anthony: 37:24

Just don't be afraid of it because, you know, you know, I was, you know, and, but like it's, it's asking for feedback and then listen to it without reaction. Just listen to it, just take it on board, whatever people are saying. And it's not a matter of whether it's right or wrong. It's a case of like, that's their perspective. And that perspective is real. You know, it's the easiest thing in the world when, you know, somebody gives you feedback and you're thinking going, yeah, well, that person's an asshole anyway. So that's the mistake. All feedback is valuable. Just get comfortable with asking for it. Get comfortable with hearing it, especially when it's not complimentary. You know, what do I, like, don't go around fishing for all the good, you know, the good night kind of, Oh, Hey, Hey, Irina, what did you, what did you think of that wonderful forecast I made for you yesterday? Wasn't it wonderful? You know, tell me, tell me I'm wonderful. Tell me I'm wonderful. That's not, that's not the feedback we're looking for here. We're looking for, Hey, those schedules. Those schedules I, I, I designed for you, truthfully, what did you think? did, did did they work? Are they not working? If they're not working, why? Tell me why, tell me what I could do, you know. That's the, that's the, the, my advice for workforce management people is building relationships and then when you've got a relationship, you need to ask for feedback.

Irina: 38:49

brilliant. Thank you so much for that conversation. And can't wait to chat again.

Anthony: 38:55

Yeah, me too. Let's do this again.

Irina: 38:57

Absolutely. Bye.

Anthony: 39:00

Thank you. Bye bye.