John Wilson 0:00

Michelle, I can't thank you enough for being with us on the CEO Global Network Podcast. It's great to have you with us. Thank you very much for being here.

Michelle Micuda 0:08

Thanks so much, John. It's my pleasure.

John Wilson 0:10

Just let everyone know, and I want to welcome everybody to the podcast. But our guest today is Michelle Makuda. And Michelle is an outstanding leader, tons of leadership experience. And she was 17 years with Staples Professional. And this is the Canadian Business to Business Division of Staples. And she held a variety of leadership roles there, including VP operations, VP Sales. And in for the last five years, when she was with Staples, she was the president of the organization. And she is a board director and past chair of Goodwill Industries, currently Ontario Great Lakes, and is currently on the board of the Conservation Halton Foundation. Good for you for doing that, Michelle. If I go back a couple of years, you would receive your Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo and your MBA from Wilford Gaurier University. So yep. That was a few years ago. Great schools. Those of the group, but great schools, right? I would also just like to mention that Michelle is a group leader and mentor with CO Global Network. And Michelle is great to have you with us on the CO Global Network team. And so I've got some questions for you. And so why don't we just get started? And you've led everything from startups, you have been with startups to large corporate businesses with lots of employees and lots of complexity. What leadership lesson has stayed true regardless of company size?

Michelle Micuda 1:40

Yeah, I think that regardless of the size of the company, you're always leading people. So that's the common denominator, right? So I think leadership visibility and really connecting with the people are the two things that stay true no matter what the size of the organization is. People, they want to feel valued, heard, inspired, and they need to know their leader cares about them. So if you're present and visible on a really consistent basis, it could be walking down the hallway into the office, it could be morning huddles, it could be town halls. But whatever you do, you have to be present. And that really lays the foundation for building relationships, building trust. And once you have that, you're going to be able to lead the team.

John Wilson 2:29

Now, during your career, you've you've overseen acquisitions, many acquisitions, major transformations. How do you keep people engaged when everything around them is changing so fast?

Michelle Micuda 2:42

Yeah, change is definitely a constant today, that's for sure. You know, I think we're always guiding people through changes, sometimes big, sometimes small. And for me, keeping people engaged probably comes down to two things. One is that consistent communication, and the other one I would say is creating some stability for them. So if you've got some good, consistent communication, transparency, sincerity, people can navigate a lot of change when they understand why, when they trust their leaders. So you got to keep the communication really consistent to keep that trust up. And whether it's through the easy parts or the hard parts of the transformation, if that's consistent, good things happen. And then, like I said, the second thing is I believe you got to create some stability. It's probably just as important as leading change. You got to make sure that people don't get overwhelmed, they don't get nervous or scared, and the performance suffers. So keeping people engaged, you've got to think of some anchors to help them know that there's some stability for them, some comfort and some familiarity. And then that kind of balances that change with a bit of stability. And so I think that that's what works well when you're trying to help people navigate that change and stay engaged.

John Wilson 4:00

Yeah, no question about that. After leading Staples Professional, what inspired you to shift into mentoring CEOs instead of running another business?

Michelle Micuda 4:11

Yeah, that's a great question, John. I've always enjoyed supporting my team's developmental journey. And of course, it was uh amazing to connect with you and see your successes along the way and your passion for this business. So for me, becoming a group leader and a mentor with CEO Global was similar to that support and helping develop others. It gives me an opportunity to work with incredible CEOs from so many different businesses to support them on their journey, watch them grow, watch them build their businesses. I love the variety it brings. There's just so many different industries and so many different personalities coming together, and it's incredibly rewarding. And I continue to live vicariously through them and get to experience that excitement and challenge of business leadership that they're going through each and every day.

John Wilson 5:01

Yeah, yeah, no, that's wonderful. Yeah, that's wonderful. It's just it brings a lot of joy, doesn't it, with the people that you're working, that you're helping. And and we learn so much from them. You often talk about balancing change with stability. How do great CEOs know when to push harder and when to slow down?

Michelle Micuda 5:20

Yeah, I think that can be really tough. You're always kind of walking that tight rope of when to push harder and when to provide support and stability. And I think as a leader, you really have to make sure that you have a sense of where the pulse of your team is. You've got to be close enough to the leaders and the teams to sense that good pressure that drives decisions, it builds teamwork, it gets them to act with urgency, but you also need to understand when the broad pressure starts to take over and people are at risk of shutting down or teams break down or mistakes start to happen. So I think you have to believe in your people. You have to push them to deliver for their best performance. But at the same time, you got to recognize that there's a fine line when the pressure gets too high. And that's when you need to provide some stability to ensure the health of the team and the success of the team. It's kind of like we talked a little earlier that there's this balance between change and stability. And, you know, I think it's a little bit of a continuum, and you're always navigating between the two of them, and you've got to find the right balance for the right situation. Sometimes you're driving the same change, sometimes your environment or your customers or your suppliers are driving the change, or the politicians. So you need to be able to balance between the two of them. And it can be hard. You got to stay close to your people.

John Wilson 6:37

Yeah, that's a great lesson, right there. For sure you do. You've built your career across sales, operations, finance, strategy. I mean, you've you've touched all the bases. Which experience shaped you into the leader that you are today?

Michelle Micuda 6:53

Yeah, I definitely have been extremely fortunate to work in a lot of different functional areas. And I think it gave me a breadth of knowledge and a breadth of perspective. And I think that breadth is really what shaped my leadership style. I think that leading is easier when you understand and appreciate as many parts of the business as you can. Obviously, lots of leaders do this by being curious and learning that area, but I had the luxury of doing it firsthand. So, you know, I think it's a truly valuable gift to be able to work in those different functional areas. But it also taught me that commonality is people. It doesn't matter what department you're in, there's people behind that functional area. And if you have the right people and you empower them, they're going to deliver great results. So when you're in that area, you get to kind of appreciate their unique passion, their unique expertise, you learn their language, and then it helps you build relationships and connections, and that turns into credibility and trust. So, you know, I think that just being connected to all those different functional areas, it just helps you connect your teams together and they learn to appreciate what the expertise of the other departments in, and then it turns into trust, then they start problem solving together. And that teamwork is really what creates success with within and across the organization.

John Wilson 8:18

Yeah, that's where the magic happens, eh, Michelle? Yeah, 100%. I've got one last question for you, and then we're going to wrap up. Okay. Okay. So looking back on your career, what's one leadership belief that you held early in your career that you've completely changed your mind about? Is something come to mind?

Michelle Micuda 8:38

Yeah, that that's a tough question because I think in a way your beliefs kind of evolve. But the one that kind of stuck with me when I thought about this was I think early in my career I really believed if things got difficult, I could always roll up my sleeves, work harder, just personally drive results. And I kind of took comfort in knowing that I could step in and bring it to another gear. But as you manage bigger and bigger teams and you hone your leadership skills, you realize that it's not about your work and it's about other people's work. It's about the team's work, it's about creating the right culture and letting them deliver the results. So I think the best leaders realize that they can't achieve results through their own efforts. They have to do it through the team. And your job is to create a great environment. And you use the word magic. I think that's quite magical when you can actually see your team take the reins, solve problems, work together, and they just deliver outstanding results and you're there cheering them on. So I'd say that's the number one thing that that really shifted from that I can dig into I need to let everyone else dig in.

John Wilson 9:45

Yeah, that's a that's a good lesson for sure. Michelle, thank you very much for being with us on behalf of everybody watching, listening. We really got some good insights into leadership based on your experience, and we appreciate it very much. Thank you.

Michelle Micuda 9:59

Thanks so much, John. I really appreciate it.

John Wilson 10:02

Yeah.