September 8, 2024 • 34 mins
Michael Schneider truly is one of Australia’s most humble CEO’s. He’s down to earth, passionate, a man of the people and you would absolutely find him more comfortable in his Bunnings “Reds” than behind a corporate desk. In this episode Michael vulnerably shares his love for the iconic Aussie brand and the experiences that shaped his drive and determination to reach the top. He knows who he is, and what matters in life and isn’t afraid to have the tough conversations….even if he doesn’t like doing them still!
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apoche Production. Welcome to another episode of Brave Always the
CEO series. This series, we launch into the new world
of brave leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Happy people create happy businesses, true.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Emotionally intelligent leadership.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I've picked up vomit once on our about our fourth flight,
and everybody thought, well, if it's good enough for him,
I can do it now.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
We will be joined by culture and leadership.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Experts and some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us
the truth behind their brave leadership journeys. I am personally
very excited to have the amazing Michael Schneider joined me today.
Michael is the managing director of one of Australia's most
trusted and iconic brands, Bunnings. Having started his career as
a young fifteen year old at Target, Michael's career has
(00:50):
spanned leadership roles from Target to Westbach and then ultimately Bunnings,
where he joined in two thousand and five as a
state operations manager. Whilst his resume is impressive, the reason
I'm thrilled to have him here today is here is
a man with one of the biggest brands in the country,
responsible for fifty three thousand team members and he is
deeply loved and respected by all who come across his path.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
So welcome Michael. It's great to have you here today.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Great to be here, and thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So, Michael, part of my excitement about interviewing you is
my fascination with what happens to leaders as they rise
through the ranks and make it to the top. So
you're exposed to leaders at all levels across all industries
in Australia. Can I start with two questions, what behavior
or attitude do you.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Think is missing from leadership in this country?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And secondly, what unique attribute do you think Ossie leaders
have that no other country can match.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I think they're almost the same thing, ironically. I think,
you know, one of the things that's really unique in
Australia is the absence of hierarchy and formality, even more
formal organizations. When I speak to peers in Europe or
United States or United Kingdom, you know, there's a real
sense of importance attached to job title and sort of status,
(02:00):
and I think in some ways that can really define
for those leaders what their roles entail were. In Australia,
you know, I think it's far more egalitarian notwithstanding that
there is structure in hierarchy in all organizations. I think
there is a more natural, down to earth nature that
you come across with Australian leaders. But I think sometimes
for many leaders they're afraid to let that guard down
(02:22):
when you get to know them. The issues are really common.
You know, we're really concerned about our teams, we are
very focused on our customers. We want to be doing
the right things by community and stakeholders. But it takes
a while to let those barriers fall down. And I
think when you apply that through an organizational lens, that
can sometimes make it hard for an organization's team to
(02:42):
really know and understand who their leader is and you
know what those values are. And I think that's something
that can be a little bit of a challenge.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Are you saying almost to a degree that being vulnerable
at that level can be quite difficult or can take time.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I think there's still a bit of a hangover
of vulnerability being seen as a weakness or being seen
as something that can be exploitive. But I think if
you're confident in yourself, when you under stand the values
that are important to you and the values that are
you know that you want to sort of stand for
and stand up for. Then I think you can sort
of find your way to a place where you can
(03:15):
be vulnerable and not be worried that that's going to
be used against you in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
But I do think it's really tough.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know, you've only got to open the newspaper any
other week, and the character assassinations of business leaders, sporting leaders,
cultural leaders, faith leaders, political leaders is incessant. So if
you're putting yourself out there and you're exposing some level
of weakness of vulnerability, then there's a level of risks
that probably didn't exist ten or fifteen years ago. And
(03:45):
what is a twenty four hour news and social news
cycle now.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I have obviously spoken to a couple of your team members,
and I do know afe you people who work to
Bunnings in their time, and they all say lots of
great things about you.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
But I want to know if I went up to five.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Random Bunnings team members today and ask them what they
love about you, what would.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
They say, Oh, there's probably plenty that don't love me.
To be truthful, it's a big team, as you said,
over fifty years, which is a real privilege to be
a part of such a big group of people. But
I think what I'd hope people would say is what
you see is what you get. That I'm approachable and
that I can empathize with the different experiences the team have.
I think some of that is spending most of my
(04:22):
career in the industry and doing almost every role, probably
from the shop floor to the role that I do today,
but also been at Bunnings for the better part of
twenty years. You do really long and enduring friendships, really
meaningful friendships, and I think that can help to really
build connection and trust, which are things that are I
think are fundamental foundations for any leader wanting to sort
(04:44):
of get ahead.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I think being seen for me is the gold standard, right,
and I know that you do. You're out on the floor.
I think most images that I seem to find if.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
You are in a red outfit.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And I've heard a funny story about you serving a
customer once.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Did you mix paint? Did you chop woard?
Speaker 4 (04:59):
No, I was cutting carpet.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I'm a very bad but passionate cyclist, and most years
my younger son and I go to Adelaide with some
friends and we spend time following the tour down Under,
and a couple of years back we were doing a
national community barbecue to raise money for the bushfires, so
they sort of think end of twenty nineteen start of
twenty twenty the bushfires had devastated so many parts of
(05:22):
the country. Bunning's got behind some fundraising with barbecues and
we took our reds and my son was working for
Bunnings at the time, so we jumped on the barbecue
at one of our South Straining stores. And I can't
resist the opportunity to wander around with the store manager
and have a bit of.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
A chat and talk to the team.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And yeah, customer needed some carpet cut and not something
that I do very often. I do know how to
do it and know how to do it safely, and
made sure that I gave them far more than the
out required, because I'd hope to be the one to
short change a customer. And yeah, the very sharp observation
from the gentleman there was that it was clearly something
that I didn't do very often, but I gave it
(05:57):
my all anyway, so it was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So when you're out on the floor like that, like,
why do you do it? I mean, I know what
you do in the sense of obviously it's very connected
to the people, But what do you gain when you're
at the floor?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
What do you learn that you couldn't learn anywhere else?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Oh, you learn so much because you know, you understand
what equipment's working, not working, more to our processes. You know,
it's really important. I was in a store recently that
had just undertaken a major refurbishment, you know, talking to
one of the team. You know, she was showing me
and she'd been in that department for ten plus years,
really understood customer need and customer traffic, and we're showing
(06:31):
me some of the frustrations you had with the way
we approached the layout, and you know, it was very
quick to sort of listen to that and resolve it.
In the normal course of business, that might take six, twelve, eighteen,
twenty four months for that sort of issue to bubble
up through other channels.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
So that listening is really important.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And at the end of the day, you know, we're
all here to serve our customers, no matter what role
we play in the business, and every customer is important,
So you know, it's something that I can help with,
then I'm always happy to do it, even if that's
just helping someone load some potty mix in the boot
of their car. But we've got amazingly expert team members
who usually can dive in and save the day and
stop me from making a goose of myself.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Like you're talking about the speed of getting information right
as well, right the problems like you get them firsthand.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
But so few leaders in your level would do that.
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Look, I think every organization has a different needs when
it comes to customers. Some organizations focus on large corporate clients,
you know, because that's where the majority of the revenue
comes from, or they've focused on strategic partnerships. I think
Bunnings is such a ubiquitous part of the Australian psyche
and community that you know, if you're not a financial
(07:38):
shareholder in our parent company, West Farmers, and you're definitely
a social shareholder in Bunnings, and our shares will usually
sold one sausage of the time on the weekend, and
you know, I think when people have that connection, there's
an expectation that we're going to be really interested in
what their needs are and what interests them and what
they're going to be doing to make their homes better
or safer or keep their businesses running. So yeah, for me,
(07:59):
it's it's about walking the talk and being really connected
and I think that's at the heart of our sort
of servant leadership model and our leadership culture at Bunnings.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So we know that Bunnings has this reputation for being
down to earth, family vibe is energy.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
And fun at Bunnings. Does it just exist? Was it
something that you actively work on?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
If you'd ask me that question four years ago, I'd
have said it just happens because we had a lot
of experience, a lot of momentum, and then we went
through the pandemic and you obviously know from your time
at Virgin just how devastating that period of time was.
And you know, for us, we went through a period
of would we be allowed to keep serving customers, would
we have to close down? You know, to suddenly being
(08:38):
in accelerated growth because with every Australian and New Zealand
are working from home, living at home, not being able
to go out, there was a renewed interest in doing
everything and anything around the house to stay active physically
and mentally, so our trading performance really took off. That
meant we had to recruit lots and lots of people
tech crews and flight crews from all the airlines and
(08:59):
people from service industries that weren't able to work somewhere
else joining the Bunning S team, which was amazing. But
we recruit as many people in two years as we
had in a decade prior. And when you think about
it through the culture lends, and I know that's something
that is top of mind for you. You see this
really quick cultural dilution and you don't anticipate that happening,
But what happens is that you've got to go back
(09:21):
and actually reset and refocus. So for us now, it's
a very conscious discipline to make sure that reward and recognition,
celebrating wrong service, celebrating achievements, recognizing when customers or team
share with us positive experiences of service or teamwork, that
we keep that going. And I think by taking the
(09:42):
work we do seriously but not taking ourselves too seriously,
I think we do keep the fun very much alive
as well.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I've heard the many times in men organizations where people
go to pitch to the top to the executive team
to get funding around employee experience or culture, and they
get our well, what's going to be the ROI and
investing or prioritizing it, it doesn't get looked at.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Do you feel that there is a formula for that?
Is it that you get it?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Like in terms of people coming to you your team
and wanting to spend money on things like culture and
so forth, why is it that you get that. Is
there a formula that you've got when it comes to investing.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I think we're always interested in outcomes, right. I think
if you try and look at things who are pure
financial lends, particularly when it comes to things relating to
people and culture, can be really hard to make those
things stack right. And you'll have seen plenty of that.
But you know, if we talk to other organizations, we
talk to the clients of people that are pitching things
to us and look at and understand the outcomes and
(10:33):
say do these things fit with where our needs are?
That's really important. I think the other bit, which sometimes
can be a challenge, is that people will pitch all
sorts of things to be organizations because there's a sense
that there's probably a lot of money that's available if
something is picked up, and you know, if something's really
really good, for sure they'll be funding for it. But
it's also great to work with organizations that do some
(10:54):
really good due diligence really understand what's the problem I'm
trying to solve, rather than come and say we've got
this great program. Because you're unsurprising when you're a pretty
large organization like Bunning sets we've got pretty well established
activities and processes that if you didn't know about them
from the outside looking in, you might say, well, that's
a real opportunity, but actually we might have something that's
quite mature or quite evolved. But we are very curious,
(11:16):
so we're always looking to learn and improve and make
things better. And I always have a chuckle a whund
I get, you know, something on LinkedIn from someone you
know suggesting that you know, wood Bunning is like to
have a website, and it's like, maybe you should just
jump online and google us first and see what we're doing.
But you know, I think it is just finding those
needs and opportunities and also to out building relationships. And
I think in any sort of consultancy space, if you've
(11:38):
got good relationships and that's the opportunity to listen and
understand where the needs and opportunities are, and that creates
the opportunity for not only new business, but repeat business
as well.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, look, that's good feedback in terms of I think
for people who are pitching in that space that it's
still about outcomes at the end of the day, right,
I think sometimes that can get through. I do see
people I've come across in a few organizations where people
love the CEO, right, So they've got this kind of
very charismatic CEO, but they're not so fond of, say,
of the team members.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Around the CEO.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So how do you hold your own executive team for
I guess sharing your values and your passion or the
way you choose to show up. How do you make
sure that that happens well.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
One of the challenges of being a CEO is that
you know everyone it's true of me and my relationship
with my box. You don't sort of want to put
forward a poor image of your own performance.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Now.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
You want to be authentic and you want to own mistakes.
And I think that really strong, trusting senior executive relationships
are built around being really open and transparent. So something's
not right, calling it and accepting that and dealing with
it is really important. But it is having good listening posts.
And I think it's having you know people not only
in your direct team, but around your direct team.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Who you know and trust. You know who may not be.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Politically orientated and sort of want to run tales or
dob people in if something's not right, that they will
points you to outcomes and activities or situations where you
might want to look at it and kind of go.
That's not a standard that I would be comfortable very
clear with all of my general managers and executive team
about some of the behaviors that are really important to me,
(13:11):
you know, so safety and well being of our team,
the behavior we walk past is the behavior we accept
the fact that as senior executives, we're on show every
single day. Like I'm very mindful every time I walk
into our team cafe and our national support center. You know,
we'll have people in there who are in doing a
future leader program, they're our training managers, or have people
in for a safety course or maybe just being inducted
(13:33):
into the company. So you want to always make sure
that you're speaking and engaging and connecting with as many
people as you can to sort of illustrate the sort
of style of leadership behavior that you want to see
from others. And then it's about holding people to account.
So if you know someone's behaviors aren't right, giving them
the opportunity to change and involve is important because I
think everyone has good days and bad days and can
(13:53):
get things right and get things wrong. But if the
behavior isn't right, the behavior isn't right over the medium term,
so not the short term, not the long term, but
the medium term. Then either we look at whether the
role is right for the individual or the interview you're
right for the organization. And you know, there's been plenty of,
you know times where we've had to have some pretty
tough conversations where culture hasn't been right and people have
moved outside the organization because of that.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I love that answer, Mike, because to me, that's the
definition of the brave part, right, because I think, you know,
you having some sort of non negotiables that people have
to show up for I think is really important. I
think what happens time and time again, and I hear
this from a lot of junior staff is yeah that
they say they believe in this, but then you've got
somebody in a very senior or who behaves in.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
A very different way.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
They might make the money they might bring, you know
what I mean, technically operationally they might do the right thing,
but the way they treat other people as so misaligned
with the individual I've seen that be the complete slope.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
So I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
What about you personally though, Like are there's certain personalities
you like working with more than others.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So diversity for me, there's gender balances, there's you know,
ATSI representation, There's lots of different ways you can sort
of slice and dice what diversity looks like. But for me,
diversity is all about diversity of personality and thinking style
because I think that's what you can build a really,
really successful team. Sort of switched to a sporting analogy,
and you know, if everyone wants to be Lewis Hamilton
(15:09):
and drive the Formula One car, then you're not going
to have a team. You've got to have engineers who
have mechanics, that have test drivers, You've got to have
people engaging with your sponsors and your partners. It truly
takes a team. If you think about football or netball
or basketball. You've got people who played defensive roles. You've
play people who in the middle. You play people who
are sort of in attacking and goal scoring opportunities. If
(15:30):
everyone wants to score goals or purely saved goals, and
again you don't have a team. It's the same in business.
You need different styles of people with different thinking skills,
different backgrounds and experiences, different lived experience.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
When you look at a problem or you're working through
a problem.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
As a team, you're solving it with as many different
options as you can possibly have. If you've got a
team that is very much from the same background, not
a lot of diversity of thinking. Even if you had
half the room as male and half the room as female,
chances are you're not going to get the same sort
of thinking outcomes.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
That you would like.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
So, you know, I like to work with lots of
different stuf people. But when you peel back a couple
of layers of the onion, there's some values that have
to be very aligned, which are all about being really honest,
not too big for your boots, willing to help other people,
and willing to have fun.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
So I have to ask you, I love that. I
think that's great.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
The question is that that might sometimes is easier said
than done when it comes to hiring this diversity.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Right, So I get this impression.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I could be completely wrong that Bunnings is probably not
obsessed with having the perfect regime in the perfect track record.
So are you looking for certain things when you hire people?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It's an it depends answer. So obviously, at the end
of the day, we're a home improvement outdoor living retailer,
so we sell hammers and shovels and plants and paint
and timber and board. You know, they're not particularly complex products, right,
We're not in a scientific research space. We're not in
the deep technical areas that many industries are in. So
for the large majority of the team, we are very
(16:57):
very focused on making sure that cultural fit is there
because those teams are going to be working inside big teams,
as are oranizations grown and matured. We do have very
deep domain expertise who people in culture, technology, data, property, legal, finance.
You know, they're we're looking for a combination of strong
cultural fit and strong technical skills, which can be more challenging.
(17:20):
So you know, it can mean quite often we're saying
you know not to someone who even may have a
fantastic resume, but when we think about the impact of
that person's style of personality might have on our team,
the risk is too big. And we have made those
hiring mistakes in the past, like every organization has. And
I think no matter how good your selection processes are,
there'll be people that seemed like a great choice at
(17:42):
the time that didn't work out the way anyone hopeful them,
or the organization or their team. So being focused on
that cultural fit is incredibly important to us.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So you are universally admired, Mike, and you obviously operate
and make decisions with a very clear set of values.
So can you tell me a situation where a decision
you had to make presented a conflict with your values
or somewhere you had to make a call we didn't
feel comfortable with the time, but it served a bigger purpose.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
There are always going to be times where those things occur,
and I think inevitably it's where your connection and relationship
with an individual over a long period of time comes
into conflict with a situation where the values.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Line has been crossed.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
You know, I've worked with many leaders over many years
and you might be aware of something going on in
their personal life or some other challenges that they're facing
that have manifested in behaviors where either I just can't
walk past or I've put someone into a role where
I really think they're going to be able to rise
to the occasion, really shine and really grow and be successful.
And when they've got into the role, you know, it's
(18:44):
become evident to them and to you that it's either
one promotion too many, or the skills that everyone believes
that the individual had really aren't there or aren't there
to the level that they're needed. And you've got to
make those tough calls. And equally, one of the really
important parts of my role that I sort of think
about is how his Bunning is going to be a
really successful company ten, fifteen, twenty years down the track
(19:06):
when I no longer hear the foundations that we're building,
the renovations we're making to our business all the time
are all designed so that you know, fifteen twenty years
down the track, the brand has the same levels of
trust and equity that it has that team want to
be a part of it. With culture, you know, has
a really consistent.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Feel to it.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
It will continue to evolve as cultures do. But how
can you ensure those things? And that sometimes also means
reshaping the organization. So you know, sometimes we might have
someone who's technically very good in their role, culturally very
good in their role, but is it a stage in
their career where you know, to leave them in the
role actually is going to inhibit the organization being more
successful because either we need to redesign or we need
(19:46):
to be able to move that individual to other talent
flow through. So they're never easy conversations to have, but
I think you can then come back to your value
set and go, I'm going to have a really honest conversation,
you know, And I think the individuals, whilst sometimes you know,
take those conversations to heart and they can be a
bit emotional, I think when they stop and look back,
(20:06):
you know, we'll go, I've at least been treated fairly
and with dignity and with respect, and I can look
back on that contribution I've made at Bundance in a
positive way and feel proud of their achievements rather than well,
I just wasn't valued anymore and I was sort of
thrown at the door.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I was just sitting there thinking, I know you've probably
had many of these conversations in your career, and I
was wondering, is it's still hard or do you still
have moments where you think, I really don't want to
have this conversation, but I've got to.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Do it every time, And if you don't, that's telling
you something about your own time in the role, because
I think if it becomes easy or something that you're
unphased by, and I don't think you're approaching it. That's
my personal view. It's a sample size the one, but
you know, I think it's really important to feel those
emotions because how do you emphasize with someone who maybe
you're taking their employment, their career, some of their self
(20:52):
esteem away by taking away that role. That's a big
burden and one you shouldn't take lightly.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I didn't want to spend too much time on your
journey because I know there's been a number of interviews
that talked about that, but I did want to sort
of touch on it a little bit. So you started
and retail Us young Man at fifteen and moved into
management traineeships that led you to your career now in
retail throughout that journey, particularly in your early parts of
your career, I've no doubt that you faced challenges and
obstacles along the way. Were there times where you thought
you might have chosen the wrong path or questioned what
(21:19):
you were doing? Will sort of had I guess all
we're sort of self doubt really came in.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Oh, look absolutely, Look my retail career started largely by accident,
and I went to university, and he studied to become
a high school teacher, teaching history in English and pract
teaching showed me that it wasn't for me, And I
was really blessed to have a manager back when I
was a teenager working Thursday, nights and Saturdays who went
out of her way to help me into a management
(21:44):
traineeship and also let me finish my university studies. So
I don't think many people wake up and go, I
want to be a retail manager when they're at school.
There's lots of other options and opportunities. But you know,
for those of us who do pursue this industry, it's
amazing and create incredible opportunities that I wouldn't have had.
I don't think in any other industry space. But the
sort of challenges I faced early in my career were
(22:07):
you know, there were certainly an age ceiling back in
the early nineteen nineties. You know, there was a real
perspective from senior leaders you needed to be a certain
age to have a certain number of years experience, rather
than maybe think about things the way we do in
twenty twenty four, which is more competency based and cultural fit.
So there was more of a formal hierarchy that you
needed to work your way through.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
That is why I.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Left retail for a few years and went to banking.
I was just frustrated that I couldn't get ahead in
my career, and it was probably characteristic of a lot
of young guys and girls in their twenties, you know,
quite ambitious and wanting to get ahead and build my career.
And coming back to retail was really because that's where
I'd found my vocation. I realized that the pace and
the team focus that retail had was an incredible draw,
(22:48):
and you know, coming to Bunnings.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Was really a bit of a values call.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
The company I was working for New Zealand based retail
companies selling its Australian Army in two thousand and four
two thousand and five and were selling into Pea, and
the culture of pe is really different to the culture
of listed companies, and I didn't like some of the
things that they were wanting me to do around rationalization
and coloring job numbers. I'm a job's creation kind of person,
not a job's reduction kind of person. So I love
(23:14):
to sort of see growth and people having the opportunities
that I've been afforded in the industry.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
So I made the.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Choice to leave them, and there was an opening at Bunnings.
And I didn't know that much about Bunnings. You know,
it's well known and well understood now, but in the
early two thousands in New South Wales it was still
establishing itself as a brand. It was digesting the BBC
hardware House acquisition that had been made in two thousand
and one, so the brand wasn't so well known.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
So having been at.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
My previous three companies through about five years, I thought,
I'll probably be at Bunnings for four or five years
and then I'll see where Stereo go from there. And
I've been around four times that amount of time and
found something in a company that I fell in love
with and teammates that I wanted to work with for
really long periods of time. And so for me, when
I look back, you've got to believe in yourself. You've
got to chase your vocation, and you've got to know
(23:59):
the style of environment that's going to work for you
and the style of environment is not going to work
for you.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
And that's probably.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Informed some of my things looking on, you know, considering
different opportunities that have presented themselves over the years. You know,
while I've been at Bunnies, you know what, I'm interested
in going to work for company X, and you come
back to those filters and go, actually, what problem I
trying to solve? Because I'm really happy and satisfied and
feel amating value where I am.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
When I talk about resilience with leadership, I've kind of
pivoted to a concept that sort of says that the
obstacles are the.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Path right, that you're not going to not face challenges.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Are you kind of one of these I just pushed
through the tough times like they come up and I
just sort of surge ahead. Or is it accepting that
tough times are coming up and then setting yourself up
to ride that tough time.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Look, there's definitely a bit of the Winston Churchill when
you're going through hell, keep going, you know, I think
for any leader, but that's often for the unanticipated things
that come up. You know, who'd have thought in March
twenty twenty, we'd have been sitting around a board table
wondering whether we're going to have to shut our company
down because we didn't know what the government was going
to do. We didn't know what this disease was going
to be and what it was going to do to
the community. So there are those sort of really unexpected moments,
(25:04):
But there are other things where you kind of go,
I've seen display out this is going to be really challenging,
and we're in a very challenging economic period at the moment.
You know, we've been through these cycles before. We know
that it's going to be harder than at other times.
We know we're going to have to be very disciplined
and very rigorous. But I think you've also got to
have a positive mindset because if you're going to lead
a team through these periods it's through gritted teeth, then
(25:27):
that behavior is going to rub off. I'm a big
believer in behavior brief behaviors.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
So I think you've got to.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Bring a even in tough times, bring a positive mindset
of we've been here before, we know what we.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Need to do.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Let's sit to the game plan, and let's celebrate every
little success we have because that's going to give us
a sense of achieving the things that we need to
achieve to move forward.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I mean COVID was a great example.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I mean, I know you have to see the chef
and people would have looked to you for that kind
of confidence, But you're still a human being. So I'm
imagining you had a moment where you were like, I
don't actually have the answers here. I mean, how do
you personally cope and those kind of moments where you're like,
I don't have the answer a.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Couple of different ways. I think one is the support
network you have around you. I think this is where
right back at the start of our conversation today, we
talked about the fact that what is it that can
sometimes be a challenge for senior executives, you know, in
terms of vulnerability or authenticity. Some of that is who
you surround yourself with, right, And I think you need
friends and family who actually don't care. My kids are
(26:22):
I hope are proud of what I do, but they
certainly don't care about the fact that I run a
big company on dat right, and I'm there to solve
DA issues, not company issues, and give them my time
and attention. And you know, you've got great mates, you know,
who have nothing to do with business world. They're in
all sorts of different spaces and they keep you very grounded.
So I think that's really important and challenging times, you've
got to support base. I think being transparent that you
(26:45):
don't necessarily have the answers is important, but you're in
search of the answers is equally important because if you
sort of go, oh, I don't know, I don't know
what we're going to do, and then you sort of
leave it there. But if you sort of come at
it from this is a really unique problem or challenge
and something we haven't faced before. I'm really need to
hear different perspectives and ideas and just start throw those around.
(27:06):
Your own innate experience will start to kick back in
and you'll go, oh, that's going to make sense, and
that's going to make sense if we bring those two
things together, and sometimes our jobs as CEOs isn't to
make the decision. It's just to enable other people to
get on and do things. So you'll see, you know,
someone will come up a great idea and you know
that makes absolute sense to me, Just get on and
do it. All you've then done is empower someone else.
(27:26):
So it might appear like you've made the decision, but
actually the reality, you're just getting out of the way
so that the people who are better equipped to deal
with it could get on and deal with it.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I don't have the statement is true at all.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I haven't researched any of this to know, but a
lot of people I speak to your seers I speak
to who do have a very similar humble approach to
you towards leadership, have themselves overcome adversity often when they
were growing up to kind of live with the playing field.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Is that true of you as well?
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I think I grew up in a household where my
dad was very sick. He wasn't able to work, so
he was on an invalid pension, so you can imagine
that money was pretty scarce, and the joy of the
seventies was there was no social media.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
There was no.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
It was very hard to know what other people were
up to because there was no easy way to compare.
You really compared yourself to the kids in your street
or the kids in your classroom. And my mum did
an amazing job of making sure that we were always
dressed as well as we could be, even if it
was secondhand or third hand clothing, and they worked really
hard to make sure my brother and I had a
good education, but there wasn't a lot.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
And equally, in.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
The early years of high school, I was bullied quite badly,
and bullying in the nineteen eighties was all very physical
because you had no social media bullying, and the bullying today,
I think is much worse because it's harder to see,
and I think when it does manifest itself physically, it's
usually an incredibly tragic and dramatic ways.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The two things for me, you know, probably have helped
me be very strong around sort of how people are treated.
I think when we say treat other people the way
we want to be treated, it falls short of the mark.
You know, if we treat other people the way we
want to see our loved ones treated, the bar raises
pretty quickly because I think in any given day, we
all put up with stuff. Whether it's the coffee wasn't
great at the coffee shop, or the train was running
(28:59):
late or the queue was long. We all absorb things
that upset us from time time. I think subconsciously that
can sometimes create the excuse that we cannot be at
our best around other people. Because I've had to put
up with some rubbish today, someone else is going to
put up with some If I have put up with rubbish,
so be it. If I see someone not being nice
to my wife or my children, then that brings out
a whole different side of your personality because you move
(29:21):
into a different mode. And I think it's the same
in the workplace. If every team member gets created the
way what are my kids to get treated when they
work at Bunnies, then maybe they're going to be a
better organization than one.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Down the road.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I'm the sort of doing it tough, you know, growing up.
You know, I'm very very mindful of the importance of work.
You know the importance of creating jobs for people. Because
if you can work, you can contribute to a household,
you can pay rent, you can pay a mortgage, but
you need to have that job in the first place,
and I think not just a transactional job where you're
here for five minutes, but a job where you can
(29:53):
put down to riots and grow should you choose to
and build a long.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Term successful career.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I think helps create financial stability and plays a really
positive role in the economy and in the lives of
people as well.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Thank you for sharing about what happened and being bully,
because I suppose for a lot of people who have
had that experience, it could go one way or the other. Right,
you could either be angry at the world or can
channel it towards better So what's an opportunity you said
no to in the past that you would say yes
to today or you wish you'd said yes to.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Wow, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I was often investment in tea tree farms back when
I worked in the bank, and I couldn't afford it.
To be truth was in there the money to do
it looked like a great idea at the time, and
then the tax office came after everyone that had invested
in it, so I felt like I dodged.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
A board on that one.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
I probably don't sort of live with a lot of
regret of things that I wouldn't have done. I might
have made some decisions a little bit earlier, and I
certainly would have probably taken the opportunity to travel more
when I was younger, had I been able to. I
watched a lot of friends do that. You know, I
love that movie Sliding Doors, though, right I think I'm
a tribal every and if every decision we make has
a knock on effect. So you know, for all of
(30:55):
the things that maybe I didn't do, maybe I wouldn't
be doing this today, maybe we do something completely different
just as happy and settled, or maybe I wouldn't be.
But I sort of try to make the most of
every day and every opportunity and not live with too
much second guessing about the ones that got away.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
What's something you're aware about yourself now that you just
simply weren't into the beginning of your career.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Definitely why I've always wanted to Where that ambition to
do bigger, broader roles came from. When I go back
to being a training manager, I remember going to Target
seat office. It was in I was based in Sydney
and their head office at the time was in Geelong
and Victoria and I remember sitting in the managing director's
office with a whole lot of other training managers, going
I want this job one day.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
This looks really cool.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
He's got a nice car and a big office, and
you know, I catch the train and the trend to
work now and we have no officers at all. So
things have changed a lot in forty years. But you know,
I think understanding my purpose and the why behind the
things I do is something that took a really long
time to get to and certainly took a lot of
working with really skillful coaches and mentors to help me
(31:58):
sort of unpack that.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
They're nice. So do you still have your own coach?
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I have a few different ones and more probably more
mentors now and a few years ago. There are a
few different things going on outside of work for me.
Someone may be observation that you know, people come into
your life for a reason or a season, and you know,
I think when it comes to mentors, there's usually a reason,
you know why you sort of seek out different skill
sets and perspectives, and you know, the people that give
me that guidance and counsel are just incredibly generous with
(32:24):
their time and learn from them and hopefully you know,
we'll have the opportunity one day to sort of pay
that back as well.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Love it, Love it. And lastly, what is the bravest
thing you've ever done.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's probably been when I've made the decision to walk away,
whether it's been a relationship or a role, you know,
because you know, ultimately that's saying that, you know, ships
weren't built to be in a harbor?
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Is it really true? One? Right?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
And I think sometimes we can find ourselves in a
comfort zone, or something's become a habit and relationships become
a habit rather than a relationship, or you're in a
job that is a job, it's not.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
A vokay, so it's not a career. I think when.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
You have that moment where you go, I'm going to
back myself to make a break here and make a
move and do something different. And when I've looked back
at those that's probably the moments where you kind of go,
I should have probably done that a couple of years earlier.
I should have been more confident. But again it's slight
indoor moments, right, And you know, if I had not
made the jump. When I made the jump, then making
a jump from the warehouse group and lots of shares
(33:20):
on offer from a private equity company. It all sounded
great to a lesser rolling from a national role to
a state role. It felt like it began at the time.
But you know, when I look back at it now,
it was the most obvious choice to make. But it's
easy to say that twenty years later when you're in
a really different leadership space.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
That's a great answer.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
A lot of people who I'll talk to will often
point the finger at say, my lead is not treating
me well, or the organization's not treating me well.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
But having that bravery to make that call for yourself, right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
If it's not sitting with your in a line of
your values, or you're not feeling joy and actually happy
doing it every day or at least a lot of
the time, making that brave decision so fantastic fun.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Everyone's life of books.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Some books are really lots and lots of pages, and
some are really short lives, right, And you don't want
to get to the end of it in the form
where in any way, regardless of your beliefs of what
it looks like after you pass away, but you want
to get the end of it and go. I wish
I've done all these other things. If it's there to
be leaved right, and you know, if you can put
as many lifetimes into the one you've got, then you're
doing a pretty good job.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I think amazing we're at time, but that has been
a fantastic time chating with you.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I hope you never leave Bunnings. I hope that you're
still there when my kids grow up and they can
start working there. Because I love your attitude, I love
all of us. So thank you so much for taking
the time.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
What pleasure.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Great chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Mike.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Likewise, Thanks Emma,
Apoche Production. Welcome to another episode of Brave Always the
CEO series. This series, we launch into the new world
of brave leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Happy people create happy businesses, true.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Emotionally intelligent leadership.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I've picked up vomit once on our about our fourth flight,
and everybody thought, well, if it's good enough for him,
I can do it now.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
We will be joined by culture and leadership.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Experts and some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us
the truth behind their brave leadership journeys. I am personally
very excited to have the amazing Michael Schneider joined me today.
Michael is the managing director of one of Australia's most
trusted and iconic brands, Bunnings. Having started his career as
a young fifteen year old at Target, Michael's career has
(00:50):
spanned leadership roles from Target to Westbach and then ultimately Bunnings,
where he joined in two thousand and five as a
state operations manager. Whilst his resume is impressive, the reason
I'm thrilled to have him here today is here is
a man with one of the biggest brands in the country,
responsible for fifty three thousand team members and he is
deeply loved and respected by all who come across his path.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
So welcome Michael. It's great to have you here today.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Great to be here, and thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So, Michael, part of my excitement about interviewing you is
my fascination with what happens to leaders as they rise
through the ranks and make it to the top. So
you're exposed to leaders at all levels across all industries
in Australia. Can I start with two questions, what behavior
or attitude do you.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Think is missing from leadership in this country?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
And secondly, what unique attribute do you think Ossie leaders
have that no other country can match.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I think they're almost the same thing, ironically. I think,
you know, one of the things that's really unique in
Australia is the absence of hierarchy and formality, even more
formal organizations. When I speak to peers in Europe or
United States or United Kingdom, you know, there's a real
sense of importance attached to job title and sort of status,
(02:00):
and I think in some ways that can really define
for those leaders what their roles entail were. In Australia,
you know, I think it's far more egalitarian notwithstanding that
there is structure in hierarchy in all organizations. I think
there is a more natural, down to earth nature that
you come across with Australian leaders. But I think sometimes
for many leaders they're afraid to let that guard down
(02:22):
when you get to know them. The issues are really common.
You know, we're really concerned about our teams, we are
very focused on our customers. We want to be doing
the right things by community and stakeholders. But it takes
a while to let those barriers fall down. And I
think when you apply that through an organizational lens, that
can sometimes make it hard for an organization's team to
(02:42):
really know and understand who their leader is and you
know what those values are. And I think that's something
that can be a little bit of a challenge.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Are you saying almost to a degree that being vulnerable
at that level can be quite difficult or can take time.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I think there's still a bit of a hangover
of vulnerability being seen as a weakness or being seen
as something that can be exploitive. But I think if
you're confident in yourself, when you under stand the values
that are important to you and the values that are
you know that you want to sort of stand for
and stand up for. Then I think you can sort
of find your way to a place where you can
(03:15):
be vulnerable and not be worried that that's going to
be used against you in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
But I do think it's really tough.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know, you've only got to open the newspaper any
other week, and the character assassinations of business leaders, sporting leaders,
cultural leaders, faith leaders, political leaders is incessant. So if
you're putting yourself out there and you're exposing some level
of weakness of vulnerability, then there's a level of risks
that probably didn't exist ten or fifteen years ago. And
(03:45):
what is a twenty four hour news and social news
cycle now.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I have obviously spoken to a couple of your team members,
and I do know afe you people who work to
Bunnings in their time, and they all say lots of
great things about you.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
But I want to know if I went up to five.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Random Bunnings team members today and ask them what they
love about you, what would.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
They say, Oh, there's probably plenty that don't love me.
To be truthful, it's a big team, as you said,
over fifty years, which is a real privilege to be
a part of such a big group of people. But
I think what I'd hope people would say is what
you see is what you get. That I'm approachable and
that I can empathize with the different experiences the team have.
I think some of that is spending most of my
(04:22):
career in the industry and doing almost every role, probably
from the shop floor to the role that I do today,
but also been at Bunnings for the better part of
twenty years. You do really long and enduring friendships, really
meaningful friendships, and I think that can help to really
build connection and trust, which are things that are I
think are fundamental foundations for any leader wanting to sort
(04:44):
of get ahead.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I think being seen for me is the gold standard, right,
and I know that you do. You're out on the floor.
I think most images that I seem to find if.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
You are in a red outfit.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And I've heard a funny story about you serving a
customer once.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Did you mix paint? Did you chop woard?
Speaker 4 (04:59):
No, I was cutting carpet.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I'm a very bad but passionate cyclist, and most years
my younger son and I go to Adelaide with some
friends and we spend time following the tour down Under,
and a couple of years back we were doing a
national community barbecue to raise money for the bushfires, so
they sort of think end of twenty nineteen start of
twenty twenty the bushfires had devastated so many parts of
(05:22):
the country. Bunning's got behind some fundraising with barbecues and
we took our reds and my son was working for
Bunnings at the time, so we jumped on the barbecue
at one of our South Straining stores. And I can't
resist the opportunity to wander around with the store manager
and have a bit of.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
A chat and talk to the team.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And yeah, customer needed some carpet cut and not something
that I do very often. I do know how to
do it and know how to do it safely, and
made sure that I gave them far more than the
out required, because I'd hope to be the one to
short change a customer. And yeah, the very sharp observation
from the gentleman there was that it was clearly something
that I didn't do very often, but I gave it
(05:57):
my all anyway, so it was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So when you're out on the floor like that, like,
why do you do it? I mean, I know what
you do in the sense of obviously it's very connected
to the people, But what do you gain when you're
at the floor?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
What do you learn that you couldn't learn anywhere else?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Oh, you learn so much because you know, you understand
what equipment's working, not working, more to our processes. You know,
it's really important. I was in a store recently that
had just undertaken a major refurbishment, you know, talking to
one of the team. You know, she was showing me
and she'd been in that department for ten plus years,
really understood customer need and customer traffic, and we're showing
(06:31):
me some of the frustrations you had with the way
we approached the layout, and you know, it was very
quick to sort of listen to that and resolve it.
In the normal course of business, that might take six, twelve, eighteen,
twenty four months for that sort of issue to bubble
up through other channels.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
So that listening is really important.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And at the end of the day, you know, we're
all here to serve our customers, no matter what role
we play in the business, and every customer is important,
So you know, it's something that I can help with,
then I'm always happy to do it, even if that's
just helping someone load some potty mix in the boot
of their car. But we've got amazingly expert team members
who usually can dive in and save the day and
stop me from making a goose of myself.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Like you're talking about the speed of getting information right
as well, right the problems like you get them firsthand.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
But so few leaders in your level would do that.
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Look, I think every organization has a different needs when
it comes to customers. Some organizations focus on large corporate clients,
you know, because that's where the majority of the revenue
comes from, or they've focused on strategic partnerships. I think
Bunnings is such a ubiquitous part of the Australian psyche
and community that you know, if you're not a financial
(07:38):
shareholder in our parent company, West Farmers, and you're definitely
a social shareholder in Bunnings, and our shares will usually
sold one sausage of the time on the weekend, and
you know, I think when people have that connection, there's
an expectation that we're going to be really interested in
what their needs are and what interests them and what
they're going to be doing to make their homes better
or safer or keep their businesses running. So yeah, for me,
(07:59):
it's it's about walking the talk and being really connected
and I think that's at the heart of our sort
of servant leadership model and our leadership culture at Bunnings.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
So we know that Bunnings has this reputation for being
down to earth, family vibe is energy.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
And fun at Bunnings. Does it just exist? Was it
something that you actively work on?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
If you'd ask me that question four years ago, I'd
have said it just happens because we had a lot
of experience, a lot of momentum, and then we went
through the pandemic and you obviously know from your time
at Virgin just how devastating that period of time was.
And you know, for us, we went through a period
of would we be allowed to keep serving customers, would
we have to close down? You know, to suddenly being
(08:38):
in accelerated growth because with every Australian and New Zealand
are working from home, living at home, not being able
to go out, there was a renewed interest in doing
everything and anything around the house to stay active physically
and mentally, so our trading performance really took off. That
meant we had to recruit lots and lots of people
tech crews and flight crews from all the airlines and
(08:59):
people from service industries that weren't able to work somewhere
else joining the Bunning S team, which was amazing. But
we recruit as many people in two years as we
had in a decade prior. And when you think about
it through the culture lends, and I know that's something
that is top of mind for you. You see this
really quick cultural dilution and you don't anticipate that happening,
But what happens is that you've got to go back
(09:21):
and actually reset and refocus. So for us now, it's
a very conscious discipline to make sure that reward and recognition,
celebrating wrong service, celebrating achievements, recognizing when customers or team
share with us positive experiences of service or teamwork, that
we keep that going. And I think by taking the
(09:42):
work we do seriously but not taking ourselves too seriously,
I think we do keep the fun very much alive
as well.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I've heard the many times in men organizations where people
go to pitch to the top to the executive team
to get funding around employee experience or culture, and they
get our well, what's going to be the ROI and
investing or prioritizing it, it doesn't get looked at.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Do you feel that there is a formula for that?
Is it that you get it?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Like in terms of people coming to you your team
and wanting to spend money on things like culture and
so forth, why is it that you get that. Is
there a formula that you've got when it comes to investing.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I think we're always interested in outcomes, right. I think
if you try and look at things who are pure
financial lends, particularly when it comes to things relating to
people and culture, can be really hard to make those
things stack right. And you'll have seen plenty of that.
But you know, if we talk to other organizations, we
talk to the clients of people that are pitching things
to us and look at and understand the outcomes and
(10:33):
say do these things fit with where our needs are?
That's really important. I think the other bit, which sometimes
can be a challenge, is that people will pitch all
sorts of things to be organizations because there's a sense
that there's probably a lot of money that's available if
something is picked up, and you know, if something's really
really good, for sure they'll be funding for it. But
it's also great to work with organizations that do some
(10:54):
really good due diligence really understand what's the problem I'm
trying to solve, rather than come and say we've got
this great program. Because you're unsurprising when you're a pretty
large organization like Bunning sets we've got pretty well established
activities and processes that if you didn't know about them
from the outside looking in, you might say, well, that's
a real opportunity, but actually we might have something that's
quite mature or quite evolved. But we are very curious,
(11:16):
so we're always looking to learn and improve and make
things better. And I always have a chuckle a whund
I get, you know, something on LinkedIn from someone you
know suggesting that you know, wood Bunning is like to
have a website, and it's like, maybe you should just
jump online and google us first and see what we're doing.
But you know, I think it is just finding those
needs and opportunities and also to out building relationships. And
I think in any sort of consultancy space, if you've
(11:38):
got good relationships and that's the opportunity to listen and
understand where the needs and opportunities are, and that creates
the opportunity for not only new business, but repeat business
as well.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, look, that's good feedback in terms of I think
for people who are pitching in that space that it's
still about outcomes at the end of the day, right,
I think sometimes that can get through. I do see
people I've come across in a few organizations where people
love the CEO, right, So they've got this kind of
very charismatic CEO, but they're not so fond of, say,
of the team members.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Around the CEO.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So how do you hold your own executive team for
I guess sharing your values and your passion or the
way you choose to show up. How do you make
sure that that happens well.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
One of the challenges of being a CEO is that
you know everyone it's true of me and my relationship
with my box. You don't sort of want to put
forward a poor image of your own performance.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Now.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
You want to be authentic and you want to own mistakes.
And I think that really strong, trusting senior executive relationships
are built around being really open and transparent. So something's
not right, calling it and accepting that and dealing with
it is really important. But it is having good listening posts.
And I think it's having you know people not only
in your direct team, but around your direct team.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Who you know and trust. You know who may not be.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Politically orientated and sort of want to run tales or
dob people in if something's not right, that they will
points you to outcomes and activities or situations where you
might want to look at it and kind of go.
That's not a standard that I would be comfortable very
clear with all of my general managers and executive team
about some of the behaviors that are really important to me,
(13:11):
you know, so safety and well being of our team,
the behavior we walk past is the behavior we accept
the fact that as senior executives, we're on show every
single day. Like I'm very mindful every time I walk
into our team cafe and our national support center. You know,
we'll have people in there who are in doing a
future leader program, they're our training managers, or have people
in for a safety course or maybe just being inducted
(13:33):
into the company. So you want to always make sure
that you're speaking and engaging and connecting with as many
people as you can to sort of illustrate the sort
of style of leadership behavior that you want to see
from others. And then it's about holding people to account.
So if you know someone's behaviors aren't right, giving them
the opportunity to change and involve is important because I
think everyone has good days and bad days and can
(13:53):
get things right and get things wrong. But if the
behavior isn't right, the behavior isn't right over the medium term,
so not the short term, not the long term, but
the medium term. Then either we look at whether the
role is right for the individual or the interview you're
right for the organization. And you know, there's been plenty of,
you know times where we've had to have some pretty
tough conversations where culture hasn't been right and people have
moved outside the organization because of that.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I love that answer, Mike, because to me, that's the
definition of the brave part, right, because I think, you know,
you having some sort of non negotiables that people have
to show up for I think is really important. I
think what happens time and time again, and I hear
this from a lot of junior staff is yeah that
they say they believe in this, but then you've got
somebody in a very senior or who behaves in.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
A very different way.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
They might make the money they might bring, you know
what I mean, technically operationally they might do the right thing,
but the way they treat other people as so misaligned
with the individual I've seen that be the complete slope.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
So I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
What about you personally though, Like are there's certain personalities
you like working with more than others.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So diversity for me, there's gender balances, there's you know,
ATSI representation, There's lots of different ways you can sort
of slice and dice what diversity looks like. But for me,
diversity is all about diversity of personality and thinking style
because I think that's what you can build a really,
really successful team. Sort of switched to a sporting analogy,
and you know, if everyone wants to be Lewis Hamilton
(15:09):
and drive the Formula One car, then you're not going
to have a team. You've got to have engineers who
have mechanics, that have test drivers, You've got to have
people engaging with your sponsors and your partners. It truly
takes a team. If you think about football or netball
or basketball. You've got people who played defensive roles. You've
play people who in the middle. You play people who
are sort of in attacking and goal scoring opportunities. If
(15:30):
everyone wants to score goals or purely saved goals, and
again you don't have a team. It's the same in business.
You need different styles of people with different thinking skills,
different backgrounds and experiences, different lived experience.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
When you look at a problem or you're working through
a problem.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
As a team, you're solving it with as many different
options as you can possibly have. If you've got a
team that is very much from the same background, not
a lot of diversity of thinking. Even if you had
half the room as male and half the room as female,
chances are you're not going to get the same sort
of thinking outcomes.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
That you would like.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
So, you know, I like to work with lots of
different stuf people. But when you peel back a couple
of layers of the onion, there's some values that have
to be very aligned, which are all about being really honest,
not too big for your boots, willing to help other people,
and willing to have fun.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
So I have to ask you, I love that. I
think that's great.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
The question is that that might sometimes is easier said
than done when it comes to hiring this diversity.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Right, So I get this impression.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I could be completely wrong that Bunnings is probably not
obsessed with having the perfect regime in the perfect track record.
So are you looking for certain things when you hire people?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It's an it depends answer. So obviously, at the end
of the day, we're a home improvement outdoor living retailer,
so we sell hammers and shovels and plants and paint
and timber and board. You know, they're not particularly complex products, right,
We're not in a scientific research space. We're not in
the deep technical areas that many industries are in. So
for the large majority of the team, we are very
(16:57):
very focused on making sure that cultural fit is there
because those teams are going to be working inside big teams,
as are oranizations grown and matured. We do have very
deep domain expertise who people in culture, technology, data, property, legal, finance.
You know, they're we're looking for a combination of strong
cultural fit and strong technical skills, which can be more challenging.
(17:20):
So you know, it can mean quite often we're saying
you know not to someone who even may have a
fantastic resume, but when we think about the impact of
that person's style of personality might have on our team,
the risk is too big. And we have made those
hiring mistakes in the past, like every organization has. And
I think no matter how good your selection processes are,
there'll be people that seemed like a great choice at
(17:42):
the time that didn't work out the way anyone hopeful them,
or the organization or their team. So being focused on
that cultural fit is incredibly important to us.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So you are universally admired, Mike, and you obviously operate
and make decisions with a very clear set of values.
So can you tell me a situation where a decision
you had to make presented a conflict with your values
or somewhere you had to make a call we didn't
feel comfortable with the time, but it served a bigger purpose.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
There are always going to be times where those things occur,
and I think inevitably it's where your connection and relationship
with an individual over a long period of time comes
into conflict with a situation where the values.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Line has been crossed.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
You know, I've worked with many leaders over many years
and you might be aware of something going on in
their personal life or some other challenges that they're facing
that have manifested in behaviors where either I just can't
walk past or I've put someone into a role where
I really think they're going to be able to rise
to the occasion, really shine and really grow and be successful.
And when they've got into the role, you know, it's
(18:44):
become evident to them and to you that it's either
one promotion too many, or the skills that everyone believes
that the individual had really aren't there or aren't there
to the level that they're needed. And you've got to
make those tough calls. And equally, one of the really
important parts of my role that I sort of think
about is how his Bunning is going to be a
really successful company ten, fifteen, twenty years down the track
(19:06):
when I no longer hear the foundations that we're building,
the renovations we're making to our business all the time
are all designed so that you know, fifteen twenty years
down the track, the brand has the same levels of
trust and equity that it has that team want to
be a part of it. With culture, you know, has
a really consistent.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Feel to it.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
It will continue to evolve as cultures do. But how
can you ensure those things? And that sometimes also means
reshaping the organization. So you know, sometimes we might have
someone who's technically very good in their role, culturally very
good in their role, but is it a stage in
their career where you know, to leave them in the
role actually is going to inhibit the organization being more
successful because either we need to redesign or we need
(19:46):
to be able to move that individual to other talent
flow through. So they're never easy conversations to have, but
I think you can then come back to your value
set and go, I'm going to have a really honest conversation,
you know, And I think the individuals, whilst sometimes you know,
take those conversations to heart and they can be a
bit emotional, I think when they stop and look back,
(20:06):
you know, we'll go, I've at least been treated fairly
and with dignity and with respect, and I can look
back on that contribution I've made at Bundance in a
positive way and feel proud of their achievements rather than well,
I just wasn't valued anymore and I was sort of
thrown at the door.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
I was just sitting there thinking, I know you've probably
had many of these conversations in your career, and I
was wondering, is it's still hard or do you still
have moments where you think, I really don't want to
have this conversation, but I've got to.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Do it every time, And if you don't, that's telling
you something about your own time in the role, because
I think if it becomes easy or something that you're
unphased by, and I don't think you're approaching it. That's
my personal view. It's a sample size the one, but
you know, I think it's really important to feel those
emotions because how do you emphasize with someone who maybe
you're taking their employment, their career, some of their self
(20:52):
esteem away by taking away that role. That's a big
burden and one you shouldn't take lightly.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I didn't want to spend too much time on your
journey because I know there's been a number of interviews
that talked about that, but I did want to sort
of touch on it a little bit. So you started
and retail Us young Man at fifteen and moved into
management traineeships that led you to your career now in
retail throughout that journey, particularly in your early parts of
your career, I've no doubt that you faced challenges and
obstacles along the way. Were there times where you thought
you might have chosen the wrong path or questioned what
(21:19):
you were doing? Will sort of had I guess all
we're sort of self doubt really came in.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Oh, look absolutely, Look my retail career started largely by accident,
and I went to university, and he studied to become
a high school teacher, teaching history in English and pract
teaching showed me that it wasn't for me, And I
was really blessed to have a manager back when I
was a teenager working Thursday, nights and Saturdays who went
out of her way to help me into a management
(21:44):
traineeship and also let me finish my university studies. So
I don't think many people wake up and go, I
want to be a retail manager when they're at school.
There's lots of other options and opportunities. But you know,
for those of us who do pursue this industry, it's
amazing and create incredible opportunities that I wouldn't have had.
I don't think in any other industry space. But the
sort of challenges I faced early in my career were
(22:07):
you know, there were certainly an age ceiling back in
the early nineteen nineties. You know, there was a real
perspective from senior leaders you needed to be a certain
age to have a certain number of years experience, rather
than maybe think about things the way we do in
twenty twenty four, which is more competency based and cultural fit.
So there was more of a formal hierarchy that you
needed to work your way through.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
That is why I.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Left retail for a few years and went to banking.
I was just frustrated that I couldn't get ahead in
my career, and it was probably characteristic of a lot
of young guys and girls in their twenties, you know,
quite ambitious and wanting to get ahead and build my career.
And coming back to retail was really because that's where
I'd found my vocation. I realized that the pace and
the team focus that retail had was an incredible draw,
(22:48):
and you know, coming to Bunnings.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Was really a bit of a values call.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
The company I was working for New Zealand based retail
companies selling its Australian Army in two thousand and four
two thousand and five and were selling into Pea, and
the culture of pe is really different to the culture
of listed companies, and I didn't like some of the
things that they were wanting me to do around rationalization
and coloring job numbers. I'm a job's creation kind of person,
not a job's reduction kind of person. So I love
(23:14):
to sort of see growth and people having the opportunities
that I've been afforded in the industry.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
So I made the.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Choice to leave them, and there was an opening at Bunnings.
And I didn't know that much about Bunnings. You know,
it's well known and well understood now, but in the
early two thousands in New South Wales it was still
establishing itself as a brand. It was digesting the BBC
hardware House acquisition that had been made in two thousand
and one, so the brand wasn't so well known.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
So having been at.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
My previous three companies through about five years, I thought,
I'll probably be at Bunnings for four or five years
and then I'll see where Stereo go from there. And
I've been around four times that amount of time and
found something in a company that I fell in love
with and teammates that I wanted to work with for
really long periods of time. And so for me, when
I look back, you've got to believe in yourself. You've
got to chase your vocation, and you've got to know
(23:59):
the style of environment that's going to work for you
and the style of environment is not going to work
for you.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
And that's probably.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Informed some of my things looking on, you know, considering
different opportunities that have presented themselves over the years. You know,
while I've been at Bunnies, you know what, I'm interested
in going to work for company X, and you come
back to those filters and go, actually, what problem I
trying to solve? Because I'm really happy and satisfied and
feel amating value where I am.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
When I talk about resilience with leadership, I've kind of
pivoted to a concept that sort of says that the
obstacles are the.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Path right, that you're not going to not face challenges.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Are you kind of one of these I just pushed
through the tough times like they come up and I
just sort of surge ahead. Or is it accepting that
tough times are coming up and then setting yourself up
to ride that tough time.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Look, there's definitely a bit of the Winston Churchill when
you're going through hell, keep going, you know, I think
for any leader, but that's often for the unanticipated things
that come up. You know, who'd have thought in March
twenty twenty, we'd have been sitting around a board table
wondering whether we're going to have to shut our company
down because we didn't know what the government was going
to do. We didn't know what this disease was going
to be and what it was going to do to
the community. So there are those sort of really unexpected moments,
(25:04):
But there are other things where you kind of go,
I've seen display out this is going to be really challenging,
and we're in a very challenging economic period at the moment.
You know, we've been through these cycles before. We know
that it's going to be harder than at other times.
We know we're going to have to be very disciplined
and very rigorous. But I think you've also got to
have a positive mindset because if you're going to lead
a team through these periods it's through gritted teeth, then
(25:27):
that behavior is going to rub off. I'm a big
believer in behavior brief behaviors.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
So I think you've got to.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Bring a even in tough times, bring a positive mindset
of we've been here before, we know what we.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Need to do.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Let's sit to the game plan, and let's celebrate every
little success we have because that's going to give us
a sense of achieving the things that we need to
achieve to move forward.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I mean COVID was a great example.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I mean, I know you have to see the chef
and people would have looked to you for that kind
of confidence, But you're still a human being. So I'm
imagining you had a moment where you were like, I
don't actually have the answers here. I mean, how do
you personally cope and those kind of moments where you're like,
I don't have the answer a.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Couple of different ways. I think one is the support
network you have around you. I think this is where
right back at the start of our conversation today, we
talked about the fact that what is it that can
sometimes be a challenge for senior executives, you know, in
terms of vulnerability or authenticity. Some of that is who
you surround yourself with, right, And I think you need
friends and family who actually don't care. My kids are
(26:22):
I hope are proud of what I do, but they
certainly don't care about the fact that I run a
big company on dat right, and I'm there to solve
DA issues, not company issues, and give them my time
and attention. And you know, you've got great mates, you know,
who have nothing to do with business world. They're in
all sorts of different spaces and they keep you very grounded.
So I think that's really important and challenging times, you've
got to support base. I think being transparent that you
(26:45):
don't necessarily have the answers is important, but you're in
search of the answers is equally important because if you
sort of go, oh, I don't know, I don't know
what we're going to do, and then you sort of
leave it there. But if you sort of come at
it from this is a really unique problem or challenge
and something we haven't faced before. I'm really need to
hear different perspectives and ideas and just start throw those around.
(27:06):
Your own innate experience will start to kick back in
and you'll go, oh, that's going to make sense, and
that's going to make sense if we bring those two
things together, and sometimes our jobs as CEOs isn't to
make the decision. It's just to enable other people to
get on and do things. So you'll see, you know,
someone will come up a great idea and you know
that makes absolute sense to me, Just get on and
do it. All you've then done is empower someone else.
(27:26):
So it might appear like you've made the decision, but
actually the reality, you're just getting out of the way
so that the people who are better equipped to deal
with it could get on and deal with it.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I don't have the statement is true at all.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I haven't researched any of this to know, but a
lot of people I speak to your seers I speak
to who do have a very similar humble approach to
you towards leadership, have themselves overcome adversity often when they
were growing up to kind of live with the playing field.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Is that true of you as well?
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I think I grew up in a household where my
dad was very sick. He wasn't able to work, so
he was on an invalid pension, so you can imagine
that money was pretty scarce, and the joy of the
seventies was there was no social media.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
There was no.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
It was very hard to know what other people were
up to because there was no easy way to compare.
You really compared yourself to the kids in your street
or the kids in your classroom. And my mum did
an amazing job of making sure that we were always
dressed as well as we could be, even if it
was secondhand or third hand clothing, and they worked really
hard to make sure my brother and I had a
good education, but there wasn't a lot.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
And equally, in.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
The early years of high school, I was bullied quite badly,
and bullying in the nineteen eighties was all very physical
because you had no social media bullying, and the bullying today,
I think is much worse because it's harder to see,
and I think when it does manifest itself physically, it's
usually an incredibly tragic and dramatic ways.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
The two things for me, you know, probably have helped
me be very strong around sort of how people are treated.
I think when we say treat other people the way
we want to be treated, it falls short of the mark.
You know, if we treat other people the way we
want to see our loved ones treated, the bar raises
pretty quickly because I think in any given day, we
all put up with stuff. Whether it's the coffee wasn't
great at the coffee shop, or the train was running
(28:59):
late or the queue was long. We all absorb things
that upset us from time time. I think subconsciously that
can sometimes create the excuse that we cannot be at
our best around other people. Because I've had to put
up with some rubbish today, someone else is going to
put up with some If I have put up with rubbish,
so be it. If I see someone not being nice
to my wife or my children, then that brings out
a whole different side of your personality because you move
(29:21):
into a different mode. And I think it's the same
in the workplace. If every team member gets created the
way what are my kids to get treated when they
work at Bunnies, then maybe they're going to be a
better organization than one.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Down the road.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I'm the sort of doing it tough, you know, growing up.
You know, I'm very very mindful of the importance of work.
You know the importance of creating jobs for people. Because
if you can work, you can contribute to a household,
you can pay rent, you can pay a mortgage, but
you need to have that job in the first place,
and I think not just a transactional job where you're
here for five minutes, but a job where you can
(29:53):
put down to riots and grow should you choose to
and build a long.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Term successful career.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
I think helps create financial stability and plays a really
positive role in the economy and in the lives of
people as well.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Thank you for sharing about what happened and being bully,
because I suppose for a lot of people who have
had that experience, it could go one way or the other. Right,
you could either be angry at the world or can
channel it towards better So what's an opportunity you said
no to in the past that you would say yes
to today or you wish you'd said yes to.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Wow, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I was often investment in tea tree farms back when
I worked in the bank, and I couldn't afford it.
To be truth was in there the money to do
it looked like a great idea at the time, and
then the tax office came after everyone that had invested
in it, so I felt like I dodged.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
A board on that one.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
I probably don't sort of live with a lot of
regret of things that I wouldn't have done. I might
have made some decisions a little bit earlier, and I
certainly would have probably taken the opportunity to travel more
when I was younger, had I been able to. I
watched a lot of friends do that. You know, I
love that movie Sliding Doors, though, right I think I'm
a tribal every and if every decision we make has
a knock on effect. So you know, for all of
(30:55):
the things that maybe I didn't do, maybe I wouldn't
be doing this today, maybe we do something completely different
just as happy and settled, or maybe I wouldn't be.
But I sort of try to make the most of
every day and every opportunity and not live with too
much second guessing about the ones that got away.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
What's something you're aware about yourself now that you just
simply weren't into the beginning of your career.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Definitely why I've always wanted to Where that ambition to
do bigger, broader roles came from. When I go back
to being a training manager, I remember going to Target
seat office. It was in I was based in Sydney
and their head office at the time was in Geelong
and Victoria and I remember sitting in the managing director's
office with a whole lot of other training managers, going
I want this job one day.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
This looks really cool.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
He's got a nice car and a big office, and
you know, I catch the train and the trend to
work now and we have no officers at all. So
things have changed a lot in forty years. But you know,
I think understanding my purpose and the why behind the
things I do is something that took a really long
time to get to and certainly took a lot of
working with really skillful coaches and mentors to help me
(31:58):
sort of unpack that.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
They're nice. So do you still have your own coach?
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I have a few different ones and more probably more
mentors now and a few years ago. There are a
few different things going on outside of work for me.
Someone may be observation that you know, people come into
your life for a reason or a season, and you know,
I think when it comes to mentors, there's usually a reason,
you know why you sort of seek out different skill
sets and perspectives, and you know, the people that give
me that guidance and counsel are just incredibly generous with
(32:24):
their time and learn from them and hopefully you know,
we'll have the opportunity one day to sort of pay
that back as well.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Love it, Love it. And lastly, what is the bravest
thing you've ever done.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's probably been when I've made the decision to walk away,
whether it's been a relationship or a role, you know,
because you know, ultimately that's saying that, you know, ships
weren't built to be in a harbor?
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Is it really true? One? Right?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
And I think sometimes we can find ourselves in a
comfort zone, or something's become a habit and relationships become
a habit rather than a relationship, or you're in a
job that is a job, it's not.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
A vokay, so it's not a career. I think when.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
You have that moment where you go, I'm going to
back myself to make a break here and make a
move and do something different. And when I've looked back
at those that's probably the moments where you kind of go,
I should have probably done that a couple of years earlier.
I should have been more confident. But again it's slight
indoor moments, right, And you know, if I had not
made the jump. When I made the jump, then making
a jump from the warehouse group and lots of shares
(33:20):
on offer from a private equity company. It all sounded
great to a lesser rolling from a national role to
a state role. It felt like it began at the time.
But you know, when I look back at it now,
it was the most obvious choice to make. But it's
easy to say that twenty years later when you're in
a really different leadership space.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
That's a great answer.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
A lot of people who I'll talk to will often
point the finger at say, my lead is not treating
me well, or the organization's not treating me well.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
But having that bravery to make that call for yourself, right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
If it's not sitting with your in a line of
your values, or you're not feeling joy and actually happy
doing it every day or at least a lot of
the time, making that brave decision so fantastic fun.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Everyone's life of books.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Some books are really lots and lots of pages, and
some are really short lives, right, And you don't want
to get to the end of it in the form
where in any way, regardless of your beliefs of what
it looks like after you pass away, but you want
to get the end of it and go. I wish
I've done all these other things. If it's there to
be leaved right, and you know, if you can put
as many lifetimes into the one you've got, then you're
doing a pretty good job.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I think amazing we're at time, but that has been
a fantastic time chating with you.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
I hope you never leave Bunnings. I hope that you're
still there when my kids grow up and they can
start working there. Because I love your attitude, I love
all of us. So thank you so much for taking
the time.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
What pleasure.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Great chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Mike.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Likewise, Thanks Emma,
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