Ah, yes, you never forget your first hike up the African mountain. But if you’re Joyce Mullen and destined to one day become the CEO of Insight Enterprises, a $9.4 billion Fortune 500 solutions integrator, you remember things, well, a bit differently. Her most powerful memories were about the 50 porters who managed every facet of the climbers’ health and safety, the navigation route and carrying a lot of stuff up to the mountain’s peak, 19,218 feet into the clouds.
“Each of the porters had a specialty,” she remembered. “There were people in charge of the food, water, sleeping quarters, hygiene, preparing trails, fitness, and everything imaginable. And they managed everything to make our trip a success.” As she grew up to become a business leader in charge of a team of thousands at leading technology companies like Dell and Insight, she drew explicit connections to the porters’ example.
“The analogy of porters guiding people like me, who don’t have any knowledge or experience of mountain climbing or Africa, is analogous to the work we do for our clients,” Mullen said. “Technology is a big complex area, and the notion of guiding clients through their choices, making sure that they reach their objectives, is what we do on a daily basis. Similarly, we all have areas of focus and expertise, so everybody has to play their role in order to make sure we deliver the outcomes to our clients.”
At Insight, a more subtle analogy has emerged through the set of values Mullen calls “hunger, heart, and harmony.” The unifying force for her 12,500-member strong team, the motto offers a shorthand for such porter-esque qualities as continuous improvement, working together to contribute to the team and the larger community and seeking out diverse opinions because, as Mullen avers, “a thousand minds are better than one.”
The key to successfully implementing hunger, heart, and harmony is balance, says Mullen, whose successful balancing act led Insight to a 14 percent sales hike amid a global pandemic and designation as a 2022 Forbes America’s Best Employees honoree.
Now that’s a balance even a Kilimanjaro porter could respect.
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