by Preston Fore via Fortune
Jim Kavanaugh, the former pro soccer player-turned entrepreneur began building out World Wide Technology in 1990, growing the Missouri-based firm into an IT solutions giant. But along the way, he held a simple view of what it takes to succeed: You have to put in the work. "If you want to be great, you can't put in an average or sub-average level of input and work ethic," Kavanaugh told Fortune. "You don't get to great that way."
But after more than three decades of scaling a technology company, Kavanaugh learned the importance of not getting too comfortable with any one way of doing things. The pandemic, in particular, forced him to rethink what he considered a sign of a strong work ethic—and how much of it actually required employees to be in the office.
"I had to think differently about, am I going to come back and mandate all of our employees have to be in the office 100% of the time?" he said.
Kavanaugh's answer was ultimately no. Today, WWT takes a hybrid approach, with specific work requirements based on its "dynamic persona" philosophy: Certain roles and business units may be better suited to in-person collaboration, while others can operate more flexibly. Kavanaugh said above all, he's learned to put faith in the over 12,000 employees on his payroll.
"I still believe in work ethic, and putting the time in and doing whatever it takes to get the job done, but at the same time, culturally, we need to trust our employees," he said.