‘We need to trust our employees’: This billionaire CEO went from counting cars in the parking lot past 6pm to embracing hybrid work

Jim Kavanaugh isn’t afraid to admit it: He probably hasn’t always been everyone’s favorite boss.

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 with $20 billion in annual revenue. 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.”

Kavanaugh, who has an estimated net worth of $7.7 billion, learned that mindset early in his career. As a soccer player, that meant showing up to practice in the rain; as an entrepreneur, it meant being willing to put in long hours or cut back on vacation when the business needed him.

But as cofounder and CEO, that philosophy extended beyond just performance goals. He wanted to see employees putting in the hours, with an expectation that top performers would be among the first to arrive at the office and the last to leave—even on Fridays.

“I’m looking at cars in the parking lot, and I would literally joke with the executive team, ‘On a Friday if it’s not after six, I don’t want to be able to drive a snow plow through here and not hit any [cars],’” Kavanaugh said.

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........

© Fortune