Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Insight CEO Joyce Mullen

I recently interviewed Joyce Mullen on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is a fortune 500 CEO who leads a $9.4 billion business. Joyce Mullen is the CEO of Insight, where she leads more than 12,000 employees across 19 countries around the world. Joyce, thank you for joining us.

Joyce: Well, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Adam: Pleasure is mine. You went to Brown where you studied international relations before taking a job at a startup right out of college. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What experiences and lessons were most instrumental in shaping your worldview and shaping the trajectory of your success?

Joyce: Thanks. I had the incredible opportunity to go to Brown, by the way, many members of my family, including my grandmother and grandfather, both went to Brown. And so that was kind of a predetermined thing if I got it, and indeed I did. And it was really a terrific experience and I got a chance to work with some really terrific professors. And one of those happened to be actually a visiting professor from your neck of the woods. They were from Pepperdine, he was involved in a startup, which was kind of the first essence a long, long time ago before situation rooms were common. And they were building out this idea of being able to use data from public sources to anticipate a military conflict and political conflict. And so this project was the brainchild of five or six different professors from various schools in California, including the Naval Postgraduate School, so they needed some people to actually do the work. So at 22, we drove across the country in my professor's car, and my friend and I did that. And then we landed in Monterey, California, not a bad place to be. And that to work at a brand new startup, and I had the dubious honor, I guess, to be the only person on the leadership team who actually wasn't an academic and was sort of people-oriented. So before I knew it, I was running the office and hiring all the people to do all the coding work. And it was a fabulous, fabulous learning experience. And I loved it.

Adam: Were there any key lessons, whether it was from your childhood growing up from that first job, anything that stands out that really shaped your worldview, and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Joyce: Yeah, you know, what really, I learned from that is I love the people part of business. So I thought the tech was cool. I thought that project was interesting and could potentially be very valuable. But what I loved about that job was building a team of 45 people who were actually doing the coding work in support of the company's mission. I love figuring out how to motivate different kinds of teammates, some of them were graduate students, some of them were 60 years old, some of them were 18 years old, just out of high school. And it was such a diverse group of people. And what I really learned then is that it is so important to really understand what's important to any individual, and then figure out how to line up the business goals with the personal goals of the teammates. And that's where the magic happens. And that has served me so well throughout my career. Because at the end of the day, it's always about the people and making sure that they're operating in an environment where they can do their best work ever. And in order to make that true, you have to really understand what they love and what they don't.

Adam: I could not agree with you more. Without people, there's no business. And it's important to understand numbers. You have an MBA from as good a school as any. But numbers aside, no people, no business, you don't have customers, you don't have employees. There's nothing there.

Joyce: Exactly right. And I have learned that lesson so many times in different contexts and have the adaptability to be able to say, okay, wait a second. This is really important to this group of people. How do we rationalize those things and make sure that we can deliver great results for customers? And put that excitement and enthusiasm that passion to work is the secret.

Adam: What were the keys to rising within your career? And what are the most important things that anyone can do to rise within their career?

Joyce: I do think it's an appreciation for the talents and skills of the employees no matter what their level, no matter where they are in the organization. Don't ever care how many degrees somebody has or where they went to school or what their position in the organization is. Sometimes the very smartest people in the organization are the people with the answers to the problem. Maybe they have no degree. But I had a great experience at running a plant in Cookeville, Tennessee, which was such an incredible opportunity. But I knew nothing about manufacturing at the time. But I was able to understand that the smartest guy in that plant, his name is Tom Martin. He would smoke four packs of cigarettes a day and had a really gravelly voice. And he was the original, Adam, he could identify a problem in the plant by touching a machine and anticipate its failure or looking around and seeing where the bottlenecks were. And he signed his name with an X because he could not read or write. The smartest guy in the plant, I learn the most from him. He could not read or write. So learning that lesson and making sure you're really open to understanding, listening and learning from everybody around you is something that makes you stronger and makes you a better leader. And it certainly makes you a better teammate.

Adam: Really important lesson, the importance of learning from everyone around you. I had a conversation with a guest on this podcast, former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Guttman, and one of the things we spoke about was how, in the course of his life, in the course of his career, he's been around presidents of the United States, prime ministers, literally the most powerful people, but it's the shoeshine guy who you could learn just as much from as anyone else. And really having that perspective, that every person you come across, presents an opportunity to learn to grow, to develop, to take that next step, and to ultimately improve yourself.

Joyce: Exactly. You know, it's that book, right? It was by Jude de Silva, Who Packed Your Parachute? It's a really good lesson, right?

Adam: Yeah. What were the most important skills that you developed as you're rising within your career? And what are the most important skills that you utilize today, in your capacity as a fortune 500 CEO?

Joyce: I don't know if it's more if it's a skill or if it's a tendency or a trait. But I think being really curious, it's back to that growth mindset you were just talking about, but trying to make sure that you're always open to new ideas, and you're always open to growth. And you're always open to listening to people who know the work better, or who have expertise in an area where you don't have. So I think curiosity combined with a healthy dose of humility, means you're gonna get the best answers. And so I guess the skill that comes out of that is an ability to probe, ask relevant questions, listen intently, and figure out how to apply what you're learning to a broad swath of either the business or the industry or the market or whatever, is probably been the key skill in terms of my development and in terms of my ability to lead.

Adam: And you really ticked off so many of the most important things that all great leaders do. Great leaders are great listeners, great leaders ask great questions, great leaders have a growth mindset. Humility is essential to being successful. The very best leaders, even though they are the ones who have enjoyed the most success, they are the ones who have the most knowledge, are the ones who walk into the room, most humble, most hungry, most eager to learn. They don't walk into the room feeling like they know it all. They walk into the room feeling like they don't know enough and they want to know as much as they possibly can.

Joyce: Exactly. And when you get to sit in a room with somebody like Michael Dell, who seems to know an awful lot about technology, and listen to the questions he asks and watch him change his perspective or his opinion, that's really humbling, right? Because that guy knows a few things.

Adam: What are the best lessons you've learned from your time around Michael Dell?

Joyce: He is a bold thinker. Obviously, he is so willing to fail fast, and yet he is 100% accountable for the outcome. And I have plenty of examples of where I failed at Dell in which he and the leadership team were nothing but supportive even after making the big mistakes. And I think inside is an incredible company and has a very strong culture. And I think it will be even better as we inject more risk-taking bolder decision-making, a willingness to fail, and then correct fast because there's nothing that teaches you more than a failure. And that's probably the most lasting lesson I learned from Michael.

Adam: What do you consider to be the biggest failure in your career? And what did you learn from it?

Joyce: Yeah, so I have the opportunity at Dell, it was very early in my career, I think I had been there for a year or two, and I was leading our tech support organization. And this is a period Dell had just been on the cover as the most admired company, for example. And so we were pretty sure we were pretty smart. I have the responsibility to transition our tech support activity for our corporate customers, from our tech support organizations in the U.S. to India. We did it very, very quickly. We did it without expatriates. In India, we believe we could do it successfully in record time. And I was in charge of it. And while I saw plenty of reasons to slow down, think again. And while I had many conversations around, hey, I think maybe we should take this more slowly or I executed it, it was a big mistake. I put our customers through an awful lot of pain. The good news is, as I mentioned, we as an organization, were good at failing fast and correcting fast. And we did that. But to put our customers through three, four months of pain, when we should not have moved their tech support to India was a mistake that I made. Now, of course, it's much clearer to me that I should have had the courage to basically put my badge on the table and say, no, I'm not doing it. And I did not yet have that confidence. And I did not yet have that courage. And I probably didn't have the reputation at Dell yet to be able to do something like that. But it's a mistake, I think about it all the time. And I think about the need to be courageous when we know that something's not going to be the right thing for our customers, we have to take a stand. And we have to make sure that we clarify the risks and say we're not doing it.

Adam: You mentioned the words failing fast. And those are words that we hear all the time. But how do you actually fail fast? How does that work in practice?

Joyce: We're having this conversation and insight around some of our projects, for example. And I think it is just injecting more risk into a change process, and ensuring that the team understands that failure is part of learning. So I think it means speeding up a schedule and then making sure we build in time to fix things. I think it means building a relationship with a brand new partner, maybe whose technology is not proven, and then figure out how to deploy that and learn from that. Maybe it's hiring somebody who doesn't have the skills on paper to do a job or promoting somebody who doesn't have the skills on paper to do a job, but giving them a chance to do it, and then deciding if it's not working, we gotta fix it. Or maybe you develop a new leader faster than you ever thought possible. So I think it takes many different forms. But I think it's just a commitment to act with urgency. And it's back to that humility thing, but willingness to say, okay, well, I didn't do it well, and of course, all the risk is calculated. So you don't want to do crazy, crazy stuff. But it is a willingness to say okay, here's what I need to improve. And here's how I'm going to fix it and build that ability to iterate into your process.

Adam: And so much of it really comes down to self-awareness, which is tied into feedback. The desire to seek feedback, we spoke about the importance of listening, listening to feedback, taking in feedback from as many sources as you can, and acting on it as quickly as possible.

Joyce: Exactly, exactly.

Adam: We ticked off some of the most important things that leaders should understand. As they're developing their leadership style, as they're thinking about how to become better leaders, what do you believe are the key characteristics of a great leader? And what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Joyce: So I already mentioned two that I think are probably the most important: humility and curiosity. I think another one is authentically being committed to the health and well-being of the team. It's back to the fact that really, you don't have a business unless you have really passionate and motivated people in your team. And developing those traits comes with practice, and through basically learning through success.

Adam: Yeah, I could not agree with you more. And clearly top of mind for you, as a leader, has been building a winning organizational culture. Forbes includes insight on its list of best employers in America and inside his on a number of lists that identify employers, among the top companies with great company culture. What are the keys to building a winning organizational culture?

Joyce: Well, I cannot take credit for the culture at Insight. It has been building for quite some time, it's an incredible foundation on which to build and insight we very much are purpose driven and values-led, it is incredible to me. And one of the things that drew me to Insight was how well-understood the values are. So we talk all the time about our simple values, such as hunger. Which is all around the drive to win and deliver results. Heart, which is all about supporting our teammates in our communities and our planet, in an authentic and caring way. And harmony, which is all around taking in all the diverse opinions. But then like an orchestra, putting those all together and coming out with a solution that everybody is aligned with. And everyone knows how to execute against it. And everyone in our organization understands these. And our team has done an amazing job over many years, reinforcing hunger, heart, and harmony through programs and recognitions, and visual guides. We have Harmony Day, we have all sorts of programmers around delivering community service around heart. So it's really, really built into our culture. Of course, we have to nurture that culture and make sure we're continuing our commitments around diversity and inclusion, for example, and professional development. But this is all about making sure that our teammates are operating in an environment where they can do their best work ever. So we reinforce all of those things with teammate resource groups, for example, to make sure all of our teammates feel like they belong. We do a lot of work on developing our talent, we have a distinguished engineer track, for example, which is really important to our technical teams, we do a lot of and have done a lot of in-person training over time. And that's as much about learning as it is about camaraderie. We do leadership training at our director level and above, at West Point, where we think there's a pretty good track record of understanding how to strategize, and then put that into action. We have all sorts of mentorship programs, allyship programs. And recently, we've also begun to really promote this notion with our technical teammates, to help them become famous as they patent their ideas and their designs from a technical point of view. And that's been a really successful program. So there's many examples of that. But we know we have to nurture this culture and continue to build on it. And that's what we're doing. And the output is a high-performance organization. Of course.

Adam: I love it. So many great tips there. And it really starts with wanting to build a winning organizational culture and being dedicated to having a culture that empowers everyone in your organization that focuses on building a place of belonging. Building a place of inclusion, you mentioned the words diversity and inclusion a couple of times. And that's a topic that you're very passionate about. And it's a topic that you've lived and breathed over the course of your career. You're a rare female leader in the world of technology, and you're a rare female fortune 500 CEO, and even more rare, 60% of the senior executives at Insight are women compared to 16% across the world of tech. In your experience, how can leaders build truly diverse and truly inclusive organizations?

Joyce: Yeah, I'm super proud of Insight's track record on diversity, by the way, I think we just learned the other day, I think there are only six fortune 500 companies, either four or six that have a female CFO and a female CEO. So it's a pretty cool thing. And as you said that 60% status is really terrific. Yeah, so I think it's really around the development plans internally. And it's an attitude around recruiting. So let me take those one at a time. So, for example, our president of AMEA has been at Insite for 24 years. And she started out as an entry-level person, and has grown up through the ranks and became the president of AMEA for us about a year and a half ago. She is phenomenal. And she's done a terrific job. And then, of course, I'm on the other end, I was recruited in about two years ago, and into a tremendous opportunity to build on this incredibly strong foundation that we talked about. And after being in the job for your got to be the CEO. So I think it is about deliberate recruiting, and development. And as I said there's some great examples of each of those. We also just recently hired our new CIO, she has been a transformational CIO and a couple of different organizations. And she's adding an awful lot of expertise and success to our team. And so we're going to continue on that two-pronged approach, make sure we've got great development programs, make sure we have the support and through our teammate resource groups, to make sure that our teammates feel a strong sense of belonging and an opportunity to excel. And then I think we will stay focused on our diversity efforts as recruiters. There's a big world out there, we have to make sure we're taking into account all people from all backgrounds. And by the way, we just recently hired our first-ever global leader of recruiting, because we want to make sure we're accessing talent wherever it is not just in the locations where we have historically been.

Adam: What are your best tips for women in male-dominated industries like tech?

Joyce: So my best tip for women is, you have to have a sense of humor, you just can't take it all too seriously. So there's going to be microaggressions all over the place. There's going to be people who are thinking you're the assistant. There's going to be people who ask you to get coffee. Get the coffee, and then laugh about it. It's just part of what it is. It's not intentional. Usually, I just think you just can't worry about it. And then just put your head down, do a great job, build a great team and deliver great results. And you keep yourself sane, with a sense of humor.

Adam: Any tips for men on how to be more effective allies?

Joyce: Yeah, I think the first one is, you just got to think about putting yourself in someone else's shoes. And the most effective training I've ever had on that was something we did at Dell, we called it many advocating for real change. And the reason it was so effective, Adam, is because we basically lined up against a wall. There are 50 of us in the room and through a series of questions. The exercise was you walk all the way across the room if you've totally had that experience, you walk halfway across the room if you partially had that experience, you look around at who's with you, and you look around at who's not. And that exercise was incredibly effective. Because when the question was, have you been sexually harassed? And every woman crossed at least halfway or three-quarters of the way across the room. There were probably two or three of the 40 men in the room who crossed the room. And that physical representation of different issues that we all deal with, was unbelievably powerful. And as an ally, I just got to think, okay, and by the way, this applies to our other resource groups as well. I don't know what it's like to be a Black American in this country. I don't know what it's like to be a Black leader in France. But I think that training and an exercise around trying to really imagine what it is like to live in that teammate’s shoes or that employee's shoes is really, really an effective tool to opening your mind and being able to listen more attentively and learn how you can help and support that teammate or that colleague.

Adam: That is universally applicable advice. Put yourself in the shoes of other people and don't make assumptions. Don't think that you know where the other person is coming from. Take the time to listen. Listening is essential to being a great leader, essential to being a great ally, essential to just about everything in business and life.

Joyce: Exactly. Exactly. And by the way, you gotta keep practicing that because the next person you meet is coming from a different spot. So it's got to be something you do every single day.

Adam: One thing that I definitely don't know much about, that I personally have not experienced what you have is, being a mom of four. And I want to know if you could share with listeners what advice you have on how to the extent it's possible for anyone on how they can attain balance in their life?

Joyce: Yeah, well, I'm not so sure it's all about balance. I think it's all about keeping your priorities straight over the long term. There are days when I would say, the kids were little, the last word I would use to describe my life was balanced at that point. But then there were other days where I could spend time focused on them. Because that was the priority, I think it is about being really, really clear about what's most important. Today, tomorrow, and over the long term. I feel very lucky, I have a wonderful husband who absolutely more than did his fair share of kind of a kid stuff when they were little. And now by the way, I am so grateful that I have these kids because they teach me something every day about technology. The fact that I am a tech CEO actually makes them laugh because I can't figure out how to get the TV to work. But they are an incredible inspiration. To me, it's a fascinating process to figure out what they're passionate about, what they love, what they're going to do. I'm incredibly proud that knock on wood, so far, they're all good citizens and contributing to the world in a positive way. And that is absolutely a result of my husband spending a lot of time with them, us prioritizing our family, and making sure that when times were tough with them, we prioritized them over work. And I would do that every time again.

Adam: So much of it comes down to prioritization. And when you're a fortune 500 CEO, when you're the leader of a small business, and oftentimes feels like you have too much to do, and not enough time to do it. And one of the most important things is prioritizing what you have to do each day and every day, setting goals, making sure that you're spending your time on the things that are absolutely most important and everything else. Evaluating: do I really need to do that? Because at the end of the day, there's only so much that I can actually do with my time and surrounding yourself with people who can do things that you either don't have the time to do or that you don't necessarily need to do. Because at the end of the day, as the CEO of a technology company, you might not necessarily be the smartest person in the room on the topic of technology. But you have that one thing about you that you bring to the table that no one else can do, that no one else at your organization can deliver beyond you. And you should be spending your time focused on that. So no matter how busy you are, it ultimately comes down to prioritization and to surrounding yourself with the right people.

Joyce: That's very well said. And you're right, when the kids were little, we were in a pretty good position. So we could outsource some of the activities that were less critical. As the kids get older, some of those same activities that we outsourced 10 years before became super important priorities because they were making choices that you wanted to be involved in. So over time, where you spend your time will change. And it is all down to those priorities, just as you said, deciding who you surround yourself with is so important. 

Adam: What do you look for in the people you hire? And what are your best tips on the topic of hiring?

Joyce: Well, it's the same traits we've been talking about. So it is very much around curiosity, humility, and ability and willingness to listen. I look for a track record of someone who has collaborated effectively, which is really tied to those traits I just mentioned, and who has delivered results and takes a lot of pride in the results that they've delivered. And when finally, I'd look for somebody who is really committed to building a team, and that includes hiring people smarter than themselves. I would say that's the number one trick that I would share or tip and that is always hire someone smarter than you.

Adam: Yeah. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

Joyce: That's exactly right. And by the way, there's a really obvious benefit to that. It makes your job a lot easier.

Adam: Absolutely. Joyce, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Joyce: I saw an article the other day, Warren Buffett said this: “You gotta do what you love”. I think there is no substitute for that. It is impossible to spend 9-10 hours a day 40, 50, 60 hours a week on something that you don't love. I absolutely love technology. I love what technology can do for the world. I think technology is inherently a force for good. Of course, it can be misused. But I love the fact that technology can help change our customers' businesses. It can help make them run more efficiently, run more sustainably, deliver better results to their clients, you gotta love the work you do. And if you're not passionate about it, if you're not really, really excited about it, it's impossible for you to do your best work.

Adam: I tell audiences that I speak to that to be successful in life, you need to check three boxes. Number one, you have to do something that you love. Number two, you have to do something that you're great at. And number three, you have to do something that allows you to make a positive impact in the lives of others. And if you can check all three of those boxes, you found it. That's it, it doesn't feel like work. You can start at the crack of dawn, you can go as late as possible until you have no energy left. And the next morning, you're fired up to do it again. And that's what it's all about.

Joyce: Very well said. I'm going to use that Adam

Adam: Joyce, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Joyce: Adam, thank you very much for the opportunity. It was really, really fun to talk with you.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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