Making a Positive Difference Together: Mike Harris | Worksighted

As we celebrate our 20th year in business, we also celebrate everyone who has been a part of the journey to where we are today. Mike Harris, Worksighted CEO and Co-Founder, shares the story of our partnership and what it was like to “grow-up” together in our community over the past 20 years.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Mike Harris: My name is Mike Harris. I’m the CEO and Co-founder of Worksighted. Worksighted is focused on helping clients design and manage their technology platforms to support their business objectives. We work with companies throughout Michigan and we’re specifically focused on companies that are growth oriented in the small and mid-size market.

We’ve worked in partnership with DISHER for a long time. Boy, it’s probably been, I would say 15 to 18 years. We’ve worked with DISHER ever since Jeff moved out of the house and moved into the Roosevelt location, which was their first office location. I remember crawling around under desks and plugging in equipment and hooking up technology for them because our companies really started about the same time. So we’ve kind of grown up together over the past 20 years.

DISHER has had a huge effect on us as a company and honestly, me as an individual and as a leader. One of the major impacts that our relationship with DISHER has had on our company is that it’s completely changed the way that we understand the word partner. Many companies today use the word partner in place of vendor or customer, but the relationship doesn’t really embody what it means to be a partner and we’ve come to understand that word a little differently through our relationship with DISHER that in a real partnership we have trust and there’s also grace. In the existence of those, or with the existence of those two things, we’re able to work together to kind of… Iron sharpens iron, we’re able to make our companies better because in a space like that, we’re willing to risk and only through taking risks are we able to really drive change.

So there’s a lot of stories I could tell about working all night at DISHER to bring their systems online or crawling around under desks and plugging things in, but I think the impact that DISHER and Jeff, as a leader had on me specifically is a lot greater than that. One of the things I’ve come to understand differently by watching this company grow is what it means to be a servant leader and to understand that to those which much is entrusted, much is demanded. I think that DISHER and Jeff specifically are wonderful examples of what can happen in a company and the impact that you can have in the community when you really truly understand that.

To Jeff and the entire DISHER team, congratulations on 20 awesome years. We’ve been so excited to be part of your story from the beginning. Growing together, learning a ton from watching the things that you’ve done, and we’re super excited to work together into the future and keep growing together. So congratulations.