Time flies! It’s been 9 months since I wrote Part I of “I am in Love with Intuit“.

This week I celebrate my first year anniversary at Intuit. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to wrap up the first year than spending a week for self-development with my colleagues at Leading@Intuit workshop.

I have to say that in the last 12 months I didn’t go to the office for even a single day! YES! You read it right! I did not go to the office for even a single day in the last 1 year! Instead, I went to, what I personally consider as “one of the coolest leadership schools in the world”, called INTUIT.

The positive challenges and opportunities Intuit threw at me were inspiring and raised the bar every single day to push and elevate my thought process. The feeling of being part of a journey to change the lives of small businesses and self-employed around the world can only be experienced and not explained!

While there are countless reasons to fall in love with this inspirational organization, there are 3 stories that I think summarizes it all for me!

Intuit branded backpack keeps you busy: It was a couple of months back; I was at the San Jose airport waiting for my flight at the gate and a middle-aged woman along with her elderly mother sat next to me. I was busy cleaning up my email inbox (what fun!). “Do you work for Intuit?”, asked the elderly lady, she must be in her late 70’s. I think she saw the Intuit logo in my backpack. “Yes, ma’am”, I replied. She said that she worked as an on-call front desk receptionist at Intuit for 15+ years and those were the best days of her life. For the next 40 minutes, she couldn’t stop telling me the amazing stories that she will remember forever and the lifelong friends she made. As I got up to board the flight, her daughter apologized and said, “I am sorry that we disturbed you but my mom loves talking about her experience at Intuit to everyone. She doesn’t come out often these days and when she saw you with an Intuit backpack, she was excited”. A simple but powerful story that demonstrated the fierce pride of every Intuit employee, cultivated through an employee-first culture.

Intuit’s goal is to sell more Ginger beers: Before you start believing that Intuit is getting into the business of making Ginger beers, let me get to the point quickly. Last week one of our customer care team members (Micah Sampson) from Tucson, AZ visited one of our QuickBooks customers who sell ginger beer, these were his exact words after he came back, “In no way am I doing justice in describing what she (the customer) said, and the feelings I had at that moment for the struggles she goes through, along with the stress she has on a daily basis running a successful small business. I even think back to that moment, writing this, and have a sense of awe for what she is trying to do and how much stress it adds to her life, yet she stays the course and manages to push through every single day shooting for her goals. It furthers my belief, that at Intuit, our job is to power prosperity for every small business and self-employed around the world and that’s my job at Intuit”. This is why we come to work – Intuit’s principle is that the more users we grow the closer we will get to individual customers and not further away.

Repair the roof when the sun is shining: What would an organization that hit its highest stock price in the last 20+ years and continues to grow its user base at a steady pace do? Any guesses? Well, this bold thinking organization called Intuit, chose to take the path of, “Repairing the roof when the sun is shining”. As a result, 400+ leaders in the company came together as ONE Intuit team to refresh and accelerate the game plan for the future backed by significant outside-in learnings and deep customer empathy. An incredible example that demonstrates the focus on delivering value to all of Intuit’s shareholders.

When I think about the three examples I’ve shared above, it shows the magical balance Intuit has woven into the recipe to deliver for Employees, Customers, Partners & Shareholders. And remember, we are talking about an organization that’s been around for more than 3 decades and still sustains this balance and constantly self-disrupts to re-invent itself over and over again.

Above all, Intuit’s mission, “POWERING PROSPERITY AROUND THE WORLD”, makes all our hearts at Intuit beat faster and fall in LOVE everyday!

About the Author: For more information, contact Balakarthik Venkataramanan at vbkarthik123@gmail.com. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/balakarthikv