Find your talent, then throw him or her into the frying pan. You can tell when you sit in a meeting with a young guy and he sits back and he’s a sponge and he’s absorbing things, but he understands exactly what’s going on. He’s not the one guy sitting there being a Mr. Know-It-All, and you can look at those traits and personalities and if you see those people, stick them into some management training and make sure those people are getting thrown into the frying pan and can handle pressure.
So those traits come out early, but through our career, it’s also amazing when you see a guy, you say, ‘That guy’s pretty quiet; I don’t know if he could ever be a manager,’ and the next thing you know, he’s got a couple years under his belt, he really matures as a young adult, and he wants to take on the responsibility — because you’d be surprised how many people out there want to be a manager but they don’t want the responsibility. You have to want that responsibility.
(Once you find talent), it’s very important that you communicate to them. And as a good manager, you have to let them fail and learn from their own mistakes, but don’t let them hang themselves. So we’ve grown this company by throwing people in the frying pan and seeing how they react, and that’s how we were taught the business. Nobody taught us the business. We were very aggressive and threw ourselves in the frying pan, and you’d be surprised how quick you learn what’s expected out of you.
But make sure you tell that person, ‘I’m going to give you more responsibility; I will put you in the frying pan, you’ll have a safety net, but you know what, I don’t want to use it.’ So you communicate to them and make sure that you say, ‘You’re underneath the microscope, buddy, and we’re going to back you but …’
You have to make sure you watch them. Managers have to watch them. In our business, you have project managers, project engineers, project superintendents, so not one guy is ever controlling the job. And those other team members, because they’re dedicated to the company, they’re not going to want to see a guy fail, either. So what happens is they kind of self-police each other. So they help shore those guys up, and if there is somebody who is weak and not doing their job, somebody raises their hand and says, ‘Hey, we need a little help over here because we might be in trouble.’ That’s how we grew this company. We said, ‘Hey, everybody makes mistakes. Let’s look at the mistakes, let’s help each other out and let’s move forward.’ So that’s how you police that in making sure the guy doesn’t hang himself.
Make new people aware of growth opportunities. We don’t do all the hiring any more because we’re big, but I’ll sit in on interviews still, and it’s good to hear the managers talk about, ‘where I was 10 years ago and where I’m at now.’ Our managers are people that have walked in the door coming out of college and are now running a huge division for us. So it’s not just an owner saying there’s opportunity here, it’s actually people that have been through these opportunities and they’re communicating that to the people that are coming on board, and on top of that, if you look at the history of this company, there’s definitely growth, so growth is automatically opportunity. You’d have to be almost blind to not see the opportunities, so it’s good to see the managers because they’ve had those opportunities and they’re willing, just like we were, to give everybody an opportunity.
How to reach: Marous Brothers Construction, (440) 951-3904 or www.marousbrothers.com