Fast Lane
Role-player
How to find the right employee for the job
By Matt McClellan
Smart Business Northern California | June 2008
Page 1 of 2
Roland Strick Jr.
owner, Service by Medallion
Roland Strick Jr. wants
to make every moment
count. The second-generation owner of Service by
Medallion is growing his
company at a steady pace,
from $18.5 million in 2006 to
$20 million in 2007, and he
projects his building maintenance company will hit
$25 million in revenue by 2009.
However, the company’s consistent growth, environmental
initiatives and constantly
changing industry are too
much for one guy to keep up
with on his own.
“You sit for four hours in a
conference, and so many
things can transpire in those
four hours,” he says.
To keep it all straight, Strick
relies on his management
team to stay up to date on
issues concerning his 600-plus
employees.
Smart Business spoke with
Strick about how to build a
capable management team
and how to find the right role
for an employee.
Q. How do you build a strong
management team?
Whether you’re a pro football team or a company, you’re
always trying to produce the
best team. The way that I do
that is (by staying) in tune.
Our industry is very unique;
people that come from the
outside don’t usually succeed
or last, so I really try to stay in
tune with industry people.
I court people. I build relationships. I feel out people and
try to figure out who would be
the right fit. Depending on
what we’re trying to accomplish is where I go.
I look at running a company like being the quarterback of a
football team. You’re leading,
but everyone has their roles.
You have to have everyone on
the same page and feeling
accountable for their roles.
I surround myself with people who are going to be better
than me at that role. If I’m the
quarterback, it doesn’t make
sense for me to go play line-man. I try to find people for
the right roles.
Q. How do you decide who
will be the best fit for a role?
You move people. ‘Hey,
you’re not really a running back, you’re a
receiver, let’s get you out
to receiver.’ It’s just trying to find the right fit.
The way I go about that
is just intuition. It’s just
picking people’s brains,
talking to people in the
industry or vendors.
Most of our company is
organic in the sense that
we have built these people. In the early stages,
we didn’t have the budget to bring on the people
we have today.
Now, with the growth,
we’ve been having and
at the level we’re working at, I’ve been able to hire
some higher-level people and
bring them in from the outside. But, for the most part, it’s
teaching (employees) the business from scratch.
