Give and Ask for Help

“Everyone needs a mentor.” —Iris Harrell

Harrell’s apprenticeship instead took the form of two good friends of Jane Benson. Her construction mentor was Chape Harris, a 70-year-old retired brick salesman, who welcomed her help in his second career installing locks on Dallas homes. Patient and articulate, “he could hold 30 pieces of a lock in his hand and make me feel very comfortable understanding it,” Harrell says. “He would take me to the best hardware store in town for my birthday and Christmas and buy me a tool. A reciprocating saw. A power sander.”

Harrell and Harris worked together for a few years, branching out from lock installations and fan installations to cabinetmaking and larger remodeling projects, and serving a divergent clientele that simply felt comfortable with this unusual team: “Republican widows and separatist lesbians,” Harrell says, laughing.

Her design mentor was Lucille Payne, a Dallas high-society interior designer who not only referred clients to Harrell, but helped her understand how color, lighting, and furniture could enhance a space. (Harrell was so influenced that she became a certified kitchen and bathroom designer in 1995. HRI has had an interior designer on staff since 1995.)

When she and Benson moved to Menlo Park, Calif., in 1985, Harrell deployed the same just-do-it mentality. She completed a McGraw-Hill construction home study course in just two months. Combined with her contracting experience in Dallas, this qualified her to take the state licensing exam. In 1986, she started Harrell Remodeling.

To this day, however, she credits what she calls the “three-legged stool” of Jane Benson (“my first client”), Harris, and Payne for her start. “They believed in me,” she says.

Hire Right. The Money Will Come.

“One of the smartest things any CEO can do is to not hire people who look like them and think like them. She hires people who think for themselves.” —Bella Babot, HRI director of marketing and human resources

It’s a cliche but true, in Harrell’s case. “I don’t know how, but she picks superstar employees at the beginning,” says Victoria Downing, REMODELING columnist and CEO of Remodelers Advantage. Those picks are as much science as art, and begin with a group interview with up to six HRI employees at once. Intimidating? “The funnest interview I’ve ever had,” says Ciro Giammona, HRI’s general manager, echoing a sentiment expressed by others.

Cultural cohesion is critical at HRI. A staff that usually lunches together in the company’s bright, modern showroom space — under a “no work talk at lunch” policy — indicates that they genuinely like one other. And to some degree, the staff is self-selecting, thanks to practices that buck many remodeling norms.

Most obviously, any employee must be comfortable working for and with women, who hold seven top managerial roles. Every employee must also happily deliver the company’s “core differentiators” every chance they get. Stine of Polaris Marketing helped pinpoint one of these years ago: “You ask most high-end, successful remodelers what really matters to clients, and they say ‘quality.’ You ask the customers, and they say ‘love and care.’ They expect the quality.”

Also, though HRI has strong profit-sharing and bonus programs, Harrell does not believe in sales commissions. And annual “360-degree” performance reviews ensure that every team member reviews every other, including back-office but pivotal players in roles such as accounts payable.

Another secret to Harrell’s superstars is her willingness to hire from outside the construction arena. HRI has a stunningly talented team of craftspeople, but Harrell also knows that diverse experience in business and technology are strong assets, particularly given the sophisticated Silicon Valley clientele.

“With Iris’s background as a teacher, she just recognizes potential in people,” Giammona says. “There’s a joke that you can be selected for a new job by walking by Iris’s office. She’ll stop you.” In fact, he notes, a line at the bottom of every job description says, “or as required by owner.”

Giammona began his career as an electronics technician, for instance; his first job at HRI, 13 years ago, was estimator. Beth Leibbrandt designed circuits and built doll houses before becoming Harrell’s first hire in 1986. In the 23 years since, she has evolved from carpenter and painter to senior designer — and HRI’s top salesperson of late, thanks to a minimalist design style and easy rapport that mesh beautifully with the company’s new small-jobs division: HarrellCARE (Construction & Repair Experts).

Ann Benson’s training as a librarian, and then a programmer, whipped HRI’s organizational systems into shape when she became operations manager in 1991. Other staff had careers as diverse as camp director, business owner, and geologist before joining HRI.

Similarly, when Harrell identifies a strong potential addition to her team, she pursues them, doggedly but gently. “She can be very convincing and doesn’t take no for an answer,” says Genie Nowicki, HRI’s senior designer, referring to the months-long “courtship” 10 years ago in which Harrell persuaded her to close her thriving design business and join HRI.

“Always be looking,” Harrell says about finding good employees. “You never know.”

The company isn’t for everybody, needless to say. “Iris is so nice, but she embodies respect. And you will never take advantage of someone you respect,” Babot says. The deliberative hiring process is remarkably accurate in pinpointing good matches, and those who turn out to be marginal players are quickly let go.

“When someone is out of sync, we need to release them to the universe,” Harrell says, ever the metaphysicist-pragmatist. “They’re supposed to be somewhere else!”