Barbara Corcoran is a real-estate mogul and a star investor on the ABC series "Shark Tank."She said she ran herreal-estate agency ' The Corcoran Group ' the way her parents ran her household.Lessons from her mom and dad include eliminating complaints and making sure everyone had fun.Barbara Corcoran says her mother was a "drill sergeant."It makes more sense when you find out that Corcoran wasthe second-oldest of 10 kids, nine of whom grew up to be entrepreneurs.Corcoran herself started real estate brokerage firmThe Corcoran Group, which she sold for$66 million in 2001.In a conversation with Business Insider US Editor in Chief Alyson Shontell on the podcast "Success! How I Did It," Corcoran explained how she built a company with a strong culture and a high retention rate. To do it, she told Shontell, she used some lessons from her parents."I really did a mimic of my mother in building my brokerage firm," Corcoran said."I ran the firm exactly how my mother ran the house. We were super organized. We had a place for everything. And I can tell you the minute you have more than one or two people working for you, efficiency has a lot to do with building a big company."Corcoran broke down some of the other management strategies she borrowed fromher parentsfor The Corcoran Group:Listen to the full episode here, or listen later with the buttons below:SEE ALSO:Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran reveals how getting dumped for her secretary and sending 1 gutsy email helped turn her into a business mogulShe recognized people's talents and moved them into positions around their strengths.Corcoran described her mother as "inspirational," and says the ability to inspire others and identify their strengths is "probably the more important gift" she got from her mom."She would decide what your gift was, as a child," Corcoran said."She would name one thing. For me, she said I had a wonderful imagination. And then she would cast you in that role in the family unit, which was like a small town.""And I am great at spotting the gift, and people I could interviewsomeone who's trying for a bookkeeping job and totally convince them they'd be a star salesman," Corcoran continued."Which doesn't fit into their rsum, but it sure fit into them."She considers thisquality, along with being hyper organized, to be the two most important factors in building her business.Sheturned her employees into a 'happy family.'Corcoran explained why her company had such high retention rates:"I did what my mother did. I adored my children." (In this case, her children are her employees.)"I would do anything for them. I would kill for them. And I nurtured them and I loved them and I tried to give them as much freedom as I could. I pushed them forward, got them to believing they could do a lot more than they were doing. And they did! Because people don't really know what they're capable of."And I made them love each other. I knew how to create teams where everybody got along and everybody respected the different attributes that people have and forgive the ones that were bugging them, you know'She fired complainers as fast as possible before they could turn the culture toxic.There was, however, one type ofemployee Corcoran wouldn't tolerate on her team."I learned how to get rid of complainers,"she said. "Complain in my company, I couldn't wait till Friday to get you out, OK' So I felt like they were attacking my young."See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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