As a board member of a community association, it is your duty and responsibility to operate the association as efficiently and effectively as possible. It is also your fiduciary duty to operate the association as fiscally responsible as possible. A great way to ensure this approach is to hire a responsible and accountable community management company and utilize their knowledge and expertise as much as possible within the scope of the management agreement.
If we agree on this basic opinion which I feel has a substantial amount of logic attached to it, why is it that board members often times behave in ways that result in the opposite outcome? Since this is something that has troubled me over the years, I have decided to share my numerous experiences with bad board behavior which has NEVER amounted to any positive outcomes.
- As the newly elected President of the board, tell the property manager that no one in the community likes them. This is a great motivational approach that will ensure you will get the highest level of service imaginable. This recently happened to me and it made me feel awful and the relationship has been quite awkward ever since.
- Threaten the management company/manager that you are going to fire them. This is such an outstanding way to get better service. It’s like threatening your spouse after you get into an argument that you are going to file for a divorce. Coming from a person who has been married and divorced twice, it DOES NOT WORK.
- Question everything. Really get your property manager on the defensive. Assume that everything they do is WRONG. Don’t base your judgements on facts. Simply question everything. Besides, you probably know better as a part time volunteer than the full time professional manager. This is absolutely an approach that inspires people to elevate their productivity. YEAH RIGHT.
- Don’t bother to read the operating agreement. Just demand things to be done in a way that you expect them to be done regardless of what the agreement says. As the saying goes, the customer is ALWAYS RIGHT regardless of how WRONG they are.
- Focus on the things going wrong. Nit pick everything. If an “I” is left undotted or a “t” left uncrossed, make a huge deal out of it. It’s not about the overall experience from the management company and not about all the things that they are doing RIGHT. It’s all about the .005% of things they are going WRONG. Does the board of directors have any clue on all the effort and time spent on servicing their association? Perhaps in the end, it’s the board of director’s dream come true to exercise power and control over the service providers and have them waster their time on tasks that don’t have any positive impact on the community whatsoever.
- Belittle your property manager. Make them feel worthless. Use foul language. Write emails and messages to them in ALL CAPS. This is a very effective way to put someone down in the dumps and get them to feel excited about working with you. Such a fantastic approach. Perhaps, people in all other industries should talk to their service providers in a way that certain board members treat their property managers. Perhaps there can be a book written on how to effectively belittle your property manager and treat them like a door mat.
These are just some of the multitude of examples of bad board behaviour. The real question is why would any human being deserve to be treated so poorly? And why would any President of the board or any board of director feel justified in treated a property manager in such a poor disrespectful manner? If the board is unsatisfied with the performance of the management company, why not take a different approach rather than a belittling and reactive approach?
Why not treat the property manager like a human being and take the time to work out the relationship? Hiring a management company is very much like getting married. There should be some basic ground rules in how the interaction takes place. I don’t think people realize that there is an actual relationship between the board and property manager. Each interaction is no different than an interaction between a couple. And when a board member sends off an email or speaks to a person over the phone, there is an actual human being with feelings and emotions on the receiving end.
For now, I will leave it at that. I will write more about how the interaction should ideally look like next time.
AUTHOR
Salvatore J. Sciacca aka “Condoboss” is the nation’s leading expert in the community property management industry and is also recognized for his stress relieving blogs and insight on personal and organizational transformation.
Salvatore has also traveled extensively around the world and has meditated with Buddhist monks in Nepal and met the world’s happiest man, Matthieu Ricard. He’s passions include cooking, traveling, meditating and hiking. He is also the founder and executive director of the Chicagoland Italian American Professionals organization and an amateur chef.
Salvatore can be reached at: 312.455.0107 x102 or at ssciacca@chicagopropertyservices.com.