085 | HOA Board Member Behavior Basics: Don’t Make These Mistakes! - HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

Episode Transcript
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Julie Adamen (00:00):
If you're don't want to

(00:01):
talk with people,people are going to
have a vacuum there,like, why don't they
want to talk to me?
Just, what are theydoing? Is it secret?
And then all of asudden, everything
starts going, yes.
What are they hiding? You may behiding nothing, but
that perception outthere, which grows
exponentially atcocktail time, that
perception is istheir reality. And

(00:21):
then they get onnextdoor.com or on
Facebook, and theystart talking about
it, and pretty soon,

Robert Nordlund (00:27):
why was the board not
telling us about anything?

Yeah, whatever it is, why
did they run awayfrom us? Why does that one board
member run away? Andthat was not the
intent at all. Infact, they just
didn't want to haveto talk to anybody.
They'd had a bad day.

Jennifer Johnson (00:40):
HOA Insights is brought
to you by fivecompanies that care
about board members,association, insights and
marketplace, association,reserves, community,
financials, Hoa invest and KevinDavis, Insurance
Services. You'llfind links to their
websites and socialmedia in the show notes.

Hi, I'm Robert Nordlund
of association reserves,

and I'm Julie adamant of
Adam and Inc. And this is HOAInsights, where we
promote common sense for common

areas.
Well, welcome toepisode number 85
where we're again speaking withmanagement consultant and
regular co host,Julie Adelman. Today
we'll be talking about the boardmember behaviors, not tasks that
everyone is doingtoo often, board
members are focusingon the tasks that they need to
accomplish, preparing for ameeting, meeting
with a landscape orprospect, reviewing

(01:25):
the budget, thingslike that. Today,
we'll be addressingbehaviors, the idea
of how board membersdo things we want
your association tothrive, and it starts with
leadership at thetop, and that's you.
Well, this is afollow up to episode
number 84 where wehad a fascinating
chat with a Floridastructural engineer

(01:46):
by the name of GregBatista, and he was
speaking about howto care for your
buildings. You don'tneed to know as much
as Greg, but whatyou do need to know
is how to havesomeone like Greg on
your team as a resource, someonewho will guide you
to properly care foryour buildings, not
just let them deteriorate. So ifyou missed that episode, take a
moment after today'sprogram to listen

(02:07):
from our podcast website, Hoainsights.org, or
watch on our YouTubechannel, where you
can also give it alike or better yet,
subscribe from anyof the major podcast
platforms so you don't miss anyfuture episodes, and
those of you watching on YouTubecan see Julie and I with our HOA
insights mugs that Igot from our merch

(02:29):
store. And you canbrowse through what
we have in our merchstore from HOA
insights.org or fromthe link in our show
notes, and you'llfind we have some
specialty items forsale, like these
mugs In addition, inaddition to some
great free stuff,like board member
zoom backgrounds. Sogo to the merch

(02:49):
store, find the mugyou'd like, and I'll
give that mug awayfree to the 10th person to email
podcast@reserves.comwith your name and
address and mugchoice mentioning episode 85 mug
giveaway. Well, weenjoy hearing from
you responding tothe issues you're facing at your

(03:09):
association. So ifyou have a hot topic, a crazy
story, or a questionyou'd like us to
address, you can contact us at805-203-3130, or email us at
podcast@reservestudy.comand one of those
listener questionsprompted today's
episode, we have Dennis fromMilwaukee, who asked, we're

(03:30):
thinking about having an ethicscode for our board
members. Are thereother things we can
do to hold boardbehavior to a high
standard? So, Julie,what do you think about that?

I think it's a great
idea. An ethics codeis a wonderful thing
to do. It's not justgood for the board
itself, but it's good for thecommunity. And that
should definitely bepublished to the
community, is thisnow you must, and
actually, and all people who arerunning for the
board should have tosign on to that as
well, that if theyget elected, they
will adhere to aparticular code of
ethics that theboard adopts, also

(04:06):
separate to that. Imean, they, I guess
they maybe could betogether, but separate. I would
also encourage a board conductpolicy. So, you
know, there's just aset of guidelines
that board membersagree to follow, and
this is more operational thanethical, but an
operational type ofthing, meaning that
they commit to beingable to be at board
meetings and put inthe time that because, you know,

(04:28):
it's not just anhour a month people,
it's that they gotthat they know they're going to
have to put in thiskind of time they're
expected to, youknow, whatever it is, chair a
committee, potentially, ifthat's how your
association works.
But anything likethat is, is a good
way, because itlets, now, I just went down this
rabbit hole. It letsbe it less good
stuff. Yeah, it letspeople know what they're getting

(04:50):
into. And in fact,that also ought to
be given to peoplewho are running for
the board. So, yeah,well, it's your this
is why we operate.
This is how thingshappen. And. On.
It's not that thingscan't change on
that. None of it'swritten in stone.
New boards may findthey want to add
more stuff. Otherboards say that,
well, we don't need to deal thatanymore, because
they don't have tochair committees. We
got really good committee chairsthat are not board

(05:11):
members anymore. SoI think, yes, I think it's an
excellent idea. Itwill also tighten up
your operations, your dailyoperations, in fact,
because if the boardknows how they have
to act and the things that aretheir responsibility
operationally, theboard itself will
function better. I

like that. So I think in
the past, we'vespoken about tasks,
and we've had special guests,experts, subject matter experts,
talking about thefinancials, meeting
minutes. Thinkingback, look at my
bookcase here. I have a book onparliamentary procedures, things
like that. A lot ofthe how to do
things, specificallythe tasks and the do

(05:54):
this, do this, dothis. But I like the
idea of the biggerpicture. What guides
you, and that ethicspolicy would be, I
might lays out the associationsexpectations we will
do this, the conductpolicy. I like that again, the
expectation come tothe board meeting
prepared. Expect to have do yourresearch, to look

(06:17):
into the vendoroptions. Someone's
got to research upcominglegislation, whatever it is, but
those conduct it'sgoing to be these
tasks are involvedin being a board member. Yeah,

it's kind of a job description.
Actually. We talkedabout that before,
and I wrote about itin one of the
newsletters a whileback. A board member
job description. Andthere's, there's two
things, there's theoperational and then
again, there's thebigger picture. So
both of those thingsare requirements. I
would consider themrequirements, whether or not the
board actually has apolicy, but to adopt

(06:50):
that and publish itand make sure current and future
board members knowwhat they're getting
into and what theirresponsibilities are
going to be is justto me, there's no downside to it
whatsoever.

Yeah.
And I'm thinkingthis applies as much
to a four unit,little town home as
it does to a 4000home master planned
Association. Yep.
Okay, yeah. Well, inadvance of this, I
did some research,and I found an
ethics pledge on theCAI website, and
I'll make sure weget a link to that

(07:22):
in the show notes.
Is there a similarconduct policy or a
template that you

know that? Well, ci has
that the Civilitypledge. I mean, that
might be somethingso that's you could
put that on the shownotes as well. But as far as the
operational thing, Ithink that would have to be
relatively individual to theassociation. I mean,
we could always put,actually, you know,
we could probablydevelop one Robert and make it
available at somepoint. That'd be

(07:47):
pretty easy to do. Imean, for us to do
that boards, can,you know, add in
what applies to themand take out what
doesn't same way,it's very similar to
job descriptions. Sothat would be, maybe
I'll do that. I willdo that actually.
Yeah, I

was thinking that could
be a great thing tohave on your admin
dash, Inc, website.
Yeah,

exactly.
I can do that. Andbecause it would be
based on thosecouple of articles I
wrote that were theboard member job
description, partone and part two,
I'll do that. And wecan actually make
them look like a jobdescription, as opposed to an
article which isgood, it is now, so
that would be great.

You have control over that. Yep,

I do.
Okay,

we've spoken also in the
past about how theleadership has a
cascading effect on how well theassociation is run,
how the chemistry isat the Association,
the culture at theassociation. Kevin
Davis talks aboutthe temperature at
what the associationoperates. So walk
walk me down thepath of the board member being a

(08:50):
public figure.

Well, you know, I think
the thing that a lotof board members, a
lot of board membersend up board members
because no one elsewill do the job, and
you're the personwho stepped in and
thank you for that.
I've been in thatposition myself more
than once. So Iwould say, though
that, and maybe thiscould be a part of
the operational board, you knowthat. So there was a

(09:13):
code of ethics. Andthen there was the,
what was the otherone? We conduct policy. Conduct
Policy notes here. Iknow. Okay, squirrel
fast, yeah, I guesswhat I would say is
that people onboards, you have to
realize you're apolitical figure.
And I know peoplego, Oh, politics.
But I don't meanthat in a bad way. I
mean politics justmeans you're dealing

(09:34):
with people. It's people, peopleeverywhere. I can
tell you that asmuch as you may not
be an extrovert, infact, you may rather
be in the back reading thefinancial statements. If
you're a board member, you're apublic figure, and
people are going tocome up and talk to
you, and you need tomake time. You need
to talk to them, answer theirquestions as best
you can. Be open, beamenable, smile.

(09:58):
There's you know, ifyou're off. It's
been walking down toget your mail from
the communal mailarea, and people are
going to stop andtalk to you about
something, but ifyou're not open to
that, and you grabyour mail and you
scurry off, which isa really, really
common occurrence inour industry. And
honestly, I don'tblame a lot of you
for it. I get it,but in the long run, you and the
community is goingto be much better

(10:19):
off, because ifyou're don't want to
talk with people,people are going to
have a vacuum there,like, why don't they
want to talk to me?
Just, what are theydoing? Is it secret?
And then all of asudden, everything
starts going, yes, what are theyhiding? And you may
be hiding nothing,but that perception
out there, whichgrows exponentially
at cocktail timethat perception is

(10:41):
is their reality.
And then they get onnextdoor.com or on
Facebook, and theystart talking about
it, and pretty soon,

why is the board not
telling us about anything?

Yeah, whatever it is, why
did they run awayfrom us? Why does that one board
member run away andthat was not the
intent at all. Infact, they just
didn't want to haveto talk to anybody.
They'd had a bad day. And I dounderstand it, but I
think it's somethingas board members, we
all need to thinkabout. It's a tough
job. It's a hardjob, even in the
board meetings andmaking sure things
get done and all theother work you do.

(11:14):
But yes, you have tobe open and amenable
and accessible toresidents. There's
just no way aroundit. If you don't,
you're just settingyourself in the
community up for onedegree of failure or another.

Well, I think it comes down to that
transparency you andI have spoken about
that previously. Ifyou are the kind of
person that you justyou love plants, and
you want to be thelandscaping guru at
the association, andyou hate the business of it, but
you're a boardmember and someone
says, How are youdoing and what's

(11:46):
going on? And youcan be the expert on
plants, and you cansay, you know, you
really need to talkto Fred or Susie or
Joni about thefinancials, because
that's not my strength, and it'sokay. Smile and say,
be polite and saywhat the truth is of
the matter, but thehiding is that's a
that's a problem,and understand that.

(12:07):
It will take sometime. Now, in my
perception, workingwith associations, I
think there is asingle digit number,
a percentage ofpeople that kind of
don't belong in a communityassociation. They
don't they justdon't play well with
others. You can't beafraid of that,

(12:28):
because that justexists. As a board
member, your job is to run theassociation, and so
you're need to bethinking 95% 95% 95%
and the 95% of thepeople who see you
as a board memberssay they're going to
say, thank you.

Yep, they're going to
say, or actually,you're not going to
hear from a good 80%of people ever,
yeah, because theyjust don't, they
don't think aboutit. You're always
going to, you'realways going to have that small
percentage of peoplewho are really,
really difficult.
And then there'sanother group, a
little bit bigger ofthe 10% I would say
that is also alwayskind of in your ear,
but they're not asvociferous as that
top 3% or 2% theones you always hear

(13:04):
from but alwaysremember. And I have
this in my I have online boardclasses, and I have
a whole thing forpeople to understand
that that you cannotlose sight of the
happy majority. Youcan't. You're like,
well, we never hearfrom them. That's
right. You don't.
When people arehappy, you typically
don't hear fromthem. You they may give you a
compliment as theysee you in the grocery store or

(13:24):
something, butthat's about it. But
you always will hearfrom that 2% or 1%
so you have to

let that drive all of
your behavior. Youhave no have that
idea in your brain of the happymajority? Yes,

absolutely.
And the thing aboutanswering questions,
this just remindsme, as you know, I'm
running for theboard and this large
association I livein, and it's, it's odd because I
people, all of asudden are like, I'm
voting for you. I'mlike, I don't even
know who you are, but okay,

but I saw your picture
and you're I saw youin the candidate
meeting from theaudience. I was in
the back row. I wasin the audience. I
didn't spot you in the back row.

They were in the back
row. But you know,and so the people we
have two board seatsup, and four people
running to two of the four areincumbents in those
seats. And thenthere's myself and
another gal who'sbeen very, very around the
committee. She'sbeen on committees
and lived here quitea while, so she's
pretty well known.
So they had theaudience could come
ask questions. Well,because I have only

(14:26):
lived here about ayear, there was a
lot of things Icould not speak to,
and every candidategot to answer the
question that wasasked, so we just go
down the row andanswer. So I, even
though I can't speakto that specific
thing, I didn't clamup and say, No, I
just don't know. AndI can't answer that.
I took a well, thisis how we do because
of our business.

(14:46):
This is what we doas an industry, and
this is how we wouldlook at it, as it as
a quick example, wehave food and beverage, golf, a
whole bunch ofamenities, type of
thing, and someonein the back stood
up, obviously not ahappy person, said,
We want to know.
Your stance. For allfour of us, there's
stance on, on,should we be making
money on food andbeverage, golf and
assessments or so?
That's how they putit together, the

(15:08):
three sources of income or nonincome. And so everybody got the
answer. I was thelast one. I said,
Well, all I can tellyou is that, as an
industry, if youmake money on food
and beverage, Godlove you, and you're
one in a million,because most of it is a loser
financially.
However, we all payfor that to see, because of the
restaurants go out of business,exactly, let alone
in a place likethis, that you have

(15:29):
a captive audience,but they're gone six
months out of theyear. And again,
just like Robert youwere saying, if the
person is the plantexpert, and they're
like, God, I justdon't know about
that, you need totalk to, you know
Fred over here,who's the treasurer
for that particularthing. That's not my
expertise. That istotally fine. Just
as I answered, lookat I haven't been
here, so I can't answer thesespecific question

(15:50):
you're asking, but Ican tell you what,
as an industry, wethink about, and
people were just happy with theanswer. They were happy with an
answer. And I willsay some of the
people didn't give really verystraightforward answers who have
been on the board,and it was very noticeable, very
noticeable. So we'll see,

yeah, transparency leads to a good
temperature at theassociation, and
just being a humanand anyone Well, the
little things we'retalking about board
members who areresponsible for the
care of the commonareas. And so who do
you want to be ababysitter to care
for your children?

(16:30):
Who do you want as ateacher to care for
the education ofyour kids? You want them to be
straightforward withyou. You want to be
able to communicatewith them. And that's one of the
things we canrecommend as a board
member to have thetime you set it to
be open, amenableand accessible, and maybe add
forthright.

Forthright, yes, you know. And
actually, afterthat, there's one
more thing talking about beingforthright. I got a
phone call after that particularmeeting, the meet,
the candidates meeting, and thiswoman actually was a
retired attorney,and she said, and
she said, Well, youknow, I saw you at
that. I just have areally big question
for you, is that, doyou commit to being
actually truthfuland transparent? And

(17:12):
I said, Yes, becausethat's again, that's
I don't have anything. But yeah,I'd like to a fault
for sure, but what Itold her was that,
if I could, thereare things obviously
that board memberscannot talk about to
the homeowners thatwould have to do
with litigation,that you can say
we're in litigationand but you can't
get into the nitty gritty orcollections or that

(17:33):
type of thing,right? And I can't
speak in detail about that. Youcan't and that's
actually all youhave to tell them. I
said I I commit totelling you, I will
tell you the truthwhen I can, and if I
can't, I'll tell youthat too. If I can't
tell you, not thetruth about it, but
if I can't tell yousomething, I will
tell you that Ican't tell you. I
would like to tellyou about this, but
we can't. We're,we're and she said,

(17:53):
that's perfectlyfine. They just,
it's interesting,because whether
they're out therebeing gas lighted by
current people, I'mnot sure, because I
don't I haven't lived thatexperience yet, but
they people justdon't want to feel
like they're beinglied to. I mean, you
have to look atwhat's gone on over
the last few years.
I think people havelost a lot of trust

(18:15):
in in, well, let'sjust look in the
government, I mean,in institutions and
everything. I mean,and you see failure
in lots of placesthat a lot of it seems self
inflicted, but yousee it. And you
know, a homeownersassociation. We're
not a democracy. Weare a republic, and
Hoa is a republic,but for and we are
like the closest tothe ground of any

(18:36):
political being,it's us, and because
if they don't likeit, they're going to
come knock on yourdoor or set type of
thing. But so it,it's not just your
ethical obligation,but it's certainly
going to be much,much better for you
guys. If, as boardmembers, you are
transparent, you aregoing to tell the
truth. And if youcan't tell them
something, you haveto tell them. You

(18:57):
can't tell them.
Don't just say, wecan't answer that.
It's like, I'm sorry. No, no

comment.
Dangerous.

No comment is like the
worst thing you cansay to homeowners. I
mean, unless you'vebeen instructed by
legal counsel to saythat for some reason
or another, and that's anotherthing. Let's just
talk about that quickly. If, ifthere's been a situation in your
community, say there's been ashooting or something like that,
which is relatively common,unfortunately. And

(19:24):
you know, we havetwo associations
here. And one had abig brouhaha that
people got arrested,not shot, but, but
the board presidentwent out and made a
15 minute video about the wholeissue and put it out
there. I'm like, Oh,my God, that was way too much
information. Andthis association had
another incidentwith a shooting type
incident. No one washurt, and they would

(19:44):
not say anything.
They just completelyclammed up. And
people were like,Well, what happened?
You know, consultyour counsel and
say, What can wesay? What would and
would you write thisfor me to say? And
then don't fly offon your own. And
being completely clammed up isprobably not the
right way, either.
So do the best you can do. Be astransparent and truthful if you
can't be transparentdue to you know what

(20:05):
the nature of theissue? Say it. Just
tell people that Ican't tell you because of x, you
will be shocked atwhat a long way that
goes this at themeet, the candidates
meeting. I mean, youguys, you've been
listening to us forquite a while now,
and you can tellthat I am. You know,
if you don't want meto say it out loud,
don't tell it to mebecause it I'm just

(20:27):
going to say it asjust who I am. And
so not that I don'tmean secrets. I'm
just saying I justjust who I am. If
it's if it's if thesky is blue, I'm
saying blue. I'm notsaying green. I
don't care how manytimes you say it's
green. I had peoplecome up to me after
that who I could noteven give an actual
answer. I just said,our industry, this
is what we think.
And if this is what's going onhere, I don't know

(20:49):
yet, but this is howI would handle it.
Would come up to meand say, Thank you for at least
answering the question, and Iwasn't even able to
give them the exactanswer, but they
were so happy withforthrightness that
I was, it's peoplelove it again. They
know when they'rebeing gas lighted
and because and theyalso feel like they
have no trust ininstitutions. And HOAs are no

(21:10):
exception. So themore you can do to
be trustworthy andto let people know
you're trustworthy through yourtransparency, through your
willingness toengage, through not
scurrying off andsaying no comment,
all those type ofthings. I think I
know it's hard,everybody, believe
me, I know it'shard, but you will
be much better offif you take that

(21:31):
kind of tack. Yeah,

you'll have a better association in the
end. Well, Julie,this is a great
foundation for ourconversation today,
but now it's time tohear from one of our
generous sponsors,after which we'll be
right back with moreHOA insights.

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And we're back. Well,
Julie, it's beengreat. We started
this conversationwith talking about
ethics policy and aconduct policy.
Those are some things that canguide the how we do,
things leading totransparency. We
talked about beingopen, amenable, accessible,
forthright, trustworthy, but wehave also spoken in

(22:39):
the past about someoverarching concepts
we've called thefour C's, and we actually have a
fifth as a bonus.
But let's talk about the 4c thatgenerally indicates
a healthy board situation.

So actually, I've been
full disclosureRobert's the one who
came up with these,but, but here are
the 4 Cs with thisfifth bonus one. So
number one is to becaring. I think, I
think all of thesecould go within the
board contact or the board jobdescriptions,
because overall, ifyou don't care about
about the community,or about individual
people in thecommunity, you it's

(23:16):
just it's never going to work,because you're
you're going to beperceived as not
caring, because youcan't hide that. You
can't fake it. Weall know that you
can't fake it. Andthe next one is to
be curious. Youcannot be a board
member and haveblinders on and just
say, Oh, I just, Idon't want to look
at that right there.
Oh, because it meansmore work, or it means you might

(23:36):
uncover somethingthat you didn't want
to uncover about aparticular person, a vendor or a
situation, and youdidn't want to do
so. Curiosity is thenext one, the third
one is courageous. Icould argue that just being on a
board is courageous.
It is because youstepped up to the
plate and said,Okay, I'll take this
on. But also, Iwould also put into
that category ofbeing courageous is

(23:58):
being willing tolook at situations
that maybe have beengoing on in your
community for 15 or20 years that no one
has wanted to touch,such as having, let's just go to
reserves, sings toRobert's heart, but
that's actually oneof the most typical
things, because youhave to raise
assessments to fundyour reserves. That

(24:19):
takes courage to dothat, because you
are going to dealwith Fallout and so
but you're workingon behalf of the
larger Association,not just the people
who live there rightnow. It's for now
and into the future that is yourresponsibility. So
it takes courage tobe a board member,
but it also takescourage to do once
you're on the board,to do the things

(24:39):
that need to be donefor the overall well
being of the community. Four iscommunicate effectively. Robert,
you and I have beatthis one to death
over the, you know,last two years or so
of communicating,and it's and yes,
there is no suchthing as too much
communication. Therereally just isn't.
But I do want topress something, and I've. In my

(25:00):
experience here atthis community is
that we get a lot ofcommunication. And
listening to ofhomeowners around
here talk to me, I'mwondering if now
we're not sendingout the type of
communication aboutparticular issues
that they care aboutnow, as opposed to
what they caredabout 10 years ago.
What do you justhold well, well, you

(25:21):
know, we've had thesame this has been brought to my
attention, that thesame group of
volunteers has been managing thecommunity, meaning
on the board or oncommittees, or back
on the board and then back on acommittee for 20
some years. Okay, more than Irealized. And you know, I think
inertia just itcreeps in. I mean,

(25:42):
and a lot of theadministrative staff
has been here quitea while, the paid
staff. And I justthink, you I'm not a
person for change,just for change's
sake, but I do thinkthat, you know, if
we get settled inhow we did things 10
years ago, and it'snot bad, I'm just saying they
communicate a tremendous amount,but listening to
people again, I'mnot sure they're

(26:03):
communicating thetype of information
that today's notonly new buyer, but
today's mindset. Imean, my goodness, you can get
information onanything go online,
and yet you can'tfind out specific
things that are going on in thecommunity, not because they're
trying to hide it,just because they
don't think that.
Oh, maybe peoplewant to know about
that so, and that's,I can't even tell
you if that's thetruth or not, but

(26:23):
that's what I'm hearing. Socommunicating
appropriately is isand effectively is
everything that's apart of smiling,
that's a part of shaking hands,because I was kissing babies and
shaking hands, youkind of have to do
that as a board member and theRobert Do you want
to take the bonus one. The

bonus is just be consistent. Do it
over and over andover again, because,
like Julie said, Youcan't do enough communication. I
have my littletwists on this from
caring. I became aboard member because
I cared. I wanted tomake sure that things were going
well. I was mortgageup to my eyeballs,
and it had to besuccessful, and so
it was selfish. Butin my situation, I

(27:05):
was one out of 71homeowners, and the
things that I didbecause I cared
about my home valuelifted the home
values of 70 otherpeople. And that's
leverage. That'sgreat stuff. And
remember that therewill be a few people
that give you thestink eye, or, like
you said a momentago, may you want to

(27:27):
knock on your door because thesprinkler next to
their home was stuckon last night and it
was running allnight and they got a
lousy night's sleep.
And you say, Gee,I'm sorry, thank you
for telling me I'llcall the plumber or
I'll call thelandscaper, I'll get it fixed,

I'll call the manager, whatever it

is.
Yeah, you can be aproblem solver and
but someone has totell you what the
problem is, so youcan solve it. But
you have to care.
You have to becurious. Well, why
did that happen onthat building?
Didn't it happen onthat building last
month also? Andthat's when you have
a heart to heartwith the landscaper,
because, yeah, youneed to care. And
the landscaper says,Well, you guys been

(28:08):
paying me the bareminimum for the last
eight years, and Idon't have enough
budget to get thisdarn thing fixed.
And you realize, okay, and thenthat's when we get
into courageousbecause not change
for change sake, but momentum issometimes a good thing when it's
good, and sometimesit's a really bad
thing. When it'sbad, you need to
have the courage tochange what needs to

(28:28):
be changed. Thatmeans going from,
I'm just picking anumber here, going
from $2,500 a monthfor the landscaper
to 3000 a month,just so that the
landscaping companycan get done what
needs to be done.
Get some fresh plants out by theentry sign. Get tear
out some of thoseold bushes that
really saw betterdays a decade ago.

(28:50):
You're there tolead, and that takes
courage to press forwardcommunicating effectively. When
you were talking, Iwas thinking the methods of
communication andthe opportunities
for communication,and we got a push
three, four yearsago with COVID, to go to online

(29:12):
meetings. That wasprobably a good
push. I think that was good forcommunities. What I
hear is more board member, boardmember, attendance,
board meeting.
Attendance increasedduring COVID Because
it was easier forpeople to just log
on on their computerand see what was going on. But I
think an unrealizedopportunity is a
short two minute video. Here's arecap of what's

(29:36):
going on this monthat our association.
We expect to havethe new plantings in
the front. We expectto turn building
number five watersoff on the 17th. So
be ready for that.
It doesn't take along time to be
transparent. Speakinto a camera. You
can have your noteshere and just two
minutes Say what'sup. And people can
consume two minutes and. You

could do it on your phone.
It doesn't heavily, yeah,

it doesn't have to be
fancy, but I'mreally I'm getting
goosebumps, thetransparency, the
clarity, the trustyou can build.
There's so many waysthat can be well done for your
association, andjust do it over and
over and over again,be consistent,
because you are partof board members

(30:25):
that someone handedthe baton to you,
and you want to beable to successfully
hand the baton tothe next people. And
build good systems.
Have a notebook or a drop box orsomething where you
have continuity, sothat when you get
off the board in ahealthy way in two
years or threeyears, or whenever

(30:46):
it is, people knowwhat you did and
why, and they say,oh, yeah, that Who
was that guy? Is itRichard or Ronnie?
No, it's Robert. Itwas Robert. That's a
guy. He did it thisway, and it was a
good thing, and theywill do that until
someone has thecourage to make it
better years nowinto the future.

(31:07):
Yeah, lots of, lotsof good things,

really good things. What I
just this will be ashort note, because
I know we're runningshort on time now,
is that consistency.
It's just like, youknow, being on a
board, you're kindof like a parent in
certain ways,because what do kids
thrive on? Andactually, and your
pets too, they thrive onconsistency, when,
when things are I'mnot saying static.
I'm saying consistent. You havethe consistent

(31:31):
meetings, you have consistentcommunication.
You're consistently,you know, nice when
people talk to you,you're consistently
looking out for thecommunity as a
whole, that stable platform ofoperations can is the difference
between having achaotic, unhappy Association and
having a happy,stable association.
So it's you don'tthink about it, but

(31:54):
it's true. Yeah, it's

not the physical buildings, it's the
board membersleading it, and just
what you saidreminded me of when
we got a big dog asa puppy. Many years
ago, we committed totraining the dog well, and the
trainer made it veryclear he was going
to spend more timetraining us than he
was the dog. That'sright, be consistent

(32:17):
to give assistantcommands. So we weren't just
confusing this dogwe were saying when
we say this, this iswhat we mean you to
do. And that dog washappy to know that
when we said this,The dog did this.
Everyone was happy, and it was awonderful thing. And
you can do that atyour community. It's
not the buildings,it's a leadership.
It is Julie asalways. It's great

(32:39):
talking with you.
Any closing thoughtsto add at this time, not

so much. I just want to
plug my online classes for boardmembers. It might be
something that youguys want to look
at. You can go to mywebsite, which is,
if you Google me,Julie Adam, and you'll find the
website Adam andinc.com and you can click on the
Education tab, andthere are, there's
four hours worth ofcourse material for
board members for$75 so take a look.
I think it wouldreally help out a
lot of you folks, and

in the short term, give
her a little bit oftime. But I have a
feeling she's goingto end up having a
conduct policy somewhere on herwebsite, too,

somewhere,

somewhere.
Yeah, I

think so too. Yep, I think you're

inspiring.
You the audience areinspiring us. Now,
hey, well, we hopeyou learned some HOA
insights from ourdiscussion today
that helps you bringcommon sense to your
common areas. We look forward tohaving you join us
for another greatepisode next week.

Jennifer Johnson (33:30):
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(33:50):
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(34:12):
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085 | HOA Board Member Behavior Basics: Don’t Make These Mistakes!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}085 | HOA Board Member Behavior Basics: Don’t Make These Mistakes!