Heart is palpitating fast, palms are sweating, feet are moving swiftly, all in anticipation of “The Start”, the door opens, you enter, you look up, look down, look around, you see the crowd, all waiting for that that send a certain chill up your spine, sort of like taking the ice and feeling the coldness of the rink against your face as you take your warm-up lap before puck drop, and then it happens……”I call the meeting to order at…”
Board meetings and hockey games have quite a few similarities in that you can always count on certain infractions such as misconduct, interference, delay of game, and sometimes even roughing… yes, even roughing. How many managers have had to call the police, threatened to call the police, or attempted to call the police? Okay, everyone put your hands down. Oh, the uncertainty of walking through that door wondering “what will happen tonight?” How many times have we thought to ourselves – what could I have done differently? How much more assertive could I have been? Why couldn’t I control the business tonight and how did that meeting go south?
Disruptive meetings are commonplace in our industry and the disruption can be perpetrated by anyone in the room at the time. Board members are not exempt from such conduct. An unruly homeowner confronted by an unruly board member should result in a 5-minute major (penalty) and a game misconduct whereby both aren’t allowed to attend the next meeting. However, we just don’t have the forum or establishment to enforce such rules when it comes to board meetings and voluntary positions. So, what can we do to stop the madness? What methods should we use to ensure that “Stripes” (the referee) has an upper hand on the conduct and demeanor of the meeting to ensure we have control over the game (meeting)? Well, there are certain infractions that must never enter the meeting room, infractions such as INTERFERENCE, HITS FROM BEHIND, FIGHTING, and MISCONDUCT.
22 | COMMON INTEREST®
2 min
INTERFERENCE To stop interference at the meeting, it’s critical that whoever
is administrating over the meeting (either the board president or the property manager) must establish protocol for how the meeting is conducted. First of all, announce at the beginning of every meeting the purpose of the meeting, introduce the players in the room, the roles of everyone in the room, the rules of the meeting, and finish with the statement that if the meeting can’t be conducted in a professional and efficient manner, the board of directors will simply adjourn the meeting and carry over the business to the next meeting. Secondly, if you elect to allow for a “Homeowners Forum,” hold it until the end of the meeting and limit questions to one per homeowner. It’s also a good idea to limit the time that will be spent on each question and use your phone’s stop watch to maintain the rule on time per question. Finally, if someone is not adhering to the rules as established, simply remain silent until order is restored and then announce that if this behavior continues, the Board will adjourn this meeting abruptly and call it a day. Interference in a meeting is a cancer to the continuity and success of the meeting.
HITS FROM BEHIND
A hit from behind in hockey is, in my opinion, the most disrespectful and unprofessional acts in all of sports. A player is skating top speed towards the puck with someone chasing, he gets to the puck and goes to make a move and then bam!!!! He’s hit from behind, unprepared, exposed, and potentially seriously injured so much to the point that it could be “career ending.” How many managers walk into that room where someone has a hidden agenda to bring up a topic that you aren’t prepared for only to embarrass you, or to hurt you, synonymous to that horrible act of “getting hit from behind”? How many managers ask that if the board has any questions, please contact me in advance so I may have answers for you prior to the meeting? Or, how many homeowners hold their issues until “our puck drop” only to spew the ills of the week or month on you in open forum, in front of everyone, at a time where you just sit there and think “Now is when you want to unload – at a time when I can’t do anything, I can’t enact a work order, I can’t do an inspection, I can’t get some expert out to investigate?”
Continued on page 24 A Publication of CAI-Illinois Chapter
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