Are you making sure that your vendors are adding value to your community? Nothing breeds better performance and better pricing like a little competition. Does the board use an attorney for legal questions that arise and a CPA for tax or financial issues? Any community association attorney can tell you the number of times they’ve had to say to board members “I wish you would have called me sooner.” It is critical for a board member to be prepared for each meeting by utilizing the various vendors, professionals and experts at their disposal.
UNIT-OWNER CONCERNS
One of the complaints I often hear from board members is the lack of participation by unit owners at board meetings. And I’m told that when unit owners do show up for a board meeting, it is generally to complain about a specific issue such as a neighbor or an increase in assessments. Unfortunately, that is just part of the job for a board member. But having the skill-set to address the concerns of unit owners can be the difference between a drive right down the middle of the fairway or being somewhere off in the trees. There are countless books that have been written about conflict resolution and there are seminars and entire careers built around this topic. Being prepared for a contentious unit owner showing up at a board meeting is a skill. There is no luck involved. It is all too easy for a board meeting to break-down into personal insults and angry outbursts between the board and unit owners. It can be a thankless job to be a volunteer board member at a community association, but if you don’t have the inter- personal skills to handle complaints from unit owners, it just may not be the position for you. Conversely, if you have an ability to communicate effectively, have a wealth of patience and can disarm someone in a moment of high stress and emotion, there may be a future for you in either being a golf caddy or a community association board member.
As the old saying goes “a failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” Or better yet, “lack of planning on your part does not constitute me driving off into the woods to look for your golf ball.” Comparisons to golf and life are fun for me to write about, but the reality is that preparation is critically important if you are going to be an effective and responsible board member. There is no substitution for doing the work and spending time between meetings to make forward progress on the important issues facing your community association.
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