Leadership question

As some of you know, I do most of the work on the Board. My experience is what others say they will do, doesn't happen. It's important to me that our HOA is run well and that the decisions that we decide at meetings are carried out.

With that said, I'm not on the Board to babysit the other Board members. They either need to follow through with what they say, or not volunteer to take a task on. I don't sit around and remind them of upcoming deadlines and prod them to complete what they already agreed to do.

This morning, I went to remind everyone of our upcoming meeting and send out the pre-meeting packet like I do each month. I noticed that the meeting minutes from the previous meeting had not been distributed by the Secretary. I mentioned in my e-mail to the Board that we don't have meeting minutes to review and I was disappointed they didn't get done. This resulted in the prompt resignation of the Secretary. The then-Secretary told me I could have discussed my concern privately with just her.

I guess my question is: Was it wrong to point out in front of the Board as a whole that we did not have meeting minutes to review? Or was she wrong for not creating meeting minutes as agreed upon when she agreed to take on the Secretary role.

Since we're a Board, I believe we all need to know of each others non-performance issues. It's up to us as a Board to decide if any officer should continue to serve in their role. Thus, I see no reason to hide the fact (from the Board as a whole) that one Board member is derelict in their duties.

Your comments?

Meeting minutes are approved at the next meeting. To save meeting time, they are distributed in advance, so we don't have to read through them during the meeting. The Secretary is out on vacation at the current time and at any rate cannot prepare the minutes in time for the upcoming meeting.

She says that if I would have sent her a couple reminders throughout the month, she would have gotten them done. I have a ton of other things on my plate and don't wish to do that.

You should have spoken to her privately. Actually, if this board member had done this before, you should have spoken to her sooner. You start with asking if she had any questions or concerns about the job - if so, the two of you could have addressed it at that time.

A week before the meeting, it may help to send the agenda to everyone so they'll knows what will be discussed and to prepare. if a board member has a specific responsibility, list that task and the board member's name next to it and emphasize EVERYONE is expected to participate and have their task done. If it isn't done they should be prepared explain why and then you can set a deadline when the task should be completed.

Having said that, it might help to explain the task and ask the person responsible if he or she has any questions or concerns. It may be the board member can only get part of the work done due to other personal and/or family commitments (have you forgotten board members, including you, have a life outside the association?). If that's the case, ask the board member to get that part done and then address the rest. It may take a little longer but hopefully people will get more comfortable with the work and find the best way for them to do the job.

Another thing to keep in mind - it's great that you're dedicated to the position a president and have put a lot of work in. However, you've also been told more than once that if you take on too much, others might not be inclined to anything because you micromanage or are overly critical because they don't seem to be as invested as you. Sonetimes, you really need to let people fall on their face so they can pick themselves up and behave differently.

You could have explained it's really important to have the minutes ready because these are official records of the association and homeowners need to have approved minutes for review. Perhaps the lady could have been asked to have the minutes ready within the week and you could call a quick meeting to have them approved. Of course, people would complain, but then you can say, "well if we wait until the next meeting well have TWO sets of minutes to review, which will take more time away from other issues we need to discuss and the meeting will take longer."

That may have prompted someone else to volunteer for the position and this lady could save a little face - and know to have her work done on time in the future.

At the meeting she was absent, it certainly would've been a leader's role to ask for volunteers to record the minutes. If none, I'm afraid it would have been on the president.

You've cited your bylaws many times to prove you're the "CEO." Ours also say that the president is responsible to see that the Board's (note BOARD's) directives are carried out. Your state's corporation code for non-profits may say the same thing. The Board voted to appoint the secretary. But it's probably your job to see that she complied. It's pretty serious to NOT have approved minutes for a board meeting.

I guess I'm just not into being a volunteer coordinator. I don't know how to motivate people to volunteer their personnel time for the betterment of the community. Either they want to or they don't. If they don't, they need to step aside to let someone else who does want to better the community to do so.

Perhaps this is my weakness as President & CEO of the organization.

Perhaps, someone more skilled than me will come along and take the reins of the Association. Then I can step back and volunteer only as needed.

I'll address the need to be a reliable volunteer to the Board at the next meeting. It might be slightly uncomfortable. It'll be a good discussion.

My experience is what others say they will do, doesn't happen. It's important to me that our HOA is run well and that the decisions that we decide at meetings are carried out.

...... I'm not on the Board to babysit the other Board members. They either need to follow through with what they say, or not volunteer to take a task on.

you nailed it.

If you can find someone with management skills that knows how to motivate people then I agree you should consider stepping down as president. One person can not run an HOA of any size without eventually burning out if they are putting in the hours that you are. (I did the same thing.)

If you cannot find future Board members that are willing to do what is needed much of your work will unravel. Myself (President) and the VP busted our ass for 3 years and made a tremendous amount of progress like you have. One year later, the sheet is hitting the fan again and much of the work we did is being undone and the Reserves are being drained for things that don't qualify as Reserve items.

My point Michael is by now you know what the pulse of your community is. If it is made of people who won't step up or will not follow the CCR's and do the right thing then why put in the excessive amount of time that you are currently investing? Such is the life in an Hoa...

… but yeah, I have a lot of problems with people who think “volunteer” means “half-assed”. I am happy (and consider myself lucky) that my current Board has a good work ethic and a sense of commitment.

BillD

Excuse me? Your going to HIRE someone to do the job? Spend the HOA money on what one should be doing as defined in their duties? I say Heck to the no on that one...Bad IDEA. Your going to give them a 1099 to do so?

What Melisssa said.

You're absolutely correct that the homeowners deserve to get them in a timely manner and since there are three or four board members (I forget how many you have), there's no reason why one of them can't sit down and put the minutes together. There are templates in Word and all over the internet if they don't have a clue on how to do it and if it's too much for one person, they can rotate the work every month among themselves (not you, since you keep saying you do enough as it is, and I believe you do). These are adults and they need to man up (or woman up) and do what they say they're going to do, do it right and on time. If they can't or won't do that, they need to say so from the beginning. That's what grown people do - no one's asking the association to take up all of their spare time, so if they plan their work, it won't have to.

If the ex-secretary is still on the board, start the conversation by apologizing for reading the riot act in front of everyone, but then follow up with "I said what I said, not to insult you, but to drive home the point that the homeowners are expecting this and the Association needs to have complete and accurate minutes because they're LEGAL documents. This isn't difficult, but it can't be taken lightly.

There's no reason she couldn't sit down a day or two after the meeting and put together a draft that could be distributed to the board a few days before the next meeting. Everyone should read the minutes, bring their corrections and questions to the next meeting, and then you take a vote to make them official. If these folks are oh, so busy with other stuff, they can rotate recording the meeting minutes among themselves every month. That's quicker and cheaper than paying someone to do it. And you should say so - let the other homeowners (if any are there) listen to this conversation and decide for themselves if they want lazy board members to continue to make decisions that affect THEIR homes.

Just make it a part of the Property Management company services contract that they prepare the meeting minutes and include them in the next months Board package to be approved and then posted for homeowners to read. You mentioned that when you had the property manger doing the minutes it worked and all was done well and on time. Our community manager has done our minutes for the 12 years I have been involved in the Board and it is just a part of our management contract and part of what she/he does for us. She/he is in attendance at each Board meeting anyway and then the Board is not distracted by keeping the minutes and can concentrate on getting the business of the meeting done, and the agenda covered

I also agree with JohnT's latest post.

I call BS. You knew all along that meeting minutes weren't done, and you couldn't wait to try and zing your Secretary of 6 months. Definitely lame that you didn't have a quick exchange with her beforehand. A simple email and/or text would have likely cleared things up without having to try and shame her. But in the end, shaming her is what you wanted to do anyway and the result is likely what you had hoped for. Now you can start the "woe is me, I'm the only one who does anything, and we can never get anyone to volunteer" rant again. News flash . . . when you do your best to crap all over those who try and volunteer, don't be so shocked when nobody wants to step up.

We've had a lot of people do the Secretary role in the last 12 months, and all have failed to deliver meeting minutes on time. The one time we were highly successful was when we hired our PM to take the minutes. I have proposed to the Board in the past that we hire someone to take them for us because we don't have reliable volunteers, but the rest of the Board has always voted that someone does the minutes for free. This works for a couple of months and then the volunteers get busy with other things in their lives and then the minutes are late and don't come in at all.

By sending a reminder (or three) in advance, the minutes probably would have been done. But then the rest of the Board would think that having volunteers doing minutes works well, not knowing that I have to prod the volunteers along to do the job they say they will do. By letting the Board as a whole know, I'm providing information to the whole Board of the issues so we as a Board can make an informed decision on whether we should rely on volunteers or hire this task out in the future.

Also, long ago, I decided my purpose on the Board is not to prod other Board members to complete the job that they agreed to do. We're adults. 9 times of out 10, the task is never completed when someone else volunteers to do it. I've found a great way to stop a project I am opposed to is to seek a different volunteer to handle it. Thus, the project fails to materialize.

Meeting minutes are a different beast. Per by-laws, the President should not take the meeting minutes (separation of power) and I personally don't have time to do that during the meetings. However, we are legally required to keep them and make them accessible to our homeowners, so we can't let them slide.

Finally, I will note that the other Board members don't work for me. We all work for the same boss - our homeowners. They are the ones who "hired" us into our job (by voting) and the ones that can "fire" us from our volunteer gig. As HOA President, I don't feel it's my role to prod the other Board members along to do stuff to keep our homeowners satisfied. That responsibility belongs to the other Board members.

So stop prodding them?