052 | How To Successfully Recruit Fresh HOA Board Members!

Robert Nordlund: 0:00

Hi everyone, I have a special announcement to make. As you know, the mission of our podcast is to affirm, inspire, and motivate HOA board members. One way we hope to do that is with the launch of our new board member merch store. As a gift to boards who are meeting online, we're offering dozens of free and fun zoom backgrounds, designed specifically with you in mind, we've provided a link to the new store in our show notes, please check it out.

Julie Adamen: 0:31

But once you see that the board is answering the needs of the community in a positive fashion, as well as on the other hand, they might have to raise dues a little bit. As a resident, you are more of a more of a tendency to think that the community is in good hands. And if the community is in good hands, Hmm. Maybe you might consider being on a committee or being on the board. It's a whole process. It's a whole ball of wax, you can't just do a little bit of it and ignore the rest of it.

Announcer: HOA Insights: 1:03

Common Sense for Common Areas, exists to help all 2 million volunteer board members nationwide have the right information at the right time to make the right decisions for their future. This podcast is sponsored by for companies that care about board members, association insights and marketplace, association reserves, community financials, and Kevin Davis Insurance Services. You'll find links to their websites and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 1:33

Hi, I'm Robert Nordlund of Association reserves.

Julie Adamen: 1:36

And I'm Julie Adamen and of Adamen Inc. And this is HOA Insights where we promote common sense

Robert Nordlund: 1:42

for common areas. Well, welcome to episode 53, where we're again speaking with management consultants and regular co host Julie Adelman today about successfully recruiting new board members, we were all new board members at one point in time, and often that was by accident, and healthy Association should regularly have new board members. And so how can you develop a pipeline of interested and capable homeowners ready to step into leadership? We'll settle in because you're about to find out in just a few minutes. Well, we enjoy hearing from you responding to the issues you're facing at your association. So if you have a hot topic, a crazy story, or a question you'd like us to address, you can contact us at 805-203-3130 or email us at podcast@reservestudy.com. So Julie, for today's program, let's start with an audience question. This question came from Stacy in Tacoma, Washington, five of us been running our association for years. I'm tired and want to get off the board. But we don't have any candidates. So we're stuck. What can we do with

Julie Adamen: 2:53

the age old question? What can you do? Well, Stacey into combat first of all, thanks for serving on the board that long as those of you been listening this for quite a while. I was serving on two HOA boards at one time and my previous career before what I do now I was a manager. So I feel your pain I understand perfectly. And unfortunately, there is no silver bullet. Is there, Robert?

Robert Nordlund: 3:21

No, there's no no easy solution. I know who there was a candidate A long time ago, no immediate miracles. And I am something like that presidential candidate long time ago. And I was telling Julie earlier, I have a new treat a silver bullet that I can pretend to use if I have any tough problems to deal with in my life

Julie Adamen: 3:45

yet see. Exactly right. So Robert got himself his silver bullet to kill the vampires. He has to deal with it sometimes which may be in his computer system. But actually, Stacey, there is no instantaneous answer to that. The way to get more board members over a period of time is to create a pipeline. And so we're going to talk about I think what that looks like. And can you start the process today? Yeah, you can start the process today. But are you going to get off the board this year? Probably not. But better to start now than five years from now when you've been on the board for 40 years, and you just want to poke your own eyes out. So I think Robert and I were talking about this earlier, it's a it's a holistic kind of undertaking you're doing so the healthier the community, the more people are willing to serve. The happier the community the more people are willing to serve and healthy and happy usually go together. The unhappy community usually is lacking in some sort of health, whether that's financial health, or whether that is the health of everyone say kind of the psyche of the community. I've always tell board members that I deal with I'm like all community associations have a personality. I mean In some, and I like to liken them to dogs. I mean, some associations are the Labrador retriever, you know. And they're just the wonderful association that, you know, they're just affable, and things get along, and they probably have enough money to deal with things as they come up. The board members are get along for the most part. And then you have the pitbull associations. And if you're on a board of a pitbull Association, it's not a really pleasant thing, because everybody's always growling at you all the time. And again, usually, that indicates some lack of health. And then the last of my favorite is the little hippie dog. Where things are mostly okay, but you always have that 10% Yep, and at your heels. So if the the Labrador Retriever associations or the golden retriever associations, they usually have a good health to them, they have a good psyche to them, they don't get super ruffled over stuff, and they just handle things, in course, as they come along. The pitbulls, on the other hand, are always seem to be far more reactive. So they haven't taken care of things for many years, then all of a sudden, they have to do something. And it's not affable, it's much more contentious. It's people want to bite. I mean, you, all of you out there listening or on board, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So, how to develop your association into the Labrador Retriever of communities. And that's kind of where we're gonna go with this.

Robert Nordlund: 6:25

Well, Julie, you know, you and I prepare for this. And all of a sudden to hear you talk, all of a sudden, my brain is going in different directions. Because if my memory serves me correctly, you and I both got on boards, because they were problems. And there are problems that needed to be solved and problems that we could solve. And so that was not what we're talking about. But then again, I guess it it is kind of what we're talking about, because we don't want to wait for an emergency that someone else to come in and rescue, what we're talking about is you talked about a pipeline, and I think of a construction project. So okay, let's plan it. Let's create it. Let's make things better. With Kevin Davis, we talked about lowering the temperature, making things smoother. And you talked about making it friendlier. And I also thinking about businesses, if they're trying to get customers in the door, or to their website, they need to do something attractive. And I think that's what you're talking about when you're talking about the pipeline, make something that is desirable, it looks like oh, I would like to walk into that store. I would like to browse that website, or the prices are fine. It's not going to kill me.

Julie Adamen: 7:34

So exactly, right, yes.

Robert Nordlund: 7:37

But that, like you say, is a process and it is incumbent upon the board to be doing what they can to make it not just seem attractive, but be attractive

Julie Adamen: 7:50

to be and, you know, how do you do that as a board, especially if things are kind of wonky? Right now, there's something that's not right on your board? Well, first of all, I think the board itself has to come to an agreement among themselves, that we are going to move forward as a group, not as your five individuals, but you're still a body, right? I'm not saying that as board members, everyone has to agree with each other, that would be ridiculous, because people are, obviously people are just going to disagree. Well, people are different. They are different. And that's actually the beauty of it. All right. But alpha also can be ugly, but the beauty of it all is that they're different, they have different perspectives. But as a very bottom line thing that words can do that I think they often don't realize this is they need to speak with one voice. In other words, once you have whatever problem has come up and the board is going to vote on how to handle it, we're going to go with this contractor, that contractor if it's something that needs to be redone, or or change policy of some sort, and let's say you have a five member board, and the vote ends up three to to move forward with whatever this is spending money changing policy, you know, getting a new contract, or whatever that is. And then you have two board members who completely disagreed with that. Well, the vote was taken. You had you need to move forward as a body. So the two people who didn't want that to happen, you know, it's okay to say, I don't like this. I voted against it. But this is the direction we're going and we're going to move forward as a group, which means no backbiting, no naysaying at cocktail hour with other homeowners. No going around and sending out nasty emails to the group that wanted whatever you wanted. Move forward as a group when you move forward as a body. I think that it gives the whole board credibility. It shows the integrity of the board. And when you have those two things which are highly, highly important in this atmosphere, credibility, integrity. Other people around the association start looking at you guys at a different light and thinking wow, these board members know they don't always agree. Obviously they've got different points of view. You, that's a healthy thing. But once it moves forward, we move forward as a body. To me, that is just about the genesis of beginning the pipeline for new people to come into the community into the board. I like that.

Robert Nordlund: 10:17

It's got to start with that vision for we are here to accomplish one thing that take good care of the association, it looks like this. And I was thinking to fire the handyman that has been there for 23 years, but is now not the sharpest handyman and two of the five board members may love that person. But if it's the right thing to do to let old Fred go and hire a maintenance company that's going to be sharp and more cost effective and more responsive. And has a cell phone, not a pager, or whatever it is, if you're a dissenting board member Baima goodbye gift, say thank you. But yeah, the right thing to do is to move the association forward. And I think that has so many different ways that it looks positive, it shows that the board is making decisions at the board meeting, they're making good decisions, they're running on time, the it looks like it's a doable project, it doesn't look like a mess. Because I have enough challenges in my life. I don't want to invite another one. So is that a little bit of it just projecting that we are an organization that we have our act together? Yes,

Julie Adamen: 11:34

you're projecting competence. And people really like to see that. So and I know we have said this before, in probably a podcast we did well over a year ago, I think. But if your board meetings run on time, so you don't have an agenda of 12 items, and you're there for three and a half hours due to infighting and being uninformed not reading your information ahead of time, your board packet information ahead of time, all of these various things that happen or just running a meeting poorly, people did not want to sign up for that they do not want to sign up, you know, I live in 120 unit Association and the board meetings are three and a half hours once a month. No one wants to sign up for that it looks ridiculous. So when board meetings are well run, the board members, you know, they don't have to like each other. But they do need to to, you know, agree to present a good face and a professional face by running on time by studying your things ahead of time. So you can make decisions by not wandering off the agenda. And if the board meetings lasts about an hour, that's great. And if you can't make a decision on an item within just three to five minutes. So it's old business item, and it's whatever changing pool companies, it doesn't matter. And if it's old business, but you guys are still talking about that for 567 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you're not ready to make that decision table it move forward. And when people who attend that meeting, or they may see them on your closed circuit television within your community, they're like, man, that doesn't look too bad. I could probably do that. That's doable. So I think the board is the genesis of what we're talking about. And the next the next Genesis is as a part of the pipeline is committees. How do your committees operate? Because committees are a great source of new board members to come into the pipeline provided the committee's are well run, the committees have good policies that have been set that set forth by the board for how they operate. And we ensure that they are doing what they need to do and holding them I want to say accountable. I don't mean something really harsh. But if you have a lot of committees, committees that are very active typically will report at a board meeting, right, you know, architectural committee report, and that is concise that is hopefully in a written report. But if not, it's a very concise oral report, and the board can look at it, discuss a little bit and move on to the next item. When all of those things are well run and operate, I guess same thing and are operationally highly functional, or at least functional. People can if they don't want to be a board member yet. Maybe they'll get on a committee and say, Okay, let me stick my toes in the water first and see how this works.

Robert Nordlund: 14:14

I like that. I want to take this a little bit of a sidestep. When I talk to people, and I tell them what I do, and I'm in the community association business, I say where do you live? Do you and they live? Oh, I live in a condo by the DA, what's the name? Your condo? Oh, it's XYZ management. And I say no, no, no, I'm not talking about the management company because that's where they write their checks every month. Uh huh. What is the name of your association? And they look up in the sky and they say, I have no idea. And I think that may be another element to this where people who are living in the association may not particularly see that their association is a thing, that it's run by volunteer board members, that they Every day need to be thanking those board members for the gate working for the landscaper. annoying as it may be blowing the leaves whatever they're doing, how much of an element is just making sure that the homeowners appreciate that this is a community run by volunteer board members is that the meeting minutes is that a posting in the mailbox area where the board is very publicly taking the stand, that landscaping is moving from Wednesday to Tuesday, as your volunteer board of directors has chosen a new landscape management company, just putting that seed into their brains that there is a volunteer board that's taking care of us here at Happy villas?

Julie Adamen: 15:44

Well, I think you're really talking about the overall communication between the board and the community to create a connection between the resident and the community as a whole. You're so funny, you said that they don't what's the name of this association? They may have one name, right, oh, it's Westfield something. But they don't really know why. Because they don't really have a connection count. And that, again, is a huge thing on creating the sense that I belong to something as well as letting people know how that something operates. Most homeowners, really, they just write the check, or you know, they do the money transfer. And all they hear from their association is dues are going up, or, you know, the streets are gonna be slurried on Thursday, but they got that wrong and send it out too late or something. And they always tend to have a more negative experience. So in creating this pipeline, we're talking about that there's board cohesion with board cohesion comes better operations for the board and through committees. And the next, it's a three legged stool to me, but the next one that is ginormous is good communication between the board and the homeowners and residents at large. And that means not just a newsletter that goes out every three months. I mean, obviously, if your associations real small that that's going to maybe you don't need to do that. If it's seven or eight or 15 units, maybe not. But for any association, I would argue that's over 50 units. Definitely, if you're 100 200. I mean, I live in a 2000 unit Association. And the communication that comes out of this community is I get an email about something going on in the community, probably daily. I like that because I like well, we have a lot of amenities. There's golf, and there's restaurants and stuff. So you get something from the departments to let you know what's going on. But I don't find it onerous. And I don't find it too much. In fact, a lot of it's something you need to

Robert Nordlund: 17:40

know, because you are a member of ABC villas, exactly.

Julie Adamen: 17:44

I'm a member of those. And I want to know what's going and of course, obviously, it's my business, but there is no one could accuse this community of not communicating. In fact, they, they could accuse them of communicating too much. But I'd rather err on that side, then air at no communication, because if you don't communicate all of the wonderful and positive things that go on in the community, and I don't care what Association you're in, I guarantee you there's positive things that go on that, that the residents don't know about. And you as board members, you're involved, of course, you know, but everybody else doesn't know about it. And so if you're not communicating that out, the only thing people think about you guys is that as board members is you're up on this high hill and telling people not to park places, as opposed to Hey, did you know we put in a new walking trail, and everybody is loving it? Well, you're not a dog owner. So maybe you don't walk on that walking trail, or you're unable to do that. But once you see that the board is answering the needs of the community in a positive fashion. As well as on the other hand, they might have to raise dues a little bit. As a resident, you are more of a more of a tendency to think that the community is in good hands. And if the community is in good hands, Hmm. Maybe you might consider being on a committee or being on the board. It's a whole process. It's a whole ball of wax. You can't just do a little bit of it and ignore the rest of it.

Robert Nordlund: 19:08

Yeah, there's probably a delicate balance between the board doing things that are irritating, like, there's going to be no hot water next Thursday, because we're getting a new boiler. You can't park in the parking lot next Thursday, because we're getting the parking lot seal coated, you know, the irritate or we're thinking about raising the assessments again this next year. You know, those kinds of irritating things, like hole that gets my attention. Yeah. And that would cause someone to think that's crazy. How can that be? Maybe I could help make things better or that crazy board is doing crazy things. So they need people like me to fix things. Of course, as soon as they get on the board, they'll realize that's the way it has to be. But that's that fresh blood and there needs to be some During the pot? Well, this is this is great stuff. I have some good follow up questions. But at this point in time, let's take a short break for message from our sponsor.

Kevin Davis: 20:08

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Robert Nordlund: 20:37

And we're back. Julie, I liked what you were saying right before the break talking about the three legged stool and some of the basic principles for developing the pipeline. Can you remind everyone about that? Sure.

Julie Adamen: 20:48

In my mind, I think of it as the three legged stool, if you have a three legged stool, if you take one out, the other two don't work too good. So but the the three legged stool is number one board functionality, and that means we're going to speak with one voice doesn't mean you have to agree. But once a decision has been made, we move forward as a body, we don't talk behind each other's back, we don't send nasty emails out to our group that really supports what we want, we move forward, we say well, I didn't agree with that. But we're moving forward as a body. So that's number one board functionality promotes committee functionality. But that also means the board has to set those committees up for success by adopting policies and procedures for those committees, and they can actually all pretty much be the same, you know, with obviously, with tweaks, depending on what committee they are, you know, how often they should meet, what their charter is, what their responsibilities are, et cetera, et cetera. And so you're setting those people up for success, as well as successful committees help make a board successful. But the third leg on that stool is communication from the board, to the residents as a whole to the membership as a whole. And that communication needs to reflect the positive aspects of what you are doing as a board, as well as the other informational things that a lot of residents are moving to think maybe aren't positive, like, maybe the dues are going to go have to go up or we're going to put off a project until next year, because we couldn't, you know, land a contractor in time because everybody's booked already this year, because so many people think of the community community associations as negative Oh, it's all negative. All they do is raise dues? Yep. Well, that's your job. But on the other hand, you do so much positive stuff, but no one's gonna know it unless you tell them. So you can't think oh, I you know, they should know what I'm doing. They don't you know, but they don't. So it's your job to communicate. So that's the three legged stool board functionality, committee pipeline, and committee functionality and communication.

Robert Nordlund: 22:42

I like that. Okay. Let's take it one step further. Okay. So let's say you're doing this, you have a reasonably sized Association, where you have a diverse population, I think that stirring the pot, and getting new board members is good for fresh blood for spread, spreading the workload out and reflecting the different people that are in the association. If you are proactive, and if like we started out with trying to get off the board, do you go even to that next step? And do you call email chat with homeowners saying and literally nominate them, tap them on the shoulder and say, Would you like to? Is that part of the inherent process?

Julie Adamen: 23:26

Oh, absolutely. I mean, so let's, let's assume your community is functioning, as we're talking about communication board functionality, the committee pipeline, if you as board members, and you all should be doing this always looking for your replacement, it's just did you want to move on if he says you've been the board for years, so who would be a good replacement for you never, ever underestimate the power of a personal appeal, you call them up, you see him at the mailbox, you you're out walking his dog and you talk to people, you want to always create that relationship? And ask them, you know, would you consider serving on a committee? Or would you consider serving on the board? Now, I'm gonna tell you, everybody immediately says, oh, no, for the most part, they No, no, no, don't want to do that. I don't have time, whatever it is, does, oh, God, you know what you can do? First of all, you can take no for an answer. But don't take it very long. Let a little bit of time go by and talk to them again. And then another part of your pitches, you know, especially if your meetings are run well, so why don't you come to the board meeting next Thursday, and you can see how things work. In fact, you know, I'll give you an idea. I'll give you an agenda so you can see what's going to happen. And you'll see how we function. And if your board dysfunctions. Well, that's not too bad. Now, those people who may not want to be on the board, they may want to stick their toes in the water in a committee first. So if they say, Oh, I don't know if I have enough time for the board. But oh, when you're like, but would you like to serve on the landscape committee? Maybe this person you know, has an interest in the flowers or the trees or something like that, and maybe they'd like to do that again. Stick Seeing their toes in the shallow end, as opposed to jumping into the deep end first. I like that, you know, and you have to judge that you have to judge that you know who your people are. Yeah. And I'm adapting that. I may jump in the deep end person. Yeah, I know that a lot of people are.

Robert Nordlund: 25:13

But I can see someone talking to one another as they're walking their dogs. If you as a board member, say, hey, Fred, or Susie or whoever? We're thinking about getting the poop waystation poop waste bag stations. Do you want to help me? Pick? Which ones we get? Sure. You know, it could be it could be just coming here. One, it could be very simple thing. It doesn't have to be this big formal thing extra. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Architectural committee is all year. It could be some budget help. Hey, we're talking, we're thinking about getting the trees trimmed. That's going to be expensive. Can you help? Would you mind helping me read the proposals just couldn't be as informal as that just to get their shallow end toes in the water? Yeah,

Julie Adamen: 26:06

I mean, if it's, if it's appropriate for that person to be to be given that information, you as the board members, you're the boots on the ground, you know who you're talking to. And, and so that could very well be appropriate. And just more of a, that would be kind of what we call ad hoc committee, and ad hoc committee of one, you know, that just or two that just pops up, say, well, we need some help doing this. And as a board, think about this. So Board needs, thinks they're going to need some help doing a couple of things, but they're not really, you know, but but it's a committee that's going to pop up, then their job is going to be done. And they're going to go away, say, and they can have success. And they can have success, and they can do a taste of what's going on and then be done. So once you've got so that's another way to let them just put their toes in the water and stuff them know that, you know, it's really not all that horrible. And it's doesn't really take that much time because we are running our operations run well, our committees run well, we know what we need help with. And we've tasked you to do two of these things. And then you can do your report and go off, you know, and do your own life again. And once they kind of see that things aren't, it's not as onerous as they think, then they may very well be able to say, okay, I can do it. Maybe I can't do it this year, because I'm working on a some work project or something, or my kids will be out at my last kid is out of the house next year, I'll be able to volunteer after that. Boom, there you go. And remember to keep an always keep a listing of who those people are not just in your head, I'd like to have a file of those folks who may be interested in the next year. Hold them to it.

Robert Nordlund: 27:40

Hey, we were just introduced to a board president. And he's a candidate for one of our board here websites, who bought his condo unit from the board president and said, Hey, I'm leaving. Can you be board president? Because I was? And he said, Sure. And it went with the real estate. So it can touching someone and finding out what their skill set are. That I like that making sure that it goes from just having the setup, correct. The functionality of the board, the communication, the committees that are the pipeline, the personal touches a nice thing. I want to stir the pot with one question before we get to a close. And that is for Stacey and Tacoma. They've had a stable situation no one wants to run from for the board. I wonder if that is in a sense, kind of a good thing? Because they don't have five people running, trying to do a coup on the association. Can you touch on that contrast?

Julie Adamen: 28:45

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. People will not run for the board. Because number one, everything's running great. And I don't have to do anything, or they're going to run for the board because everything's a mess. And I'm going to do it. So it's there's a yin and yang there. But I would suspect for Stacey and Tacoma that there hasn't. And I could be wrong, Stacey, let us know. Please, is it Have you done any kind of outreach to get people to be on the board like a concerted outreach, like we're speaking about, like good communications and that type of thing? I'd be interested to know. And if you are making personal appeals, I'd be very interested to know that the other thing was I was doing a I was doing a board retreat for a large management company in the Coachella Valley in California. And update about 300 board members in there and I was asking, asking the by getting new board members we were talking about this very thing and a lot of people will pipe up and talk which I love. And they said that how they got new board members that place runs like a top evidently how they got new board members was they advertise they actually put out fake news. They said they're gonna raise do something like $400 and people came out of the woodwork and they all got to this meeting with torches and pitchforks and they said, We're just kidding. We needed to get you all here because we need new board members. And I thought that was maybe a little dangerous. But that was pretty creative on their part. But they did. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund: 30:06

well, it comes back to communication, you've got heard press that communication button, if you don't press that communication button, the stool is going to fall down. So yeah, you have to be careful with that. But you could say, we are looking for people who care about our association, Happy Valley villas, or whatever it is, we are looking for people to help us shape the future of this association. Because we don't want to get into a situation where leadership is flying by the side and we get into a bad situation. We're looking for people like you who can help us set a set a good course. Has that set a good course. All right, Julie. Thank you. As always, it's great speaking with you, any closing thoughts to add at this time?

Julie Adamen: 30:50

Yeah, I just want to say first, thanks to all the board members, I know it's a thankless job, having done it a few times. And now I'm sitting on another volunteer board. So I moved out to this association. So it's lots of fun, but I just want to remind everybody, board members that if you would like any kind of, of education about being a board member, if you're thinking about being on a board, I offer online classes for board members, so you could go to my website, which is adamen-inc.com, you can just google me, Julie Adamen, you'll find the website, click on the Education tab and you'll be able to access the courses from there. They're not free, but it's not a very expensive cost at all. And I think you'll find it well. Well worth your time.

Robert Nordlund: 31:29

That way you can you can swim. You don't have to sink. Don't you say that right that?

Julie Adamen: 31:35

No more sink or swim no more center spot. No more sink or swim. Very good. Well,

Robert Nordlund: 31:40

we hope you learned some great HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. We look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer: 31:53

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