Paul Butler: 0:00

One of our values, which you may recall, we had fun with this. We came up with the three letters of HOA, and that's to be help each other as board members. It's not all on one person's shoulders. Be owner centered, not self centered, not management company centered, not vendor centered, not my favorite neighbor centered, but owner centered, plural, and then to be accountable for funds, and that's not only being able to cover today's expenses, but having the funds to be able to do what we need to do tomorrow. When you've got that clarity about being owner-centred, and you reflect on that each time you meet, then it tends to suppress that yuckiness that's inside all of us, which is about me, myself, and I. A

Announcer: 0:44

regular highlight of the HOA Insights podcast is our Board Heroes feature, where we dedicate one episode each month to celebrate the remarkable efforts of HOA board members. To us, a board hero is one of the 2 million elected volunteers who deserve recognition for excelling in a role that often goes unnoticed. Today, we're excited to spotlight one of these exceptional board heroes and share their inspiring story. If you match our definition of a board hero or know someone who does, please reach out to us. Our contact details and those of our sponsors are provided in the show notes. The

Robert Nordlund: 1:14

question for you today is if your association is dysfunctional and how you can prevent it or fix it. So today we're going to be very direct and address the seven dysfunctions of an HOA. Welcome back to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas. I'm Robert Nordlund, and I'm here today for episode number 183 with a repeat guest, a board hero you heard from on episode 138 about the vision and mission and values document the board at his relatively new 125-unit townhome association in California created, and how it is guiding their association through its formative early years. I'm of course speaking about Paul Butler. During the day, he's a business consultant and author, and I enjoy his perspective on the business of running an association. We were recently corresponding on another topic, and he shared he'd created some observations and solutions for dysfunctions at associations. And I knew that would be a hit with our audience. And I'm eager to hear what he has to share about identifying, preventing, and fixing dysfunction at an association. Well, we're here weekly, and last week's episode number 182 was one of our board hero episodes. I had a fascinating conversation with Jennifer Helly, seeing life as a board member through her eyes as a professional risk management expert. And if you missed that episode or any other prior episode, take a moment after today's program to listen from our podcast website, hoa insights.org, or watch on our YouTube channel. And better yet, subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms or our YouTube channel so you don't miss any future episodes. In addition, by becoming a subscriber, you join us in our challenge to increase our subscriber base from 1,000 to 2,000. Hitting that mark will increase the podcast's ranking and search results, so that you'll be helping others find this resource, so they can be better equipped to lead their association. Well, those of you watching on YouTube can see my HOA Insights mug that I have here on my desk. puts a smile on my face. I got that from our merch store, which you can browse through from our HOAInsights.org website or the link in the show notes. If you don't want to shop, you can download a free Zoom background for use in your next board meeting. Well, we enjoy hearing from you, responding to the issues you are 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 at hoa insights.org. We try to shape our episodes based on what you ask, and this episode is presented to answer your questions or concerns on dysfunction. So, Paul Butler, welcome back to the program.

Paul Butler: 4:05

Delighted to be here, Robert. Thanks again for having me.

Robert Nordlund: 4:08

Well, let me catch up a little bit on episode 138. How often do you reference the vision, mission, and values statements that you created for your association?

Paul Butler: 4:18

Every meeting. So we take literally we we have it as an agenda item. We spend literally three or four minutes, and we remind that's us about why we exist, what's our vision of success for the year that we're in. So we've agreed 567 goals, which is our way of interpreting the word vision. It's where where do we want to get to by when, which is the end of the year, and then our values, which is how we as a board are committed to working together. So we have that as our very once we've done the the formal notification that we're all here and we meet quorum. The next thing we dive into is that reflection on our mission, vision, and values. That's our kind of north star, our north.

Robert Nordlund: 5:00

I was going to say that same thing. It keeps you aligned. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Where are we going? Things like that.

Paul Butler: 5:08

Beautiful.

Robert Nordlund: 5:09

Every every meeting. I like that. Every meeting. So anyone who attends can see that the board has purpose. They have alignment. They there are things they are going to do. Things are not. It identifies priorities and distractions. Is that fair?

Paul Butler: 5:25

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

Robert Nordlund: 5:28

Okay. Well, let's let's start the topic about dysfunction. And I I trust it wasn't dysfunction at your association that created this, but just thinking about strong versus weak, and good versus bad.

Paul Butler: 5:43

Yeah, where it came from was, as you know, I've become a raving fan of your podcast, and I've joked with you that I've actually gone back in time to episode one, and you, your voice was higher then.

Robert Nordlund: 5:56

I was going through adolescence, yeah,

Paul Butler: 5:59

and I started to form patterns of what I was hearing, and then CAI, which I'm also a raving fan of. I've been now at the time of recording this to about four or five chapter meetings, and so I'm picking up themes there. And then we had challenges with the management company that we inherited from the developer board, and we made a switch, so I learnt something on that. And also, because of the nature of our development, we have presently six and growing sub associations because they're town homes and condos. And you may recall I make an effort to bring them together under what we call the HOA collective. And so I'm hearing kind of you know common kind of grumblings, and in my mind, as a you know, as a recovering accountant, I kind of started to shape those in order. I'm a teacher at heart, and so I just started to think, you know what? I think there's probably seven, not these seven, but probably seven that are top of mind to me. Again, hopefully, we as a HOA, our little little part of paradise up here. Hopefully, we can being aware of those. We can watch out for those pitfalls as we go along.

Robert Nordlund: 7:09

As I was thinking about what I want to learn in this conversation, is it based on the person's personality? Is it based on their training? Is it based on the size of the association. Tell me, what the root of dysfunction comes from?

Paul Butler: 7:25

Yeah, I think my observation, you know, and I'm no philosophy, you know, I'm a recovering accountant, as I mentioned, but I think my philosophy on this is, is that I think things like training can help. I think having enough people on the board can help. Think being organized can help. I think awareness, you know, of civil codes, etc., can help. But I think the core of it is really the human condition. So, for example, I think there are principles, and again, forgive me for stating the obvious. Principles are those things that are universal. They're objective. They exist with or without our permission. They're external to us. There are these principles that exist in how we conduct ourselves, and when we align our thinking and our behavior with those principles, we tend to get great results. And I think an outflow of that is seeing yourself of being of service on the board, and then being of an example, because even if you're not, say, the president, if you're following the formal authority structure, you can, of course, influence people by your example. And so, I think, in summary, principles and being of service and being an example to me, they're the three roots of kind of the human condition that you bring in its entirety into your into your role on the board.

Robert Nordlund: 8:46

I got two of those. I got service example, and you said three

Paul Butler: 8:49

principles.

Robert Nordlund: 8:50

Principles, and I'm thinking of hopefully the entire community association industry is based on volunteer board members, hopefully selflessly serving their fellow man, serving each other, and we have maybe one of those other principles that is selfishness. We all want the best for ourselves. We will protect ourselves. I see the constant give and take the the the pull and the push of the board member who wants to do the right thing for the association but doesn't want to raise the assessments. It's that pull and push. It knows that we need more money. Costs are going up, but I don't want my neighbors to think I'm the bad guy. And so there's that that pull and push. The the principle of inflation is real. The principle that I'm a volunteer responsible to run the association well, but again, pulling against that human tendency to want to do what's easiest or best. And so, yeah, there's a lot of dynamics at play.

Paul Butler: 9:56

If I could just respond to what you said there, this this much this. Shock you, Robert. One of the things that we've had fun with on our little board is we've actually banned the use of the V word volunteer. And what I mean by that is is that I think worst case scenario when you hear people saying things like, "Oh gosh, I'm just a volunteer," you know, that's why I haven't had time to look at the board book. I'm just a volunteer. That's why I'm not going to look at something the day before. I'm just a volunteer. I'm not going to take my time. And so we've actually banned the use of the word volunteer because we're thinking, in our case, we've got$100 million worth of real estate, about $650,000 worth of income. I don't think our owners are best served if we use language such as "I'm just a volunteer," because what follows from that is maybe a half-hearted approach, a passive approach, a last-minute approach. So we've actually banned the use of the word"volunteer." And the other thing, just to pick up on what you said there, I think one of our values, which you may recall, we had fun with this. We came up with the three letters of HOA, and that's to be help each other as board members. It's not all on one person's shoulders. Be owner centered, not self centered, not management company centered, not vendor centered, not my favorite neighbor centered, but owner centered plural, and then to be accountable for funds. And that's not only been able to cover today's expenses, but having the funds to be able to do what we need to do tomorrow. I guess the reason why I reflect upon that is when you've got that clarity about being owner-centred, and you reflect on that each time you meet, then it tends to suppress that yuckiness that's inside all of us, which is about me, myself, and I.

Robert Nordlund: 11:40

I may need to take some of your wise counsel, and I I hear my son's voice in my head. My son's 36 years old, just moved to San Diego, bought a house there, and it's a busy Southern California metropolitan area. And I was asking him what he was looking for in a house, and he said, "Well, certainly not in an HOA because I don't want any crazy volunteers controlling my real estate." He's the one who put the crazy and the volunteers together, and you know, on one sense, he was very true about that because he wants to care for his house as well as he can, maximum, and he doesn't want anything holding him back. And so I believe the truth of that. And the other half of that is that it's those I'm going to have to say it volunteer board members and their management companies who chose association reserves all these years that paid for the roof over his head, the food that he ate, and his private school. So there's there's good and bad, but we exist to serve our clients, and maybe that's a little bit in my heart that trying to serve, trying to help the other people with a product that we have here. This is all tremendous stuff. I'm going to dial this into the show notes. I like just from the very start the way you are talking about your vision, mission, values because I feel like that's almost the what do I say the the fins or the feathers on an arrow that keep it flying in the the right direction. If you're starting that way, you're almost training the homeowners and the other board members that this is who we are. This is the kind of behavior that we expect. We're not going to raise our voices. We're on this common mission together. Let's do what's best for us owners, community.

Paul Butler: 13:36

Yeah, absolutely. And again, I just think to me the mission is the why do we exist? You know, as the French say, it's our raison d'etre. It's our to be. You know, which is the French raison d'etre. The reason we are we exist. That's our why. The vision to me is where do you want to get to by when? And to me, it should be time bound. Like for example, one year. And then the value is how do we want to do? How do we want to work together as a as a board? And to me, they they really are changeless. So although the vision will change each year, like we're about to go into our budget planning for the next year, and obviously we're going to be looking at the vision. What do we want our 345 goals to be for 20 for the for the next year? But really, the mission shouldn't change, and the values really shouldn't change. Now, if they're noble, honorable values that bring out the best in people.

Robert Nordlund: 14:29

Yes, I can see that the vision will change because in a couple years in advance of a big roof project or a big asphalt or painting project, that's going to be front of mind. Yeah, but who we are, where we are in in your community, who do we want to in in the larger metropolitan area, what kind of homes do we have to offer? Yeah, that isn't going to change, and there's a lot of stability there that I. Think is feeling at peace now. I'm feeling welcomed and comforted that you guys know what you're doing there.

Paul Butler: 15:08

Yeah, I think it definitely helps. You know,

Robert Nordlund: 15:10

now has that been infectious to the other associations in your new larger development?

Paul Butler: 15:19

Yes. For example, in about two weeks' time, we've got one of those collective meetings where we're just bringing one member, for obvious reasons, one member from each of those boards together, and we have a little agenda that we we're doing around a potluck because food's always a good thing, of course, to break bread. That's another one of

Robert Nordlund: 15:35

those principles. Humans tend to soften and get more conversational around food.

Paul Butler: 15:40

That's right. Yes, that's right. And yes, so one of the things we've got on the agenda is just spending about 15 minutes where they've asked me to give a quick overview of our mission, vision, and values, and a little template we've created. And you know, if it's a value for them, and then selfishly, if I could use the selfish word in a positive, because they're our neighbors, if they keep their development in good state of repair, that's obviously a win for our neighbors. So the more that we rise together, rather than us just thinking, well, we're only focused on our 125. Well, you know, there's presently 3,000 homes. There's going to be 30,000 up

Robert Nordlund: 16:18

here. You know. Yep. Well, my wife reminds me that as adults, we tend to gravitate to be more like our five closest friends. We talk about that, and we say, are our five closest friends elevating us? Are they helping us be better people, or are they dragging us down? And I almost hate to think of the corollary of that: that we're the ones dragging down some of our nicer and more benevolent and kinder friends, but it's it's good it's good to try to aspire to be the best that you can be. Okay, let's touch on your list here: seven dysfunctions, and let me. I'm looking at what time it is? Let's talk about the list briefly, and then we'll take a break, and we'll then start to pull it apart and help our audience with it. So, number one, unrealistic expectations of the manager. Two, for everyone wondering, thinking, I'll have all these in the show notes. Number two, lack of financial or business acumen on the board, so not an appreciation for numbers, lack of knowledge or disregard of state laws pertaining to the associations, and so you've got to know the the guidelines. Ineffective or inefficient board members, and like you said, Paul, you can't use being a volunteer as an excuse. You're running a multi-million-dollar real estate corporation, and people are depending on you. And then I like the next two: lack of communication to owners, not understanding where their assessments go. I like to emphasize communication, and then lack of communication to owners about the importance of good reserves. Maybe that's a A and a B. What their assessments are doing, and the importance of making sure that you're paying your part today. And then number seven, boards losing sight of their core values, getting lost. And I think of that as collecting the assessments, maintaining the common areas, and enforcing the rules and the documents, and those are, if you're doing those three things. And again, this this comes from your and your early observations. I really like this list. And if you are collecting the money to run the organization, if you are maintaining the common areas with the money that you've collected and enforcing the rules and the documents, which tell you how to live together as people and empower you and require you to collect sufficient funds to sustain the organization. So those kind of three work together. Do you think there might be eight or nine? Do you think there might be just five? But you seem like you're pretty comfortable with those seven, at least as a starting point,

Paul Butler: 19:02

I do like the idea of seven. I'm not saying this is the complete order. I think I could possibly debate that anything that comes after seven is really a subset of one of those seven. I do like the idea of the seven. I always think about seven being the number of completeness, and I do have to give you an applause, Robert, because the three things that you've mentioned about our core role that I've heard on various of your podcasts about collecting the dues, maintaining the common areas, enforcing the rules, I've heard that three or four times on your podcast. I'm like, I'm going to grab that, and we've actually now put that in as our header at the top of our. We have a newsletter that we produce every month that we present as the board. We don't delegate it to the management company. We write it from the board members to the owners, and we have our mission, vision, and values, and obviously key things that are going on. But we actually having there a statement that says our job ultimately boils down to these three things. I should have give a trademark, Robert. Nordland.

Robert Nordlund: 20:00

No, no, no. That comes from Kevin Davis, one of the other. I've called him. Yes,

Paul Butler: 20:04

yes, that's right. And I love those three.

Robert Nordlund: 20:07

Yeah, they're good, sound principles. And your seven dysfunctions, Kevin, very simple things that we need to do. We're talking about governing documents that are I don't know, aren't yours 100 pages? Yeah, bylaws, whatever. There's a lot, and to be able to say this is what we're about, this is what we're trying to accomplish. I like that. Paul, looking at the clock, it's time to take a quick break to hear from one of our generous sponsors. After which, we'll be back with more common sense for common areas and talking about the seven dysfunctions of an association.

Paige Daniels: 20:40

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Robert Nordlund: 21:10

Now we're back. Well, I'm here with Paul Butler, a board hero that's actually not too far from me in Southern California, and he's talking about the seven dysfunctions of an association, and Paul, let's talk about number one. Just start at the top. Unrealistic expectations of the manager. Where did that come from?

Paul Butler: 21:28

Well, if I could put one word in front of the word manager, and that would be portfolio manager, because as you know, a portfolio manager might have say five or six developments,

Robert Nordlund: 21:41

or so the

Paul Butler: 21:42

benefit, yeah, the benefit for the association, of course, is you're going to be paying a lot less money because you're one of, say, let's say in our case, five developments for that portfolio manager. And if you do the math on it without being crude about it, there's no way you can have expectations of that portfolio manager being 100% five days a week for you. If in effect you're only paying, you know, 20% of you know the cost, and so this is where, to me, on the one hand, if you're getting the financial benefit of a lower cost, you've then got to be prepared as a board to roll your sleeves up and carry some of that load,

Robert Nordlund: 22:18

like you talked about with your newsletter. Right, you're going to do some things, and when you have a request, you appreciate that they've got four other associations that they're dealing with, and so it's not going to be immediate. Okay,

Paul Butler: 22:30

I like that. How about lack of financial and business acumen on the board? I personally think it's wrong when I hear people say, "Well, you want to have a CPA on the board." I mean, I'm an international version of a CPA, but I think the rudiments of an income statement and a balance sheet are not complicated. You know, everybody can relate to an income statement to their paycheck if they're an employee or a business owner. Everyone can relate to a balance sheet because we have what we call personal net worth statements in personal finance. This stuff is not complicated. We're not getting into the debits and the credits. I think that some people shy away from knowledge of financial statements because they kind of tell themselves they're not an accountant. But just understanding the fundamentals can really be a game changer on a board.

Robert Nordlund: 23:15

Yeah, and it can be very simple if you appreciate that you've got a$500,000 roof project in two years, you want to see your reserve balance going up and crossing that $500,000 line. You don't have; it doesn't have to be complicated. Is your reserve balance going up? Is your checking account saying somewhat stable? It doesn't have to be complicated.

Paul Butler: 23:39

And if I could just be very transparent, Lisa and Dave on our board wouldn't mind me sharing this with you. That in the very early stages they would look towards me because of my financial background, and then that's when I mentioned another F word, which is the fiduciary duty. We all have a fiduciary duty, and I don't want to be carrying the signing off on the financial statements. I need them to understand them as well as I understand them, and I think we've got to that place now. I think they're better for it, and I feel more comfortable for it. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund: 24:08

you have three people looking at things instead of just one.

Paul Butler: 24:11

Yeah,

Robert Nordlund: 24:12

and that's what a board is all about. Talk about lack of knowledge or disregard for state laws.

Paul Butler: 24:18

So this is the first time I've served on a HOA board, and so that was a good learning point for me. But it's having that humility to be able to learn. One of the things that we have to wrestle against as we get older, or if we're coming from a senior position as an employee now serving on a board, we have that thing called human ego. And so the opposite of ego, of course, is humility to understand things that might seem peculiar to us, that might seem foreign to us, that we might not agree with them. But for whatever reason, these things are the present law. And my observation, and what I've heard or seen, that I think some dysfunction flows into HOAs when they don't. Abide by those existing laws, or they try and bypass them

Robert Nordlund: 25:04

because they're there for a reason. Most are helpful; some are sometimes obstacles. But those are the guardrails that we have to appreciate, and

Paul Butler: 25:15

yes,

Robert Nordlund: 25:15

we have to work within them one way or another. But I like your idea of it's you have to be a learner and you have to be humble and say we are governed by these laws and not a lot of flexibility there. Okay, ineffective or inefficient board members, talk to me about that.

Paul Butler: 25:35

I think one of the biggest deceptions you hear on the board, and I've heard your prior guests and hosts speak about this is when someone thinks, "Well, we're only going to be meeting for an hour every couple of months." I mean, how easy is that? You know, I'm very clear. In we've actually come up with a little bit of a job description for the board, which outlines what we should be doing on a weekly, monthly, you know, bi-monthly basis, quarterly basis, annual basis. I've done a kind of a time estimate for certain tasks, so that when somebody joins the board into the future, when we have an excess of elections, they know what they're they're signing up for. So it's not a surprise for them, and there's real clarity of expectations. And so I think being effective with your time, being efficient in how you approach tasks, and knowing what the job description is and what the time expectations are, I think is a you know is is a real good path forward. But if you're coming into the role thinking, well, I just want the job title, the baked goods, and just the praise in the in the neighborhood, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

Robert Nordlund: 26:39

Again, that comes back to one of your principles that we are trying to do this for service to the owners, not as a pat on the back for yourselves. Okay. Next is lack of communication to owners who are not understanding where their assessments go. So that's a little bit of communicating and training, so the owners are on board.

Paul Butler: 27:00

Yes. So what we did, and again, this is very much my training, my background as a as having our own business. I was a regional finance director for about 50 of the hotels in Europe. So if you and your family owned a hotel in Europe, with say Hilton or Marriott, we would be doing these pie charts to show you know where these certain income and expenses went. And I actually heard one of your co-hosts speak about this about you know you know a picture can speak 1000 words. So on our newsletter, as a static item that we have for the 12 months of the year, is we have a pie chart that shows where do the HOA's dues go. So rather than people arguing about the pennies that we might spend on pest control, but then looking at the big ticket items like the reserves, the insurance, the landscaping, the management company, and then if we do have to put the dues up, which we did at the start of the year that we're now, we then gave three or four bullet points about why the dues increased and touch wood. I mean, we're now at the time of recording this virtually 10 months into the year, and of 125 units. I think I had probably two or three people just ask why, and then when I drew their attention back to that, it was like, "Hey, thanks ever so much."

Robert Nordlund: 28:16

Yeah, thank you. Okay, good, and that is part of the culture you've built as open and transparent and caring for them, and so it all comes back to you. Talk to me about lack of communication to owners about the importance of good reserves management.

Paul Butler: 28:33

Yes. So again, I think a lot of people don't understand the importance of reserves, and I always draw it back to you know if we were in our case if you were in a single family home, at some point you've got to pay for these items to be replaced. Now we've got in effect 125 homes kind of glued together, as it were. So these things need to be replaced at certain lives, and so what we've done is we've done a as you know we created a YouTube channel and one of the things that we did with your colleague Sean one of the videos we created was actually explaining what a reserve study is, why we have to do it, and of 125 units we've actually had 108 viewings of that YouTube video. So we might not have 108 people come to our meeting, but we've had 108 people individually look at that reserve video. Me and Sean talking about reserves, and Touchwood. 10 months later, we've not had anybody say to me,"Why are we putting such a big chunk of change into reserves?"

Robert Nordlund: 29:35

Because they know. Did you do it three ways? You, I would imagine, in a board meeting, something written in a newsletter or board meeting notes, and then a video. So you're touching different, touching people different ways. I like that. Yeah. Sometimes doing things well takes some time, but then again, I think you have an accurate expectation that being a board member does take time, and so it's not a lot. Surprising, and then last one, number seven: board losing

sight of their core roles: 30:04

collecting the assessments, maintaining the common areas, enforcing the rules and documents. You've done a good job at your association reflecting on that every meeting or every newsletter.

Paul Butler: 30:19

We we actually reflect on it at the start of every meeting now, and then we also have it at the top of our newsletter as a kind of a tagline. That's really our core role. Again, I think we tend to remember things in threes, like HOA, help each other, be owner centered, be accountable for funds. You know, and our three roles are collect the dues, look after the common areas and maintain the rules.

Robert Nordlund: 30:46

Yeah. Okay. I like that. A couple of thoughts. I like the way you are launching your association. It's just a couple years old at this time.

Paul Butler: 30:54

Yes.

Robert Nordlund: 30:55

Okay. And the way the owners are getting well cared for. There's a lot of negative news about associations if you care to look for it, but I think the owners at your association are lucky. They are well cared for. The leadership looks after them. They know what the leadership is doing. They would look at your platform, your mission, vision, values, and they would say, "Yeah, keep doing that." Do you think there's side benefits, like if you were to ask for some help on a committee or something like that, that the owners say, "I believe in this organization. I I don't mind putting in a few hours of my own to help with the end of year social or the budget committee." Do you think you've set yourself up for success that way?

Paul Butler: 31:43

I hope so. As I say, we haven't had the need yet to have a committee for anything, but I hope so. Something you've reflected on anecdotally before is about when you're going out to get the mail. You know, do you hide from your neighbors? And again, I'm not mr. Perfect. Lisa and Dave aren't mr. mrs. Perfect, but I think when we go out to our mailbox, I can have my head held high, and you know, if a neighbor asks me something, I I either know the answer or I can say to them, I'll find out the answer. And there's a high degree of trust and mutual respect, and I can think of nothing worse than serving on a board and wanting to always hide your face, and all of the neighbors dislike you, and you know all you're trying to do is to live your life in your home and try and serve on your board. But if you're not doing a great job, then it's going to be awkward at the mailbox.

Robert Nordlund: 32:32

I wonder if there's somewhere in there when you're ashamed of what you're doing. Is that is that number well? I like I like seven. Seven is a perfect number in Scripture, and so I wonder if maybe we can condense the seven and get there's a dysfunction if you realize you're ashamed or you have to hide. Well, we'll have you back on the show for another episode if we get there. You say, Robert, I've reformulated. I've gotten new seven. I'm like, okay, Paul. Get you back on the show. Well, Paul, thank you so much. It was great to have you back on the program to reflect on mission, vision, values, what you're doing at your association, and your what you've learned about the concepts of what dysfunction looks like and how you can have actions and protocols and practices that help you strengthen your association for the benefit of the owners. Any closing thoughts to add at this time? I

Paul Butler: 33:30

would like to quickly reflect on that statement you made about how you and your wife said about your five closest friends and relating that to HOA. I think about like thinking about your vendor partners. So, using a quick visual image for us, I'm a soccer fan, which might not surprise your listeners with me being from England. A big soccer fan, and we've put together a soccer field visual. So, we've got about 11 key vendors, of which Association Reserves are one of them.

Robert Nordlund: 33:58

Does it pain you to say soccer field instead of a football pitch,

Paul Butler: 34:02

well, I'm bilingual now. You say

Robert Nordlund: 34:03

okay, okay.

Paul Butler: 34:04

So we've got a visual where we've got our seven vendors on the field, and of the vendors that we inherited from the developer board, we've actually switched out six of them for underperformance. We had a high courage, high consideration conversation with them, and one of them we held on to, and they've managed to turn things around. But the other file will be made a switch. Point I'm making there is is that so much of your role as a board is going to be dictated by the quality of your vendors, and then how you interact with them and and lead them. That would be a point I was going to make. And I just wanted to say as well, Robert, I am a raving fan of the HOA Insights podcast. I think it's absolutely superb, and I I recommended it to all of our sub associations up here. I've recommended it to various people I've bumped into at CAI, and I absolutely love your. That understanding reserves book. I've highlighted it all over. To me, it's right up there with Hunger Games and Char and the Chocolate Falcon.

Robert Nordlund: 35:09

Oh, gee, those are those are some good ones. Well, Paul, you are now part of this podcast. The way you think about it, the way you want to build this industry, the way you want to build your association, and so I appreciate your spirit, and I look forward to having you back on the program again sometime in the future. We want to publicly acknowledge Paul for performing a thankless job well, and doing a remarkable job of building community and avoiding dysfunction at his association. We're glad that there are board members like Paul scattered all across the country, and we're fortunate to have him here to share his observations and best practices with you. We hope you gain some HOA insights and some encouragement from what Paul had to say that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. And remember, if you match our definition for a board hero, or know someone who does fit the definition of a board hero, someone who's doing great things for their association, someone who's learned some lessons and is moving their association forward. We love having board heroes on the program. Our contact details are provided in the show notes. Thank you for joining us. Subscribe to the podcast, and we look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer: 36:22

You've been listening to HOA Insights, common sense for common areas. You can listen to the show on our podcast website, HOAInsights.org, or subscribe on any of the most popular podcast platforms. You can also watch the show on our YouTube channel. Check the show notes for helpful links. If you like the show and want to support the work we do? You can do so in a number of ways. The most important thing you can do is engage in the conversation. Leave a question in the comments section on our YouTube video. You can also email your questions or voice memos to podcast at hoa insights.org, or leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130. If you gain any insights from the show, please do us a huge favor by sharing the show with other board members you know. You can also support us by supporting the brands that sponsor this program. Please remember that the views and opinions expressed by the podcast do not constitute legal advice. You want to consult your own legal counsel before making any important decisions. Finally, this podcast was expertly mixed and mastered by Stoke Light Video and Marketing. With Stoke Light on your team, you'll reach more customers with marketing expertise that inspires action. See the show notes to connect

Unknown: 37:30

with Stoke Light.