132 | Mission & Vision Statements Every HOA Should Have

132 | Mission & Vision Statements Every HOA Should Have

SPEAKERS

Announcer, Kevin Davis, Robert Nordlund, Julie Adamen

Julie Adamen 00:00

The vision statement is not operational, like pool hours, and you know how many employees we’re gonna have tonight, but it’s it’s aspirational, but I would say most communities have some idea of what they would like their community to be, and maybe what they already are. I mean, so they can bring that in. But also, where do we want to go?

Announcer 00:17

HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies that care about board members: Association Insights and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and the Inspectors of Election. You’ll find links to their website and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund 00:32

Hi, I’m Robert Nordlund of Association Reserves, and

Julie Adamen 00:35

I’m Julie Adamen of Adamen Inc, and this is HOA Insights, where we promote common sense

Robert Nordlund 00:40

for common areas. Well, welcome to episode 132 where we’re again speaking with management consultant and regular co host, Julie adamant. Today we’ll be diving into another pair of guiding documents, actually vision and mission statements. You know you’re founding legal documents telling you what to do, but now we’re going to spend a little bit of time talking about the important question of why, and what does that actually look like when you have some guiding principles, and what those guiding principles do for your community? Well, last week’s episode 131 featured a great conversation with a Florida attorney, Ms Marnie Dale Reagan, and she spoke specifically about Florida legislation, but by extension, that applies to all other states. But what I appreciated was much of what she had to say focused on board members, not legislation. So much of success at an association like you know, I don’t have to tell you, has to do with board member behavior. And good board behavior comes from the individuals, not the state’s legislative demands. So if you missed that episode or any prior episode, take a moment after today’s program to listen from our podcast website, Hoa insights.org, I can say that blindfolded, or watch on our YouTube channel, but better yet, subscribe from any major podcast platform so you don’t have to miss any future episodes. And those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA insights mugs that got you have careful? Yes, the

Julie Adamen 02:11

merch? Yeah, no, actually have coffee in there. You can see my lips, terrible, careful.

Robert Nordlund 02:15

Both of us got that from our merch store, which you can browse through from our Hoa insights.org website or the link in our show notes, you’ll find we have some great free stuff there, like the board member zoom backgrounds and some specialty items for sale, like the mugs you just saw. So go to the merch store, download a free zoom background, take a moment, look around, find the mug you’d like and email me at podcast, at reserve study.com with your name, shipping address, mug choice and mentioning episode 132 mug giveaway, and if you’re the 10th person to email me, I’ll ship that mug to you free of charge. We enjoy hearing from you responding to the issues you’re facing at your association. So if you have a hot topic, crazy story, or a question you’d like us to address. You can always contact us at 805-203-3130, or email us at podcast at reserve. Study.com Well, today’s program comes from many questions listeners. Listeners have asked wanting Julie to speak more about the mission and vision statements. She’s mentioned many times on the show. So Julie, tell me how vision and mission statements complement an associations governing documents, why they’re valuable and how they’re used.

Julie Adamen 03:34

They’re incredibly valuable. Not only are they useful day to day, once you have this in have these statements in place. But the actual process of getting too aboard developing vision and mission statements is extremely important. So okay, so first, let’s talk about what is the vision. The vision statement should come first. The vision is what you want your community to be, and it’s always a it’s an aspirational goal, like the best community. We were just Robert and I were just talking the best community in Calabasas, California to promote inclusivity and, you know, at freeway access or whatever it is, but, but usually they’re more aspirational and less practical, like that. I did one for a large scale property down in the Palm Springs area several years ago, and they ended up being, they wanted to be the best, you know, golf community within the greater Palm Springs area, promoting inclusivity, you know, and camaraderie and friendship, that type of thing, which is a really great way to be. And then we cut, that’s where you start. And then, well,

Robert Nordlund 04:36

actually, that’s interesting, because you still had that’s where you end, but you start to start with the end in mind, I’ve heard that said so many times, and so you’re thinking, Who are we? And that’s all defined by your ccnrs, not who are we, but yeah, the legal documents, yeah, what are we? Are 71 units. This is how many board members we have. It. This is how elections are. This is what common areas are. Blah, careful. I know there’s attorneys listening, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, lot of pages yet that doesn’t say what’s inviting about us. What’s What are we trying to accomplish here? What do we want to be? Yeah, what do we want to become, and that can be so important, as you’re dealing with, I want to say the minutia of running the association. It’s summertime. What should our pool hours be? They could be anything. But is this why you look to a vision statement to say, Okay, who do we want to be? And everything backs up into that,

Julie Adamen 05:40

yes, the mission, the vision statement, is not operational, like pool hours and you know how many employees we’re gonna have, but it’s, it’s aspirational. Yes, who do we want to be? Who do we want to be? What do we want to be? Yes, so it’s not that defined thing, like your documents are, but I would say most communities have some idea of what they would like their community to be and maybe what they already are. I mean, so they can bring that in. But also, where do we want to go? I mean, what’s the saying, Robert, that you’ll never, you’ll never reach the moon, unless you shoot for the stars and something like that. So you want to get out there, right? And then next you want to go on to the mission statement. Now,

Robert Nordlund 06:18

sure, sure. Well, yeah, I’ve got a lot of thoughts, but we’ll come back to that. Give it, give us

Julie Adamen 06:21

the framework here. So the mission statement is what’s considered the roadmap to the vision. So if you want to be the most inclusive golf community or whatever your Association wants to be the that’s your vision. That’s where you want to be, and the mission statement is how you’re going to get there. Let me see you had one right here, Robert, I’m going to look at it. Yes, here’s one that Robert put out. It’s to enhance our quality of life by maintaining our common areas and upholding our covenants, declarations and bylaws. As representatives of the homeowners, we will take an ethical and objective approach in building community and maintaining strong property values. That’s quite good, actually. Okay, and then so if your vision, though, that’s that’s the roadmap to get where you want to be with the vision. Now, Robert had put together a vision as well, and I want to say this is very aspirational. It’s great to build a true community of friendly, caring and respectful neighbors who cooperate with each other to affirm and grow the value of both our property and our friendships. Beautiful, aspirational statement. You’re going to get there through the mission statement. Okay?

Robert Nordlund 07:21

So if you have a vision statement that says, We want to grow the value of both our property and our friendships, and that means that when you come to budget time, and I’m sensitive to this, you’re going to set aside enough money in reserves. And when you’re thinking about what time of year it is, we’re recording this in the fall. So we are thinking about, should we have a Halloween event? Should we have a Thanksgiving event? Should we celebrate decorating homes for holidays? You know, if you want to build friendships, then you will do those things that lead to those friendships. Okay,

Julie Adamen 07:55

if building friendships is one of your things, you can have a very active social committee that for sure, either wants to celebrate the holidays or they just want to have a regular, you know, regular cocktail parties or barbecues, whether it is like a block party, that type of thing, it just depends on where you want to be and where you want to go. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund 08:13

And I was thinking it could be specific. It could be the birthday for the association, yep. Could be, you know, March or May 18 is when our association came into being.

Julie Adamen 08:23

It’s big birthday party, exactly. Or, let’s say you’re a community, and there are so many of these now, who everybody has dogs. The community I live in, we’ve got a dog. Everybody has dogs. They built the dog. People built a dog park. They paid for it. You’re especially I mean, I’m in a 55 and better community. So, I mean, there’s a lot of people have their animals, and you know what they do in the summertime, when there’s not a lot of people on the golf course because it’s hot here in the summertime, they have something called yappy hour. So the dog people can take their dogs in a specific area on the golf course. They’ll bring their own beverages, and they will intermingle with each other. Dogs are on a leash, but you keep them you’re out there on the ground, and I don’t know about your dog, but where I live, I live out in the desert, so I don’t have no lawn. And none of the houses have lawn at all unless you put it in your in the back, on your own, nothing in the front. So the dogs love to roll around in the grass and so but you know, a yappy hour. So that would be promoting friendships. It would be promoting, you know, responsible dog ownership. You know, not just clean up after your dog all the time and the rules and regulations, but so it’s, it’s more of a again, we’re back to the aspirational part of what you want for your community and how you build that

Robert Nordlund 09:36

interesting well, just the way you said it, the rules are a lot of don’ts, and the mission could be a lot of do’s, this is what we do.

Julie Adamen 09:45

Yes, this is what we do. It’s not a don’t. And, you know, and I don’t want to bag on associations for this, because I’ve been in this business, Robert, I realized it’s been 40 years. I was saying 30 something for forever, and I realized it was 40. But, you know, we are. Are, you’re on the board, or if you’re in the management end of it. I was in the management end of it. I’ve also sat on boards myself. We are the no police, no parking, no pets. Pick up after your dog. I mean, just on and on and on. Bring your trash cans in, bring your trash cans. And if not, we’re going to find you. If it’s not, I mean, and I understand all that, because you have to be so think about that, that you don’t always want to be the no police. You’re going to have to be somewhere along the line. But to be positive and give people something positive to do, to build friendships, to socialize. Like I said, the community I’m in, there’s so many clubs, you wouldn’t believe it if you if you’re bored, you must want to be bored. But of course, I actually still have a job, so I guess, I guess I’m not bored

Robert Nordlund 10:43

bouncing around here got me thinking. I thought I had this figured out. The then the vision is perhaps, what do we want to be known

Julie Adamen 10:53

for, even among yourselves, among yourselves, yes, okay,

Robert Nordlund 10:57

is that you leaked it right at the very beginning. If you don’t have these kind of guiding thoughts, the mission and vision statement, then I expect it would be very valuable for the board to sit down and say, Well, what do you value about our association? Who are we? And begin to create that. And that would be just fascinating, and I would imagine that that would then provide, can I say, stability into the future? Well,

Julie Adamen 11:27

hopefully, I mean, it’s all a it’s all a platform for operations. That’s really what you’re you’re cementing more of a platform for operations. And any community that has good operational guidelines and aspirations, is always going to be a more well run community. It’s definitely going to be easier for the board to run, because we’re all I’ll tell everybody what you and I talked about before I did this with a large scale Association, and I was the facilitator. And it’s big. The place was big. It had golf and food and beverage and just everything out in Southern California. And this is several years ago. Anyway, they were complete dysfunctional mess, and had been forever. We finally got some new board members in there who wanted to change things. They wanted to be aspirational. They wanted to get the old guard out which needed to happen. And so anyway, I was their facilitator. We spent four hours doing this go ahead

Robert Nordlund 12:18

committees that needed to die or board members that needed to cycle out

Julie Adamen 12:22

the latter and the former, both all of the above. Let me check those boxes, because it had been run by the same people for many, many years. They had zero reserves, and they were over 30 years old out. So yeah, I know. Really. Ouch. So this, these people were bigger thinkers, and they really wanted to make things right. So seven member board, one was a crazy person, and so that didn’t count. But one other person was she’s sorry. You all know you have the crazy person. Don’t look at them.

Robert Nordlund 12:50

One out of seven is actually, it’s

Julie Adamen 12:54

better than three out of seven. But anyway, and another person, they thought she was an enemy towards wanting to do this, and she wasn’t. By the time we were done with this, we did two days, four hours each day. After four hours, you get meeting fatigue. And so the first day, we did vision. And so I’m facilitating. So I had a big whiteboard behind me and and I’d say, Okay, what? Let’s get throw some words out there. What do you want to do? What do you want to be? And it just got Fast and Furious, and it was inclusive. It was you know, best. And they had all these wonderful aspirational things, but by the time we were done so vision was first day, mission was second day. By the time we were done with the second day, they had gotten to know each other so well that the one woman they thought was an enemy they realized was not that she was actually quite an ally with some very good skills. They all knew each other so much better. And as I had said earlier, what you have to think of it is, is that once you go through the process was just as valuable as the statements themselves. Once you go through this kind of it’s kind of a therapy session too. But once you go through this process, the board is more cohesive, and they all had a much better idea about each other. So they may not all be singing from the exact same hymnal, but they are all sitting in the same pew or really close. And before they were not, they were all outside the chapel. I mean, then in their own worlds, yeah, and then they weren’t. It was hugely valuable to that association being able to weather some storms that came at them within that year. And they did. They did a stellar job. Just stellar.

Robert Nordlund 14:30

Julie, we’ve spoken so many times about, or you’ve spoken so many times about communication and building community, and Kevin Davis talks about lowering the temperature, and I think without vision and mission statement, we have individuals just like you said. I volunteer for the board. I’m on the board, and they may have their agenda, but once the association is more defined as who we are, then all of a sudden, does that help you become a team? Does that help you be. Well, I’m thinking absolutely in football, the raiders were known for being the Raiders, and it was no surprise that they were often the most penalized team in football. But no one’s surprised. That’s the Raiders. You have. You build your own reputation, and you become that becomes your culture. And I would think that would just help not necessarily be the most penalized and be known for being knock on, no no, but have that definition of who we are and you it just guides. It’s how you

Julie Adamen 15:33

go, absolutely what it does. It creates the team. Why? Because everyone who we had our guiding words, we came up with the actual statements. By the end of the second day, everyone was they all got to know each other better. They felt they were part of a team. And even though they are individuals, they had a common purpose and a common goal. It is just like a football team, or it’s like any kind of team sport, or it’s or it’s like a good, you know, a couple, if they are both going towards the same thing, husband, wife, they’re going towards the same thing, family will be more harmonious. It’s no different than with an HOA board. There’s just more people in the mix. I always call this business, whether you’re on the board or in management or whatever, it’s life on the bomb squad, because things can be going swimmingly and boom, everything blows up because you can’t see it coming. But why is that? Because all we are are people, and it’s people, people, people. That’s what we deal with it. It’s like I say, I can teach anyone how to get the lawns mode. It’s the heart. And I truly believe. I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it. I helped develop it with boards. Is that they can go from dysfunctional seven, eight people or nine people to a much more cohesive group ready to go forward, and they may not all agree. Well, they’re never all going to agree. No one’s ever going to agree. What’s what is it? If you if everyone’s agreeing, someone’s not, what is that? If we’re all thinking the same, someone’s not thinking, Yes, that’s right. But these types of exercises and these types of statements will help people. When they’re on the board and they disagree and they want to vote, no, they don’t just make a big stink of it afterwards. They’ll just say, well, I voted, someone will come up say, why did we do that? And say, Well, I voted against it, but we’re doing it, so we’re moving forward and we’re do it as well as we can, whatever that is. So people are much more likely to, oh, this is the words. They have buy in. They have buy in to the board. They have buy in to the community as not just as a physical entity, but as an ethereal entity, but an aspirational thing of how it wants, how the community wants to think of itself, and how you as a member of that community, want to think of the place you live. How do you think of that? How do you think of the place you live? Yeah.

Robert Nordlund 17:43

Why did I buy here? Why? Yeah. What keeps me here? Exactly. Why am I not selling? I like the idea. It promotes, well, you use the word cohesion. There’s alignment, there’s a common thread. All these kinds of things that help, not just the board as they’re thinking, you know, when we get down to the details of what’s the budget going to be, or the pool hours going to be, if you have a golf course, what are we going to set the Greens fees at, to be inviting towards the outside, public? Or do we want to be mostly kind of us private, whatever it is, it will guide all those kinds of decisions when you know, what are we trying to accomplish here? Exactly? Exactly? Are we trying to have it be the most popular golf course? Well, if it’s going to be the most popular golf course in your city, then the Greens fees need to go down to get more more rounds, all those kinds of things. And so having this thing at the top, the vision that allows you to know where are we headed. And I wrote down vision casting because it is that that’s aspirational at this point in time. Let’s take a break, quick break here from one of our general sponsors, after which we’ll be back with more common sense for common areas, and we’ll talk about actually creating these things.

Kevin Davis 18:58

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Robert Nordlund 19:27

and we’re back. Well, Julie, we had a lot of fun talking about what they were, and let’s talk to the board members here who are listening and saying, Wow, that sounds good. And they’re thinking, and I hope they’re not driving and trying to jot down ideas, but this would be good at our association. And we want you thinking that this would be good at your association. But how do they start?

Julie Adamen 19:49

Well, you start at the beginning, and I think the first thing is to decide, and often this will be a budget item, maybe, or it’s if you think you have someone who can do it is to i. I really encourage a facilitator, a disinterested third party, not to offend the lawyers out there. However, lawyers typically don’t do this particularly well, and I know that’s often the first person they think of. So they’d be your lawyer. I wouldn’t do that. I would have definitely a consultant. I mean, I do it. I mean, there are some other consultants around that do it. But can your manager do it? I would say no. If you have an on site manager or a manager with a management company, no, the on site manager, though, should be a part of this process, so maybe not to have direct input, but they should see how the board interacts within this. If you have a site manager, I highly suggest that. But yes, should you get a facilitator? Yes, it’s it’s well worth the cost. Now, if your association is small and you can’t afford it, you know, maybe your board chair, maybe that person can do it. If they’re a good leader, they might be able to do it, but if they need help with it, you can go online and find all kinds of resources for doing these types of exercises. So yes, that’s first is who should do it, the board, but the board has to come up with it, set specific time, turn the phones off, don’t meet for longer than four hours, because after that, you have meeting fatigue, and nothing good comes after four hours. It’s like nothing good comes after

Robert Nordlund 21:08

midnight. Okay? Starting small, yeah, I’m thinking about the place where I got started in this business, 71 units, condominium. We had monthly board meetings. The board members and I, we would talk, we would prepare for the next board meeting. What are the issues? What’s the paperwork? You know, getting things together. Could this be something where you just say, Hey, can we meet for lunch on Saturday? Can we meet for dinner on Saturday and budget 100 bucks, couple 100 bucks for dinner, whatever it is. Can you start small and say, Hey, let’s not talk about business. Let’s talk about who

Julie Adamen 21:43

we are. Yes, it can be as simple as that, especially it’s probably a good place for smaller associations to do this, because, first of all, it costs them the dinner or whatever. That’s not a big deal, but it’s good. And I would if there is a person within typically, it’d be the chair out there, the chair of the meat of the board that would be a good person to to lead this, because you are supposed to be the leader to lead this. Let’s talk about why we should have a vision statement. I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m thinking, this is podcast, yeah, sorry about it. That amazing podcast. That’s right, yeah. So I think it would be a very good idea start there, and then, you know, again, Robert, how do we eat the elephant? One bite at a time, one bite at a time, start there and then go from there. See, I mean, if you’re not going to get buy in from the rest of the board, this may not be the board that’s going to put this through.

Robert Nordlund 22:32

It may need to be another year with a little more dynamic, some change of board members. But boy, I’m just thinking to talk about who we are, what is our association, where we want to be, because you’re if, when you get stuck in all the minutia of all the little decisions, you’re not lifting your head up and saying, Okay, where are we going?

Julie Adamen 22:52

You got to stop digging the ditch to see where you’re going. And that’s exactly and I know we all feel like we’re digging ditches when we’re on a board

Robert Nordlund 22:59

well, and you said the bomb squad. One problem to another problem. Can you jot down a few sentences? Does it start? Is it as simple as that? You talked about a whiteboard. But can it be someone taking notes and, oh, that was good. And to start just compiling a few things?

Julie Adamen 23:16

Yeah, I think you can do that. It’s, let’s just say, let’s just say, let’s just take the smaller Association, like we started with 71 units, and let’s just say they had their dinner and they’re thinking, oh boy, that might be a good thing to talk about. You know, we should do this. If the board is have buy into it. You could just tell everyone, hey, you know, well, let’s have an informal meeting in two weeks at my house, and we’ll have wine and cheese or whatever. And would everyone just jot down some phrases or some catch or how about catch phrases or words that mean that you would think apply to this community, like inclusive, friendly, welcoming of families, or whatever defines your community. I mean, see, for where I live, it’s, it’s an active adult. And I mean seriously, active adult. You would not be in here if you didn’t have this. So it would be, it would be geared more towards that type of thing, and also places where people can live comfortably until they can’t, you know, or they pass it. So it’s all of those kind of things. And then, you know, lay them all out, put them to you. Can run them through AI and have it that take have it all put out for you, so you get all these little disparate information, where would be vision, where would be mission, and you can have aI run that for you, so it would be interesting, just a little easier. Oh, sure, you could upload that kind of stuff.

Robert Nordlund 24:32

Yes, I was just thinking back on some of the board heroes that we’ve interviewed, some of the things that they were saying they bought into their association because it was affordable. They were a single mom at the time. We’ve had others say that they were attracted by the landscape, just it was so easy on their eyes looking out the window. We had another that liked it because it was on the beach, and they just strolled with their dog on the beach every day. So what does that bring to you? I. The beach access, the pleasant environment. What? Yeah, just those are the kind of words you’re

Julie Adamen 25:05

exactly calming. The beach access. I just thought, Oh, that’d be so calming. Just so wonderful, you know? So, yeah, it’s all those type of things. So start from there, and then I think you just move from that, but you start with the vision. Use those words and get what your aspiration is, what you want to be and viewed as by not just outsiders, but by the community itself. And then from there is the mission statement, which is, how do we get there? We get there by, you know, budgeting our money correctly, or whatever. It’s a little more operational, but not totally.

Robert Nordlund 25:36

I’m wondering if that may be good stuff to know, so that when you are interviewing for a new management company, you can say, This is who we are, and we like to know what our numbers are, sound, financial footing, data, and all of a sudden the management company means, oh, wow, yeah, okay, for this place, we got to have our numbers there by the 10th of each month of whatever it is. What about the value for the real estate agents who sell homes in your association? Is it something that you would communicate to them so they know

Julie Adamen 26:11

what you’re about? I don’t think that’s a bad idea at all. I hadn’t really thought of that. But, you know, that could go out, right out with any escrow package that is downloaded, you know, there’s typically, you know, it’s a package. Obviously, it’s a PDF, but that could be right on the front, you know, the vision mission statement. This is where we are. This is what we are. This is where we want to go. And, you know, Robert, that reminds me I was and when I’ve talked to boards about this previously, they’re like, oh, man, I don’t want to be stuck to this. What if it doesn’t work anymore? Well, fear not people. You can change this yearly, if you want to, because over a period of time, your community is going to change, your residents are going to change. And what fit 10 years ago probably doesn’t fit now. And you know, let’s redo it, because you’ve had such a turnover in your homeowners, turnover in board members. What was you may have already achieved the vision statement. So where do we want to go next? Yeah, so you’re not married to it. You may change it as the situation warrants. And honestly, I encourage new boards to I could say maybe you’ve had a five member board, and three or four are brand new to the board. It’s really good to go through this exercise review your current vision and mission statements and say, Hmm, do you think these are still relevant to us? And let that board go through that exercise as well. Because, again, we’re disparate people, but now we have a common goal, common mission.

Robert Nordlund 27:31

Yeah. Okay, so you can, well, one thing I’m thinking is not necessarily change the essence of it, but I was thinking back at the association where I first bought into I was thinking they were a lot of people there from different backgrounds, and that may have been what we said. But now, nowadays, maybe you say inclusivity, you know, just different words, modern. Like, there’s some associations that update their entryway sign just to make it look a little fresher, fresh. Yeah, fresh. And maybe you need to freshen up the words exactly.

Julie Adamen 28:05

It’s like, like, was we were we talked about this right before we got on the air. Is that, you know, it was a melting pot. The place you lived was like a melting pot. Well, now, okay, that would be great in the 80s or 90s, but you start thinking today, it’s inclusive. That’s where, that’s our general buzzword for that type of thing. Now,

Robert Nordlund 28:23

yeah, and you don’t want something dating you. You want something especially the the vision that is guiding you forward. You don’t want it slowing you down. Okay, how we how long? How short Is it a slogan? Is it few sentences? Is it a

Julie Adamen 28:40

paragraph? It can be any one of those. But I would say no slogans. I don’t like what is the slogan you came up with? Robert Oh, a place to call home, place to call home. Well, that’s really good, but that’s just a slogan. So, okay, it’s places. Yeah, I

Robert Nordlund 28:54

say that. That maybe that goes on your entryway sign. Happy Valley villas, a place to call home, you know, fine, that’s on your side. That’s not necessarily the essence of where you’re going or how you’re getting

Julie Adamen 29:06

there. If you’re just using a slogan, you’re missing the point of the whole exercise and the whole purpose of it, because the slogan is just something that rolls off your tongue and you’re done with it because you don’t think anything about it. But when you start talking about being the, you know, the diverse and inclusive community in the greater San Diego area, or whatever, you know, in the gray area, by promoting, you know, whatever, fiscal responsibility, blah, blah, blah, all these things you have is that actually means something, slogans, they just go right off. People don’t think about it. And lazy, sorry, yeah.

Robert Nordlund 29:39

And it, I suppose it could be reactionary. If your association was, I hate to say this mismanaged. The board was stuck in their ways and moved the association sideways. Maybe it’s that mission statement that says we will be financially accountable to our owners. We will be. Transparent. We will whatever it is, and you can start to say we’re going to run this place a little bit better than it was in the past, and that can be the way forward that they get to who they want, division

Julie Adamen 30:12

and a new mission. Yes, exactly, because things do change. Nothing is static, okay?

Robert Nordlund 30:17

And that made me think maybe that’s another reason. And again, no offense to not have an attorney, because the attorney knows what the documents say. And, you know, Hey, folks don’t do that. Do what the documents say. And I’m thinking, what we’re talking about here is, who do we want to be, and it’s more flexible than a maybe the mind view of the average attorney. Well,

Julie Adamen 30:39

yes, and it’s honestly, it’s not their training. I mean, attorneys are typically there. They know they are. They’re process people, right? And so though this is a process, but it’s not. It’s not an aspirational thing. It’s some it takes someone to kind of herd the cats of the board, getting towards this and making that decision for or helping them make those decisions. Attorneys are kind of loath to help you make those decisions, other than giving you the advice on this contract or that contract, I’m not saying I would do this. It’s here’s the pros and cons here, here’s the pros and cons there. You decide that’s more of what they

Robert Nordlund 31:12

1. What about a former board member facilitating the discussion, someone who’s familiar with the Association, but who has handed it off and said, these are some of the things we valued in the past,

Julie Adamen 31:23

if they are certainly amenable. My only caution on that is if it’s a board member that you know was like, oh, is well, we did it much better back in the days, and this is what we valued. And you don’t caution, caution, but it can’t be if they not, not those people now, and don’t look at them if it’s someone who is amenable to this, who might have a skill set in doing this and is a trusted member of the community, maybe they’re on a committee now, or whatever. That’s not a problem, as long as you can find somebody to do

Robert Nordlund 31:50

1. Yeah, I like that. Well, Julie, this has just been fascinating, more so than I expected. I hope it’s been tremendously valuable to all of our listeners here today, any closing thoughts to add at this time?

Julie Adamen 32:03

Whenever I go out and do a speaking gig, and I’ve got a whole bunch of board members in there, I always ask them, How many of you have a vision and mission statement? And like, out of 300 people, like three arms will go up, and I know why it is. It’s just one more thing you have to do. And I have to say, I used to think that too. I thought, Oh, my God, that’s another BS exercise we have to do. But the point is bring, especially for a board that is all new members, or a lot of new members, or maybe has a lack of cohesion. That is the point of the exercise. And the outcome actually having vision and mission these platforms for operation and guiding principles that there’s nothing wrong with that. I think everyone can agree with that. Well, I think we should have guiding principles. We all think that our community should have a solid platform of operations. Vision and mission are right there as a part of it, along with governing documents as well. Do a vision and mission become part of the governing documents. No, not really, no, not, not in a legal sense at all, but it is a guiding Prince. There are guiding principles and goals, and I would say that’s equally as important, if not more.

Robert Nordlund 33:16

Yeah, clarity, community, communication. Those kinds of things that cohesion, cohesion. For those of you who aren’t watching, I’m writing all this down. It’ll be in the show notes. Julie, good stuff. Okay, well, well, we hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense, clarity, community cohesion, things like that, to your common areas. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to bringing many more episodes to you, week after week after week. We’ll be here. It’ll be great to have you join us on a regular basis. Spread the word

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