{"id":1345,"date":"2019-06-20T23:11:39","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T13:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/?p=1345"},"modified":"2019-06-20T07:18:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T21:18:57","slug":"the-art-of-war-and-how-to-avoid-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/the-art-of-war-and-how-to-avoid-one\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of War… and how to avoid one."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cDemocracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.\u201d Winston Churchill, House of Commons 1947<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I awake this morning with a powerful\nfeeling of euphoria.  The sun is shining,\nthe birds are singing, the managing director is in good spirits and a\npro-business, pro-economy prime minister has just won the unwinnable\nelection.  Of course, the press and other\ncommentators are now trying to determine how the alternate government and the\npolls got it so wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out people don\u2019t always say what they\nthink.  Shocking I know but there you\nhave it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a theory.  The average punter has pretty simple expectations\nof government. Provide economic conditions in which reliable employment can be\nobtained, support a safe, secure and tolerant social context, protect the\nassets and aspirations of the workers, provide a safety net for those doing it\ntough and discourage pollution and social misconduct.  Outside of these core tenents I suspect the\nfamilies in the \u2018burbs have little time for or interest in the fringe issues\nthat seem to dominate public debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among certain sectors of our community it\nhas become unfashionable to hold what we could call traditional family and\nsocial values with the result being that many voters simply keep their views to\nthemselves.  Certainly no one wants to\nattract the scorn and anger of the virtue signallers so better to simply keep quiet\nand express an opinion within the safety and anonymity of the ballot booth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lesson here it seems is that in order\nto solicit honest feedback from someone you must first make it ok for them to\nhold that opinion, without judgement. \nWhich, in my usual round about meandering way leads us to body\ncorporates and resident managers.  I\u2019ve\njust participated in a couple of ARAMA panel discussions and without doubt the\nnumber one topic is effective communication and BC relationships.  The two are inextricably intertwined (I\nfinally get to use those two words together in a non-offensive context) and\nthere\u2019s no doubt that a breakdown in communication will not end well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How often do we hear a manager report that\nthe vote for a top up was in the bag only to be lost at general meeting?  The polls said a fait accompli but apparently the owners said one thing but\ndid something different.  Clearly\nsomething got lost in translation.  The\nlessons learned in the federal poll have clear parallels with a community title\nscheme.  I\u2019ve always thought these\nschemes are almost like a little country with all the positives and challenges\nmuch larger communities face. Just as there are disrupters and fringe elements\nin our society, the same can sometimes be seen in residential strata living.\nThe challenge is to find ways to accommodate the views of all owners while not\nallowing the vocal minority to rule the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are a\nresident manager, I am guessing you are with me so far. But a question is\nrunning through your mind\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026. this is all well and good Mike but we have a\ncertified crazy person on our committee and we just can\u2019t seem to get them to\nsee common sense. In my view the first step is to engage with that person and\ntry to find some sort of common ground. This will require a conciliatory\napproach that many will find challenging and maybe a bit demeaning. The point\nis that while you may well be completely right and the owner completely wrong\nit just doesn\u2019t matter. If you want their support and vote some sort a rapport\nis essential.  If there are problems I am\na big believer in acknowledging that the relationship is on the rocks and that\nyou sincerely want to fix it.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c I know we haven\u2019t always got on but for the\nbenefit and good health of our building lets find a way to work together \u201c <\/em>is\na good start. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ok, so you\u2019ve tried\nthe rapport build approach, got a very effective monthly newsletter, you call\nyour owners regularly to ensure they know you and remember what an incredible\nmanager you are, you send regular updates about the local property market and\ntrends. You\u2019ve built the sort of manager \/ owner\u2019s relationship that allows\nopinions to be shared without fear or favour and still you have an owner\nworking against you.  Time to divide and\nconquer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am guessing\nthat the owner in question calls constantly, sends emails at all hours of the\nday and night, conspires against you at every turn and generally distracts you\nfrom your business. If I was an investor in your building and my levies were\npaying your salary, I\u2019d be less than impressed if one of my fellow owners was\ndistracting you and compromising your ability to do your job.  More than that I would want to know, and I\nsuspect so would other owners.  If that\nmeant I needed to nominate for committee then so be it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message\nhere for me is pretty simple.  Once all\nconciliatory avenues for managing a nightmare owner have failed it\u2019s time to\nrally the troops and sideline the problem. \nTell your investors what a negative impact their fellow owner is having\non your capacity to look after them and ask for support. Don\u2019t use text, email,\nFacebook, Instagram or whatever, it\u2019s got to be face to face or a phone call.\nThis is called lobbying and it\u2019s a practiced art.  You will laugh but try role playing what you\nintend to say with your lawyer, accountant or significant other and get the\nmessage down pat.  Ask your role play\npartner to challenge you and be ready to respond.  You can stuff up as many times as you like in\nrehearsals, but you\u2019ve got to be right on the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now here\u2019s the\nreally hard bit.  Throughout this process\nyou\u2019ve got to try and maintain some sort of productive relationship with your\nproblem child.  The strategy will be very\nmuch dependent on the emotional maturity of all parties.  Calling it as you see it would obviously make\na lot of sense but might need to be tempered to some degree.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob, I am very concerned that you worry too much about how we\nare managing the property.  This can\u2019t be\ngood for either of us and I think it\u2019s a having a detrimental impact on our\nability to provide the best possible service for all the owners.  We have certainly taken on board your\nconcerns, but we think it would be best for the property as a whole if we encourage\nsome new blood on to the committee.  I\nhope we can have a workable relationship going forward and I would value your\nfeedback from time to time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am the first\nto admit it won\u2019t work every time because some managers don\u2019t have the\nnecessary communication skills and some owners are unreasonable, but you\u2019ve got\nto try.  There\u2019s a great quote in Sun\nTzu\u2019s famous Chinese military treatise The Art of War :  keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll leave you\nwith what used to be a favourite of mine from Winston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe best argument\nagainst democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average\nvoter.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out the\naverage voter is a whole lot smarter than I thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our finance writer, Mike Phipps channels his inner Sun Tzu to delve into the tactful art of avoiding war with body corporate committees, owners, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1046,"featured_media":1346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[24,20,22,21,23,25],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-body-corporate","tag-bc-committees","tag-body-corporate","tag-building-management","tag-conflict-resolution","tag-management-rights","tag-onsite-manager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1046"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1347,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions\/1347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}