Monthly Archives: October 2020

community associations, condo associations, Cooperatives, Culture, leadership, values

Culture – Let’s Get Intentional

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In our overview of culture in community associations, we noted similarities with other organizations, whether professional, non-profit, social, or familial. We highlighted that there are three primary classifications of organizational culture.

Like most other organizations, associations tend to fall into the “Unintentional” category. Time is a critical factor. More in-depth organizational analysis is most rare. Getting a volunteer board to meet for regular business can sometimes be a challenge. How about dedicating even more time to discuss values, vision, and mission? That might feel impossible. Let alone floating a full-blown retreat with team-building exercises.

You Can See Clearly from Higher Ground

And yet, when community association leaders invest the time to elevate the conversation, they find that it pays back in time and energy. Organizations create and perpetuate an effective and sustainable culture in which principled action is cultivated. Once identified, underlying principles lead to fewer ego-driven opinion battles. There is a context to the conversation. Healthy debate replaces unproductive arguments that suck the life out of the participants.

The result of such an elevated time investment sets up a principle hierarchy for decision-making that looks something like this:
• Values (The Why – what’s important?) drive Vision
• Vision (Where do we want to go?) drives Mission
• Mission (This is what we are about) drives Strategy
• Strategy (How do we make this happen?) drives Tactics
• Tactics (The day-to-day actions we take)

Flow the hierarchy backward, and it looks like this: Our day-to-day decisions make more sense because we judge them in the context of our strategy. Rather than reinventing the wheel or exhausting all parties by going in several directions at once, our strategy is in harmony with our mission. We know what we are about and what we need to focus our energies upon. This is because we have vision. We know where we want to go, and our mission gets us there. At the bedrock of all of this are our shared values. Certain things are essential. We’ve been honest with ourselves and compared our reality with those values.

That all sounds lovely. It might also sound like a pipe dream. It doesn’t have to be. Combine realistic expectations with some practical steps and you’ll get there.

All or Nothing?

Do you need the whole package of values, vision, mission, and strategies to start your intentional culture? No! And that’s where most organizations get stuck. Wise leaders apply the sage words of Arthur Ashe: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
Like many things in life, the journey may be more important than the destination. Developing the habit of a higher level, principled thinking is the first step. From time to time, I will start meetings with a touch of comedy: “So who are we and what are we doing?” It sounds like levity, but it speaks to a bigger picture and sets a tone. Keep at it, and the baby steps will eventually add up.

So How Do We Do It?

There is no one right way. Every group and situation are different. Some need to rise from the ashes of disaster to get the motivation to do it right. Most need to look for opportunities, however brief, when they can poke their heads up out of the weeds to see what’s already there in front of them.

Baby Steps: It doesn’t matter where you start in the hierarchy. Can you agree on a “Statement of Values?” Great! One or two clear elements of mission? Please write it down. A Vision of what everyone would like to see? Awesome! If you have an agreement in one of them, it can lead to more later. If you stick with it, it will gel over time.

Practice Affirmative Inquiry: We’ve always said the Parrado Principle has a slightly different iteration in community associations. The ratio of people and issues that drive the corresponding amount of time and effort probably isn’t 80/20. It/s more like 95/5. Unfortunately, one of the foibles of human nature is that we will dwell on the 5% that divides us instead of the 95% we have in common. But what we have in common provides the most vital foundation for success. Get in the habit of asking, “What’s right?” instead of, “What’s wrong?”

Be Mindful and Seize the Opportunity: Listen carefully. Pay attention to successes. Look for patterns. Shared values are always there, waiting to be recognized. Some clarity on vision or mission may pop up while doing business. When you hear it, call it out. Record it somewhere, no matter how rough.

Here is a good, natural, non-confrontational question to ask at the right moment: “So I think what I am hearing is…. Is that right?” If heads nod, follow with, “I think we just found a (shared value/mission statement point).”

Annual Planning Sessions: This simple practice can make a world of difference. Scheduling a special meeting to discuss what you’d like to accomplish over the next year can be a terrific jumping-off point. The most useful time to hold this meeting is as soon as possible once a new board is formed after an annual meeting. You may start with strategy, but by applying the techniques above, you may find yourselves painting a bigger picture. After all, if you tell me what you want to do, I will understand what’s important to you. Once I know what’s important, values and vision begin to emerge.

Change Happens…Use It!

People change. Times change. Perceptions change. Understandings change. Physical realities change. Adopted governing principles must grow with the organization in order to remain relevant. To prevent these principles from becoming a nice and shiny, yet irrelevant plaque on the wall (a precursor to the dreaded “Actual Culture”, these must be reviewed and challenged regularly.

If you are already following our recommendation to conduct an annual planning meeting, include reviewing your principles. This is especially important as you are going through the baby step process. It may take years to clarify your values, vision, and mission.

Why Wouldn’t You?

The gap between intentional and unintentional culture is the wherewithal and commitment to finding and memorializing what’s already there. Every group has shared values. Vision and mission are waiting to be found. Taking the time and energy to identify them creates a foundation that your association can rely on when it faces everything from day-to-day challenges to major disruptions.

Clarity in culture reminds us who we are and what we believe in. It saves us from situational thinking, conflicting direction, and wasted time. Any action you take to transcend mere tactics adds depth to your association. It builds team trust, commitment, and fulfillment. All upside with no real downside – so get to it!


community associations, condo associations, Cooperatives, Culture, HOAs, leadership, Uncategorized, values

Culture – The Missing Piece

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The culture of an organization either creates the space for sustainable, defined success or makes it difficult, if not impossible.  A healthy culture allows the organization to tap into the knowledge, talents, experience, energy, and intellectual capital of participants.  It does not permit ego, politics, or dysfunction to get in the way.

In this context, culture can be defined as the environment that establishes norms of behavior for the people in the organization.  It involves the connection between the goals and values of the individual and those of the group.  Culture is embodied in author Seth Godin’s statement: “People like us do things like that.”

Organizational culture provides the context in which the stakeholders understand their roles and can concentrate on doing their best. Healthy cultures in community associations put boards in a position to establish desired results and provide the necessary resources to achieve them.  Focusing on those results delivers rich payoffs. Building a healthy culture yields exponentially compounded interest in terms of time, energy, progress, and community spirit.

Culture is the difference-maker, and yet, community association managers and volunteers almost never talk about culture directly.  It’s about time we did.

Three Cultures

Organizational culture tends to fall into one of three general categories:

  • Intentional Culture- Values, goals, and norms have been identified, codified in some form, and provide the basis for principled action.  People in the organization are clear on “The Why.”
  • Unintentional Culture- Values, goals and norms are left to chance.  Defining them depends on who the influential people are in an organization at a particular time.  Frequently, decisions are made and actions taken on an ad hoc basis.  Sometimes leaders focus on rules and written procedures without explaining why they matter. Other times, there is no focus at all.  Everybody works too hard at reinventing the wheel or making it up as they go.  If such a community is fortunate, things will go well riding on the backs of a few good people.
  • Actual Culture- Values, norms and goals have been identified.  There may be mission, values, and vision statements with lofty aspirations printed on glossy marketing materials and plaques on walls.  Yet, leaders and members of the organization violate those ideals on a regular basis without correction.  The inherent hypocrisy of the organization destroys morale and trust. 

Most organizations fall into the unintentional category.  Their leaders may have no concept of culture or fail to recognize the benefits of the time investment necessary to build a successful one.  They cannot see that the hard work up front will significantly decrease their time and effort in the long run.  They are so caught up in the day-to-day operation that they miss the bigger picture.

What About Community Associations?

Why, specifically, do many community associations tend to have an unintentional culture?  First, boards can be mired in tactics, too busy putting out fires and stuck in the weeds to elevate their perspective.

Second, exclusive devotion to the standard board meeting model can cause an unintended consequence. Leaders and managers are trained to follow the legal requirements for board meetings.  They correctly conduct the association’s business in accordance with open meeting requirements and the standard meeting agenda.  Well-planned and executed board meetings are highly effective in handling the day-to-day business of the association.  However, regular board meetings are horribly ill-suited to address bigger picture issues, complicated projects, and strategic planning.  These discussions will never fit into a standard board meeting agenda in the best of times.  Switch it up by scheduling some town hall or special meetings to listen to what members have to say, get ideas flowing, and deal with big picture issues.

Getting to Higher Ground

Getting out of the weeds is not easy.  Leaders and managers first need the awareness that business as usual leaves too much to chance.  Then, they must recognize that the work to build healthy organizational culture is a time investment that will pay dividends.  For some groups we’ve worked with, it took disgust borne from crashing and burning to motivate them to meaningful change.  In our next segment, we will offer a roadmap to intentional culture for community associations. 

business life, Culture, leadership

What’s The Question?

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Everybody has a “tell” – that one, involuntary reaction that gives them away. Tells reveal themselves more readily in the face of crisis and stress. We may say that we hold to certain principles or beliefs. But when the fecal matter intersects with the air circulating device, an ugly truth may reveal itself.

A Test of Organizational Health

Pay attention to what happens when a mistake is made. What is the knee jerk reaction in the heat of anger or flash of embarrassment? If the first question is, “Who did it!?!,” you’ve got a problem. If that’s the go-to response, it is a sure sign of a sick culture. People in such organizations are motivated to stay under the radar. They fear sticking their neck out or owning up to mistakes- and for good reason! The culture fosters a fixed mindset that hinders the people and the organization from growing.

System or Performance?

Lazy leaders assume that every problem is a performance issue. The blame game is expedient, but it masks reality. When you fail to distinguish the difference between a performance problem, a system problem, or a combination of the two, you make false assumptions, ask the wrong questions, and get the wrong answers.

We’ve seen this play out in interesting ways. Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is having a superstar on the team for a long time. When they finally leave or retire, none of their replacements seem to make the grade. Only upon a more in-depth analysis of the situation does it become clear that one of the old superstar’s abilities was overcoming crummy systems. Their success masked the deficiency and set up their successors for failure.

Listen and Learn

If you listen to your organization…or yourself…and realize Bang & Blame (great song, by the way) has infected the culture, it’s time to change the game. How? By changing the question.

Organizations with healthy cultures react to errors and crisis with the following questions, in this order:
• What? Determine precisely what happened. Make no assumptions.
• Why? Was this a performance issue, a systems issue, or a combination?
• How? What factors contributed to the issue? And only then….
• Who? Now you can address the matter, take the appropriate action, and help people grow and learn.

Reality and Success

Without mistakes and challenges, there is no innovation, no progress, and no growth. As Tom Peters would say, “Fail forward fast.” Indeed, if the answer to “Who?” shows a pattern of performance issues, a tough decision may be in order. More times than not, there is something more to be learned. Follow the disciplines of a healthy organization. Ask the right questions in the proper order. You will create a space for yourself and others to see reality and the way forward. Your organization will take appropriate and forward-thinking actions, benefitting everyone.