Communication Advice for Community Associations
By: Nena Groskind

So it wasn’t hard to cull a list of best communications practices from our archives; the hard part was controlling the length to fit in a magazine article rather than a book. We’ve divided our list into three sections: Communications between boards and owners, communications between boards and managers, and communications tools. The divisions are arbitrary and the list is by no means exhaustive. It almost certainly contains much that you have heard before and omits some suggestions you might have included. Our justification for the repetitions: There are some ideas that can’t be emphasized enough. As for the omissions, we hope you will make your own lists and share those ideas with us, so we can include them next time.

Communications Between Boards and Owners
“Communication works for those who work at it.” — John Powell

Powell, a composer of film scores (music for The Bourne Identity and Shrek are among his credits) was talking about the effort required to convey ideas through music. But communicating with owners in a community association requires no less commitment and hard work on the part of the governing board.
1. Let owners know what the board is doing and why. In the handbook of effective board governance, nothing is more important than this. The more residents know about the community, the more likely they are to see themselves as an integral part of it. The converse is also true: The less residents know about the community, the less likely they are to identify closely and positively with it.
2. Make information available and readily accessible to board members. The board’s job, with some privacy- and litigation-related exceptions, is to share information, not guard it.

3. Hold open meetings. Closed meetings simply feed the “us vs. them” mentality in many communities, where owners see themselves perpetually at odds with “big, bad boards.” Encourage owners to attend meetings by holding them at convenient times and advertising them well in advance. Make it clear that owners are invited to listen to board discussions, but not to participate in them. But set aside a limited period of time, at the beginning or end of the regular meetings, where owners can make suggestions and discuss matters that concern them. In addition to providing useful input on board decisions, these sessions can flag issues before they become major problems or serious litigation risks.
4. Publish the minutes of board meetings and circulate them to owners. The value of distributing this information is clear, but some precautions are needed. As a general rule, the minutes should remain confidential until the board has reviewed and voted to approve them, and the final, published version should be limited to a record of the salient facts — the issues discussed, the motions made, the votes taken, the decisions made and the policies adopted. A detailed narrative of the discussion — who said what to (or about) whom, is neither necessary nor advisable.
5. Solicit input from owners. It is as important for the board to know what residents are thinking as it is for residents to know what the board is doing. Residents will be more likely to support decisions in which they think they have had some input, and they will feel more a part of the community if they think their opinions matter. So ask owners what they think informally (at the mailbox and in the parking lot) and formally, through association polls and surveys. Make it clear that you value input not just by asking and listening but by following up on the feedback you receive. If you adopt an owner’s suggestion, thank that owner publicly – at a meeting or in the newsletter; if you reject an idea, make sure you explain why.
6. Ask owners about rules before adopting, revising or eliminating them. It is axiomatic that community residents are more likely to comply with rules, and less likely to resent or resist them, if they understand the reasons for the restrictions or requirements and have a hand in drafting them. With that fundamental principle in mind, boards should take the time to solicit the opinions of owners on any rules they are considering. Legislators and regulators typically hold public hearings on proposed laws and regulations and association boards should do something similar. Ask owners if they agree a rule is needed and then give them an opportunity to review the wording of the rule before the board adopts it. Equally important, make sure all residents – owners and tenants – have a current copy of the association’s rules that explains the reasons for them as well as the penalties for violating them. Reminding owners periodically of the board’s authority to assess the cost of enforcing rules against owners can also help to encourage compliance and discourage at least some owners from challenging rules they just don’t like.
7. Phrase rules positively rather than negatively. No one likes to be lectured or hectored. Communities need rules, but they should be phrased to encourage compliance rather than to demand obedience. Instead of proclaiming that “no planting is allowed anywhere in the common areas,” a rule might state: “The association encourages all residents to take an active interest in the appearance of the grounds. Accordingly, owners may plant any of the following shrubs and plants in the following designated areas.” The communities that adopted the problematic “no flags allowed” rules that spurred so much litigation and (eventually) a federal law, might have avoided those problems had they simply specified the kinds of flags that are permitted, their size, and how, where, and when they can be displayed – emphasizing the positive (what owners are allowed to do), rather than the negative – what is forbidden to them.
Deborah Jones, CMCA, PCAM, a manager with Massachusetts-based American Properties Team says some of the best rules and regulations she’s seen were drafted by residents of a Massachusetts co-housing community. One of her favorites: “You have the right to free use of all those things which the community owns in common. You have the responsibility to share and care for those things which the community holds in common such that you do not deprive others of their use.”
These rules work, Jones says, because they explain the behavior owners expect of each other, and, equally important, they convey the sense of shared ownership and shared objectives that reflect the essence of what the community association experience is, or ought to be.
8. Listen — really listen  to owners’ concerns; respond quickly and appropriately to legitimate complaints. Botch a complaint, and you may alienate an owner and all the owner’s friends, forever; handle an irate owner skillfully and you can create an ally for life. Simply listening to a complaint, taking it seriously, and explaining what you are going to do about it can go a long way toward appeasing a distressed owner, even if you can’t solve that owner’s problem immediately. Airline passengers are never happy if a flight is delayed, but they will be far less angry if someone explains the problem and when it is likely to be resolved. It’s when they sit on a runway for three hours without getting any information that people become irate. With that basic principle in mind, complaint procedures should generally:
• Ensure a quick response, acknowledging the problem and explaining how and when it will be addressed.
• Promise a solution without over-promising the result.
• Keep owners in the loop, informing them of progress and explaining any delays.
• Include follow-up, to make sure the problem has been resolved and that the owner is satisfied with the outcome.

Board Communications with Managers
“The problem with communication…is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”  George Bernard Shaw

Actually, the problem in many community associations is not “the illusion” that communication has been achieved, but the assumption that it isn’t necessary or worth the effort. Conflicts are unavoidable in any close working relationship, but many of the conflicts boards have with association managers could be avoided, or at least tempered, by effective communication.

1. Establish an open dialogue from the beginning of the relationship and keep it going. Boards must be clear about what they expect from managers and other service providers and managers must be equally clear and equally honest about the scope and limits of the services they will provide for the fee they are being paid. “If the board hasn’t communicated its expectations to the manager and the manager hasn’t communicated what his/her response will be,” Pat Brawley, CMCA, AMS, PCAM, a Massachusetts community association manager and consultant, observes, “the relationship is doomed to failure.”
2. When selecting a management company, don’t hide problems or downplay them. It is not in the association’s interest or the management company’s for the board to misrepresent the issues the community faces. The company needs to be prepared to deal with the problems and the board needs some assurance of its ability to do so.
3. Make the management contract as specific and as detailed as possible. Attorneys who represent community associations will tell you that it is impossible for a contract to be too detailed. Spell out everything, assume nothing, don’t leave any expectation, however insignificant, unstated or unexplained. “You hope the contract will sit in a drawer gathering dust,” Stephen Marcus, a partner in the Massachusetts law firm Marcus, Errico, Emmer & Brooks, advises. “But when something goes wrong, that’s when the contract means something.” And if that point comes, the association wants to be sure the contract says what the board members meant when they signed it.
4. Communicate regularly. This advice applies to all the professionals and vendors on whom the association relies, not just to the management company. Address concerns and complaints as soon as they surface; don’t let small annoyances become smoldering resentments that eventually explode in a decision to fire one company and hire another.
5. Ask for advice before making decisions. Want to make an attorney cringe? Preface a question by saying, “After we signed the contract.” “There’s not much I can do about a contract a board has signed, other than tell them why they shouldn’t have signed it,” Ellen Shapiro, a partner in the law firm Goodman, Shapiro & Lombardi , LLC notes. It is almost always more difficult and expensive to resolve a problem than it would have been to obtain the legal (or other) advice that might have avoided it. “Asking for advice is not a sign of weakness,” Shapiro insists. Failing to seek advice in order to save the association money is never prudent and rarely cost-effective.


Communications Tools

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”  Joseph Priestley
Cell phones, e-mail and PDAs hadn’t been invented when this 19th century scientist was working, but he could have been referring to any or all of these now essential and ubiquitous communications tools. Managers staring at e-mail in-boxes crammed with hundreds of messages can be forgiven for wondering if we have harnessed communications technology or been enslaved by it. You measure the effectiveness of communications tools not by their existence, but by their application -- not by the amount of information they generate, but by the quality of that information, its utility and its results.
1. Create a Web site and use it effectively. There is no more effective, or cost-effective, means of providing information to residents. Virtually all the information they need can be available whenever they want to access it. Because Web sites have the potential to be broadly comprehensive and easily accessible, they can do much to create a sense of openness and nurture the community spirit that associations strive to maintain.
2. Restrict access to some of the information displayed on the Web. The association’s Web site is primarily an internal communications tool aimed at community residents, but its accessibility to the public also makes it an effective marketing vehicle — and a potential security risk. Some information – the names, addresses and phone numbers of residents, association financial information, contracts, minutes of board meetings and other business information, for example – should be available to residents only on a password-protected section of the site. Some information should not be posted on the Web site at all. Marcus includes on this list details about pending or possible litigation, the names of delinquent owners (and any other information that might trigger privacy concerns), personnel matters and “anything else the board might discuss in executive session.”
3. Use e-mail to facilitate communication but don’t let it become counterproductive. Managers can communicate easily with owners and board members, but owners and board members can communicate just as easily with managers, and the result can be a constant stream of messages, sometimes rising to the level of a deluge that engulfs the mangers who are obliged to respond. A few specific cautions:
• Be concise and don’t send copies of everything to everyone. Think about who really needs to see communications and about what portions of the messages are relevant to them. Provide essential information, but don’t provide more information than the recipient needs.
• Don’t attach unnecessary files. In addition to being superfluous, some attachments can overload limited e-mail systems. Pictures can be particularly problematic. If you’re uncertain about whether a recipient’s system can handle an attachment, ask before you send it.
• Don’t flag all messages as ‘urgent’ or ‘important.’ If all messages are labeled important, none of them will be.

4. Don’t use e-mail as a substitute for regular board meetings. Board members can exchange information and discuss association business, but in most cases, they should not vote or make official decisions via e-mail. Among other problems: e-mail communications create a written record, which may not always be in the best interests of the board or the association.
5. Mind your e-mail manners. Some people are empowered by e-mail, but not in a good way. They say things facing a computer screen they would never say, or would at least say differently, if facing the individual addressed. “Among my most prized possessions,” Orson Card, an American writer, observed, “are words that I have never spoken.” Words never written are even more valuable, because committed to paper (or transmitted via e-mail), words have more staying power and thus more power to hurt recipients and transmitters alike. That’s why boards (and everyone else) should follow this general advice: Don’t say anything in an e-mail message that you wouldn’t want to have read out loud in the middle of the parking lot, see printed in a newspaper, or be forced to turn over to the other side in a legal proceeding against you.