Managers: Your Life Is In YOUR Hands: Make It Better
By Julie Adamen

The last in the Managing 2000 series will return the focus back to the manager (much to the relief of some management company owners and executives).

What we have been discussing the past few months—where the business is, where it is going, where industry leaders should be taking it, and I will continue to preach those ideas and ideals everywhere I go. However, they are just that: ideas and ideals. They are the start of a new thought process that will hopefully change the industry for the better in the coming years.

Now we will be turning our attention to some real ways for managers to survive the business over the long term. Tools that managers can start applying right now to make their life and the industry BETTER. Let's talk.

There are four main reasons why some managers fare better than others and are able to survive a long-term relationship with the CID management industry. These principals apply to portfolio managers and on site managers equally. They are:

• Effective communication skills
• Time management skills
• Organizational skills
• Stress management skills

COMMUNICATION

The leading organizations geared toward the education of CID managers, notably CAI and, in California, CACM, as well as other state specific organizations, do a fine job on educating managers about the law, about budgets, about maintenance, about record keeping, etc. Our management companies, charged with the continual well-being of their workforce, often hold their own training sessions—how to hold an annual meeting, what to look for on a walk through ... All of these are necessary, and a portion of what you need to be an effective manager. They are the basic tools of the trade. If you can remember the date of your fiscal year end, you know when the budget has to go out.

But what about the number one thing you do as a manager—communicate?

Communication takes on so many forms—written, oral, electronic, phone, cell phone, pagers, faxes, you name it. It seems as if it's something we take for granted just because we can perform the function. But effective communication is by far the most important skill you can have as a manager. Not the function, but the learning and understanding of how and why we need to communicate effectively with our homeowners, co-workers, bosses, vendors and everyone with whom you are in contact. Effective communication skills can greatly improve a manager's life.

TIME MANAGEMENT

The profession of CID management is, by its nature, crisis-oriented. Every manager walks in to their office first thing in the morning and wonders what the hell is going to happen that will ruin their game plan for the day. The worst case scenario is the manager who has completely given up on a game plan and just waits for the crisis to appear.

Watch out for that. Waiting for a crisis or emergency—a top indicator of poor time management skills—is one big step to the downward spiral of reactive, instead of proactive, management. Soon, everything is a crisis. Everything is an emergency. Your normal job can't be completed, it's impossible, there's no way, and you can't do it and the only way out is to ... quit. But make no mistake. This pattern will just follow you somewhere else.

The trick is to learn that property management is not life and death; this is not "ER." Every problem is not a crisis. Are there emergencies? Yes. But they cannot, and should not, rule your entire day. Using effective time management skills will allow you to gain this perspective. Those skills will see you through the crisis at hand, and on to the normal day's activities.

ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS

Picture yourself as the new manager of an account, which has recently suffered the misfortune of unorganized management of association data, or more likely, a procession of unorganized management of data. You are looking at half-crushed boxes, messy unit files, minute books from way back when, proxies from 1986 "filed" with the service orders, newsletters in with the insurance files, the previous manager's (three managers ago) Christmas shopping list in with the Rules and Regulations (which is missing two pages and not on a disk) ... and of course, the Articles of Incorporation are nowhere to be found ... And you want to run screaming in to the night. Especially if you, too, are not as adept as you might be with your organizational skills.

Unfortunately, they didn't offer Community Association Data Organizational Skills 101 in college. Where do you learn them? How do you apply them? And, most of all, WHAT ARE THEY? Stay tuned.

STRESS MANAGEMENT

We talk about this all the time. Yes, exercise, proper diet, enough sleep and a balanced emotional life are all great ways to manage stress. Of course, if you had time to think about these things, let alone DO them, you wouldn't need to manage stress because you wouldn't have any!

Nothing irritates me more than some leotard-wearing size 5 Barbie (or Ken) telling me how they manage stress—while drinking orange juice and doing tummy tucks. Yeah, right.

In the real world, we need ways that not only fit our lifestyle, but also fit our needs as an industry.

CONCLUSION

Why are accounts re-assigned to a new manager? Why do associations leave one management company for another? Why do associations hire new on site managers? Aside from politics, the reason is usually not because the manager (and staff) was well-organized and possessed good communication and time management skills. No, it's usually because the account was falling apart due to a lack of one, two or, more to the case, all three.

Those of you who know me have often heard me say "This is not IBM, it's just HOA management." But if it's "just HOA management," why is it so difficult? Because many of our managers are under-skilled, under-trained and under-supported in one or more of the most important aspects of their job: effective communication, time management, organizational and stress management skills. In the coming months we will be giving managers the tools to use every day of your career—to take back control of your time, your sanity and your life.

Now, go out there and have a GREAT holiday. See you in the next millennium.