When a board makes a decision, the people making the decision aren’t always the people who will feel its effects most directly.
A board may approve a new policy.
Change a procedure.
Enter into a contract.
Approve a significant expenditure.
Or make a decision about how the community will operate going forward.
Before moving ahead, it can be helpful to pause and ask:
Who will have to live with this decision?
That might be the owners.
It might be residents who don’t own their homes.
It might be future board members.
It might be management or the vendors who will have to administer or carry out the decision.
And sometimes, the people most affected aren’t the people who were part of the conversation at all.
That doesn’t mean every decision should be made to please everyone.
Boards have a responsibility to make decisions for the association as a whole, even when a decision may not be popular with everyone.
But considering who will be affected can reveal practical issues that might otherwise be overlooked.
Will this be easy to understand?
Will it be practical to administer?
Will it create an unexpected burden somewhere else?
Will the next board understand what it is being asked to continue?
Sometimes looking at a decision from the perspective of the people who will have to live with it changes the way we think about the decision itself.
And sometimes it doesn’t.
That’s okay, too.
The goal isn’t to avoid difficult decisions.
It’s to make thoughtful decisions with the people affected by them in mind.
Before asking, “Can we do this?” or even “Should we do this?” consider asking:
“Who will have to live with this decision?”