Management

Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?

You may be wondering what King Henry II’s supposed words about Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, would have to do with management rights and bodies corporate.

I encounter some parallels to the Henry and Thomas story almost every day when I speak to on-site managers.

For those of you who have forgotten your English history – in the 12th century, Thomas Becket was a good mate of King Henry II of England. They hunted together, they boozed together and they pursued the fair sex together. When the position of Archbishop of Canterbury became vacant Henry thought it would be a very good idea to put his mate into this extremely powerful position as the Pope’s No 1 man in England. Unfortunately for Henry, his good mate had an attack of the “Napoleon Bonaparte’s” and ran wild with power! Henry had released a monster in archbishop’s robes and a hair shirt beneath.
Back in 1170, if you made a mistake in choosing someone for the top job, there were avenues available to solve your problem that are not available to us today. Thus on 29 December 1170, four chainmail-clad knights with swords solved Henry’s problem by kick-starting pious Thomas on his road to sainthood in front of the altar in Canterbury Cathedral!

Which of course brings me in a natural progression to the subject of the chairperson of your body corporate!

Now I am not saying that every body corporate chairman becomes drunk with power and I am not saying that every on-site manager is blameless but, in the past month, I have taken four phone calls from on-site managers who are being “monstered” by the chairman of their respective bodies corporate. This is a slightly higher rate than normal but then again not every manager with this problem phones me and the true problem may be even greater.

In every case, an analysis of the facts indicated a chairman who was in the wrong; a chairman with abysmal knowledge of the BCCM Act and a chairman with an attack of the “Napoleon Bonaparte’s”.

But what to do?

Rule number one is bite your tongue and don’t initiate World War 3 because as we found in WW1 and WW2, you will just end up with piles of dead bodies and lots of recrimination! First, ask yourself is it just possible that your personal “Bonaparte” is right? Have you been doing your job properly? When was the last time you read your caretaking agreement to see what your job was? I am constantly amazed at how many managers think that their caretaking agreement was something their lawyer read during legal due diligence but after that it could be put in the cupboard and ignored. It is not! It is your job description – and it is enforceable!

If you are truly convinced that you are fulfilling your contract, then don’t just ignore the enemy action. Take it head on. Approach the designated liaison person on your body corporate committee (there has to be one) and request a meeting. Have a copy of your caretaking agreement with you and make sure you understand every word. Ask your liaison person to go through where the committee feels the problems are. Quite often, the liaison person (who is usually that Napoleonic chairman) will not have really discussed the “problems” with the committee at all. Insist that minutes of this meeting are kept or a recording of the meeting made.

Agree on a course of action that will ease the tension. If, of course, the chairman has no understanding at all of what tasks you are obliged to carry out under your contract and simply thinks you are a serf to be ordered about at will, it is time for you to get some qualified legal advice. Experienced management rights lawyers deal with these sorts of issues all the time and often a well-timed lawyer’s letter will bury the issue very quickly. Bullies usually back down in the face of a bit of light artillery!

If all else fails, put on your politician’s hat. Successful politicians have just two skills. They know which egos to stroke and they know how to count the numbers.

Make sure that at your next AGM you have an alternative chairman nominated, and make sure you have the numbers organized to put him/her in the chair.

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