I live under a dreaded HOA (Home Owners Association) and we’re in the process of updating the covenants. Dealing with this headache is about as much fun as field surgery. HOAs are what you manage when you’ve lost at Monopoly.

While I support the basic concept, when you look at HOAs in general, the nightmare stories go on forever. For fun, Google the term “HOA Nightmares,” just to get a flavor. It’s some astonishing reading! Here is just one I found. There are thousands of stories online. The super-majority of these nightmares are about overreach. Almost all of them are about the zealots who often run these things. This isn’t to say that all are bad, but I’m a serious skeptic, having been involved in forming one when I was a trustee.

Out of no disrespect to those who drafted the new covenants, and knowing it was a lot of work and well-meaning, I hated to do it, but I voted “no.” I wish I didn’t have to vote that way, but I had no choice. I then got email from others asking my, why? So, I took the time to write my reasons, and offered to pitch in to fix the language, but then someone else said, I should just shut up about it. Let me paraphrase their reasoning; “you should give up your rights because we put in a lot of time thinking about how to write this,” ultimately taking those rights away. It would be like telling someone to shut up and give the burglar what they want because, well they spent a lot of time trying to break in.

The great economist Walter Williams once wrote that you can’t grant someone a “right” without taking one away from someone else. I think about that a lot when I create rules in business. I think about my neighbors and their rights too. I don’t think they gave enough thought to what they were taking away from all of us. This draft to me was going too far, and I felt I had to say something. To some who worked on this, how dare me!

I saw it as an overreach, and an attempt to fix what wasn’t broken, couldn’t be broken, but was simply a fear of being broken. That’s right. I won’t go into my objections because that’s not the point of this post. What it does though is show the worst and best in people who take sides in these matters. I generally stand on the side of less restriction, while some, crazy as it seems, want to be in everyone’s business. A psychologist friend gave me some insights into how and why they think the way they do. There is already a lot of gossip around here as it is, and yes, we have our share of “Karens” who want to be involved in personal stuff. They would want rights to your sock drawer if you’d just let them.

These things draw out hidden agendas, and a lot of personality conflicts that go back a very long time. Some of it is nasty, and I don’t unfortunately have the backstory or the popcorn. The stuff is flying around like fall leaves on a windy day.

One of the most interesting aspects is when one of the board members sent out an email to everyone to basically shut up and vote. They failed to think about the unintended consequences of driving the discussion underground. Now they think everyone is quiet, but instead the conversations are happening without them. I always tell CEOs to never censor discussion because it just means you won’t be a part of it. The conversation still continues.

People who have little to no management experience don’t think of these things. They just want the conflict they created to go away. Some have strong opinions but fear retaliation and don’t want to do the hard work. That’s the political side, and there is one. I think that’s what worries me the most is the weaponization of an HOA by those who probably dream of dictatorships.

We’ll probably get through it, but It does make me wonder what I got myself into here. Oh, I don’t mind conflict to get to what’s right. I don’t regret voting no. That’s what leadership is all about, never standing in the mushy middle while fighting for things you believe in. At the end of the day, I want to be left alone and I want my neighbors to be left alone to live in peace. We’ll see how this all turns out and I’ll write what finally happened. This will make a good article, I promise.