Is it your circus?

By Frank Higginson, Partner, Hynes Legal

I don’t know where the phrase comes from, but recently I have been using “Not my circus; not my monkeys” quite a bit.

It’s really quite apt for many situations that come across my desk. But it’s equally applicable to any range of occupations, and it has enormous application for operators of management rights businesses.

Any management rights business has numerous stakeholders: resident managers, lot owners (as residents or investors), body corporate managers, committee members, tenants, guests, insurers, business suppliers, common property service providers, bankers, financiers, lawyers! and so on…

Any strata building can become one big circus, and all of these stakeholders are the monkeys running around under the Big Top. Unfortunately (unless you consider the Commissioner’s Office to be the ringmaster) there is no one in control of any particular circus and the monkeys can largely do as they please.

Some of these monkeys are more unfettered than others in terms of their behaviour and all of them have the ability to do all manner of nasty things to others. It might just be chattering inanely. Maybe it’s stealing someone else’s banana. Maybe it’s throwing a banana or (heaven forbid) some sort of faecal matter at another monkey.

There is room for all sorts of shenanigans. And the more monkeys you have, the more chances for them to act up in some way.

I could go on with the monkey analogy for a lot longer, but I am sure you get the drift.

I have lost count of the conversations I have had with management rights clients over the decades about issues in their particular circus. The reasons for issues are many, but the most disappointing conversations relate to issues that affect the manager and that the manager had no reason to become involved in originally.

Any strata building can become one big circus

It is easy to become emotionally involved in your community and the decision-making about it. When emotions take over, you tend to pick sides. When you pick a side, you absolutely latch onto support from that side, but you immediately alienate the other.

No body corporate committee ever stays united forever. People come and go. The difficulty for resident managers who pick a side is that if the opponents get control, guess who becomes an easy target?

Resident managers need to be ‘Switzerland’. They need to stay as neutral as possible. To do otherwise is to invite potential trouble in the future.

Now, don’t take this as advice not to stand up for your rights. You must do that. There are times when a small piece of ‘acting out’ might turn into a bigger one, and making sure you look out for yourself is very important. But there are lots of things you don’t have to get involved with.

Are there arguments in the building about whether to paint it beige, white, cream, or bone? The correct answer is: “Whatever you want. I will go and arrange the quotes. Beyond that, I don’t mind.”

It’s not, “anything other than cream is idiocy” because the beige brigade might be coming for you.

The analogies are endless. Picks your fights. Choose the right hill to die on.

Don’t go around picking sides in your community if you can avoid it, and if the issue doesn’t affect your business, then be very careful before you wade in.

Make sure that you consciously want the issue to become your circus and your monkeys before you go boots in. Otherwise, get up in the stands with the rest of us with your popcorn and enjoy the show – up there, you have far less chance of things being thrown at you by a militant monkey!