Coffee reflections: on management and governance

At 23 years old, I lived in the Las Américas residential complex in Valencia, Venezuela. A group of towers with 4 apartments per floor. If on average there were 2 people per apartment, we’re talking about the fact that, in the tower where I lived, there would be the equivalent of a group of 64 members. It would be like having a Board of Representatives where both mom and dad attended, you’d definitely need to find more chairs in the next room. Usually, for everything related to buildings and apartments, an external service is hired, an agent who handles logistics, administration of common areas, cleaning, and payment of public services. For that time in Venezuela, where we were rich but not in money exactly, it was agreed to handle administration internally with a board of directors with positions like president, secretary, and treasurer.

For the time I lived there, my adjacent neighbor Roland was the president, a person who, sometimes, we crossed paths going down in the elevator, so we were able to talk about life, politics, and the country’s economic situation several times. A very common topic for Venezuelans. Let me tell you a bit about Roland: professionally, he’s a Business Administrator from the Simón Bolívar University, with a master’s in finance, Director of the portfolio department at the poultry factory Qué Pollo, and as I recall, about 10 years of experience working with accounts and portfolios. Personally, he was a chill person, the kind you know it’s hard for them to get upset about anything, he looked like the type of person who always has a contingency plan for unexpected moments, I suppose as a result of the experience of having to deal with such situations almost daily at work. That guy is perfect to preside over the administration of the building, I thought. Who better qualified to manage the resources of a vertical suburb that 64 personalities, including me, called home? And indeed, I remember the fees were not exaggerated at all, the public areas were well maintained and in general, everything worked relatively well within the reality of a 2019 Venezuela.

out of my perspective, the reality was different. The neighbors with constant complaints, usually because some service didn’t work (remember, Venezuela 2019), the administration was very expensive, not to mention those who within WhatsApp groups manifested that the administration was a band of thieves and the list goes on. I doubt they had the guts to sustain such assertions in a board meeting backed only by words. So, once his management semester ended, Roland handed over his position, and he felt really happy to hand it over. He never ran for an administrative position in the residential complex again. I remember he told me: “No matter how good an administrator you are, there will always be people who call you corrupt, thief, unfair, or all at once.”

As an analysis of this personal experience, in the dynamics of social groups, whether as small as 2 people or as large as a country, if you are the administrator, you must be prepared for criticism and see it insignificantly as just that, criticism, emphasizing the adjective more than the subject. No matter how good you are, there will always be someone who can do what you do better, although it’s almost certain that it’s only in thought, and that, precisely, is the issue: everyone thinks and barks, at the end of the day it’s free, but a tiny minority is truly willing to act and take responsibility. For those people who live the philosophy of doing, I present my respects and take my hat off to you.

Perhaps that’s why, Mr. Matthew back in the times of Jesus said: “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). There are many who say they can do it, perhaps because of the bias of believing that doing is easy when you see it in someone else, added to the voice of our own ego that, in that so convinced way says: “pff I could do that with one hand behind my back and the other scratching my crotch” but beyond that, very few with the determination to step up as they say. To criticize there are plenty, but people with the balls or ovaries to take on those responsibilities, very few.

If one day you are in a position where you must administer, and you feel that everyone criticizes you, remember why many are called but few are chosen.