BEING BOARD PRESIDENT, PART 2, P.2

And, clearly, you also need the strength to be firm. "Somebody has to run the project," Saltzman says. "That's why you're elected to the board." Grant notes that the work seemed a nightmare, but "remarkably, in the end, it came in under budget and three weeks early. That's totally unheard of in any building in the city!" she adds jocularly.

Elegant Consensus-Builder

Saltzman, an avid collector of early 20th-century American art and a board member of Lighthouse International and other charities, is an elegant woman whom one would probably be loathe to say "no" to on anything — which, undoubtedly, is part of the reason for her success. She reports, with some pride, that people say, "She tells it like it is."

One key to her multitasking is her policy with paperwork. "I don't keep all that much any more," she says, noting that "the management office keeps things." She has little more than a drawerful of files in her apartment. "I don't keep the minutes. I do keep board decisions. I keep copies of the annual-meeting minutes because I really use those as a guide for the next year." She also keeps files on projects actively underway.

For Saltzman, the most important tool is the shredder kept in the basement boardroom. She says she's "crazed on confidentiality," echoing Herzog on the issue of data security but with a different perspective. After an interview with a prospective shareholder, everything gets shredded. And her memory goes with it. "I couldn't remember, even if my life were at stake, what the man next door to me does for a living — even though I interviewed him. I'm very much against invasion of privacy. I think, in general, we know far too much about our neighbors."

Her feelings about staying on as board president are more ambivalent. "I like working with the board. I like getting something done. Does it become a headache? Yes. Because now people think that I work for the building!" If they want an immediate response to their problem, they know that, like Herzog, Saltzman is the right person to call.

Both Saltzman and Herzog say they're highly responsive at all times to everyone. "These are your neighbors," Saltzman notes, "and their interests are the same as yours." But it's more than that. Saltzman, like Herzog, takes it as a personal challenge when a shareholder calls with a problem — though Herzog has struggled to retain at least some sense of privacy by moving board meetings from his apartment to a basement venue and placing restrictions on the hours that neighbors can call.

Saltzman recalls an incident regarding hallway decorations. The co-op rule was that each floor paid for its own redecoration, but — and this is where the problem arose — everyone on the floor had to agree to the plan. On one floor, residents fought the board for months.

"I started to get calls morning, noon and night," Saltzman says. "I found myself with samples of their stuff. I said, 'I'm not the decorator. I'm not choosing.' The end result was that I had a new bylaw written." A majority is now all that is needed to approve such a plan. Problem solved.

Saltzman sums up her philosophy: "I didn't come in with an agenda for myself. And I'm very careful when we interview people for board positions that they don't have their own agenda. Because the majority of people do. 'I'm going to get on the board because my terrace is falling apart, and they're not doing anything about it... I don't like so and so on the staff... I'll get on the board and get somebody to do something about this.' Well, honey," Saltzman advises, "that's not a reason for being on the board, or for being president."

Read Part 1

Adapted from Habitat March 2007. For the complete article and more, join our Archive >>