FASCINATING: PERSPECTIVES & FUTURE
http://www.acmepackingcompany.com/
One Year Later
It is going to take one year to anoint a new team President? How hard is it to find someone who knows the right people and spent some time at an Ivy League school?
Proficiency in attending office meetings and kissing *** is desirable. Apparently John Jones wasn't too good at the latter: A source from the National Football League told the Journal Sentinel that Packers employees had told Harlan they had concerns about Jones' ability to manage the franchise. Someone's fur was rubbed the wrong way. Although this subject is as exciting as a press conference, it holds a strange fascination for me. It would be great if Jones really was a jerk who the organization pushed out to maintain the integrity of the Packers, but
he probably lost some power struggle. He may have been a jerk, but it is just as likely that he was a good guy who is the scapegoat for something or other. Too bad the real story will ever make it out and we will probably never find out the size of his golden parachute.
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http://www.rotlalasz.com/
We and Mister, Mister Jones
The first thought at the news John Jones will never lead GBP: This could affect the rest of our lives. I’d also like to call it Bob Harlan’s latest mistake, although that would sound petulant and ungrateful. Harlan is the best thing that happened to GBP in the last 40 years. He hired Wolf and left him alone. He also recognized that a renovated stadium was critical for the franchise’s survival, and pushed that through in tax-me-not Brown County. And he brought thrust and considerable business acumen to an organization that had been a punching clown on and off the field for decades. GBP is now a model corporation in many respects.
But, as with Wolf, Harlan made considerable mistakes late in his tenure: Sherman and Thompson. Wolf was impressive and persuasive, but one wonders why Harlan didn’t do due diligence with those two hires as he did with Wolf. When faced with the promotion of a one-year coach to King of the World, he didn’t look closely. And so our troubles began. A friend of this space with insight into the present situation tells me that Jones’ health was the key factor in the decision, that he has never fully recovered from heart surgery and that his drive is lacking. The team denies that, according to Demovsky. Naturally: They fear sabotaging Jones’ future high-level employment elsewhere.
But both Demovsky and Don Walker of JS Online report that Jones never meshed well with GB employees. Walker leads today with an account of how bad-cop Jones nicely complemented good-cop Harlan during the stadium tax debate, then suggests that such arm-twisting didn’t play well with the underlings: Paul Jadin, who was mayor of Green Bay during the debate over the stadium sales tax, said Sunday that Jones was as responsible for the success of the new Lambeau Field as Harlan was. But he said that, while he was shocked that the news that Jones was out came so fast, he was not shocked that it was going to happen. “My perception is that there was a culture shock there,” said Jadin, who is CEO of the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce. “The change from Bob to John was stark. I just don’t think that anyone there was prepared to go from Bob to John in terms of personality. That was apparent to me.” Demovsky: Following the widely popular Harlan was going to be a difficult task regardless, but Jones never seemed to gain the full support of those who worked under him, according to NFL sources familiar with the situation. In recent months, several team employees expressed concerns about Jones to at least one executive committee member, one of the sources said.
The amazing thing about that statement is that those employees didn’t feel confident enough to go to Harlan, although somebody finally did, obviously. On the other hand, backstabbing through executive committee members is a finely-calibrated art in Green Bay, although somewhat under-practiced in recent years.
So what do we have? A picture of a guy who was abrasive, a feather-ruffler, the opposite of Harlan, and now weakened by illness. That’s not going to work in GB, where Jones is still regarded by many as a complete outsider: a journalist (OMG) who’d gone straight but served time for the NFL front office and Jacksonville (?!) before landing his gig in GB. And, as the friend puts it, many guys in Green Bay are known for having coronaries on Thursday and showing up for work Monday morning. This franchise is in the middle of having a coronary. Right now we need the old Bob Harlan to show up and administer the nitroglycerin, although a nice mixed grill of Zoloft and Klonopin would be great for the anxiety, too.
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http://www.packersnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070530/GPG0101/705300672/1058/PKRFeatures
Packers board faces leadership question. Harlan succession top order of business today
Today's quarterly meeting of the Green Bay Packers' board of directors was supposed to be John Jones' first day at the team's helm as president and chief executive officer. Instead, after the stunning news over the weekend that Jones is out as replacement for Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bob Harlan, the 11 a.m. meeting now will take up a topic critical to the franchise's future: How should the Packers search for a new successor to run one of the most historic and revered franchises in American sports? The board first will have to pass a resolution to extend Harlan's stay as chairman and CEO beyond the retirement age of 70 as mandated in the team's bylaws. Harlan will stay in that position until his replacement is in place, which could take anywhere from a few months to as long as a year. Jason Wied, the team's vice president of administration and corporate counsel, was drawing up a resolution on Tuesday to extend Harlan's tenure. Harlan said Tuesday the board won't raise the mandatory retirement age.
Jones officially is on administrative leave. Harlan cited only "management issues" as the reason behind Jones' departure, but it's become clear that Harlan and the team's ruling executive committee over the past several months developed misgivings about Jones because of glitches in the function of the administrative side of the organization, as well as complaints about Jones by subordinates. Jones presumably is on leave until he and the Packers agree on a severance package. The Packers' executive committee now has to decide how to choose Harlan's replacement. One possibility is following the procedure former team President Judge Robert Parins used to promote Harlan as his successor in 1989. For that hiring, Parins formed a search committee comprised of members from both the executive committee and the board as a whole. They vetted candidates for a short list of candidates to interview, after which Parins recommended Harlan to the executive committee. Unlike in '89, it's now common for sports franchises to hire a national search firm to compile a short list of candidates. Harlan and the team's search committee then could interview those candidates and recommend one to the executive committee, which ultimately makes the hire.
It's almost a given the Packers will hire a high-ranking official with an NFL team who has experience in both administrative and league matters. There appear to be only two candidates who work for the Packers: Wied, who is 35, and Andrew Brandt, the team's vice president of player finance and general counsel, who is 46.