JONES WON'T BE BACK: EXPOSE & PREDICTIONS!

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SUCCESSOR

http://packers.scout.com/2/647375.html

In search of a new prez. Packers likely to look outside of organization for next CEO.

Hey, it’s baseball season, so let’s use a baseball analogy here in describing Green Bay’s change at the top of the front office: Bob Harlan swung and missed twice on thoughtfully preparing the Green Bay Packers organization for his successor. Now Harlan, who was expected to retire later this week, is back up to bat, seeking to connect on the next leader of the Pack. On the mound: Father Time. The Packers’ seven-member executive committee decided over the weekend to put president and chief operating officer John Jones on an extended leave of absence, just days before Father Time’s deadline. Though health doesn’t appear to be the issue with Jones, the executive committee labeled it a “management issue” and have more or less released Jones from his duties with a year’s pay.

Fortunately for the Packers, Harlan has agreed to extend his stay as president. But Father Time isn’t exactly on the side of the 70-year-old Harlan, who was expected to begin his retirement on May 31, the day when Jones was supposed to take over as team president. But something came up regarding Jones in the past month, which Harlan and others in the organization will not specify, that has now caused the Packers to begin thinking about pursuing someone else to be the next president. “I thought I had it very well planned, and something unforeseen and unfortunate occurred, and now we have to deal with that,” Harlan said on Saturday in making the announcement about Jones. Harlan and executive committee member Peter Platten both said that they have yet to think about who the next successor to Harlan will be, but you can bet they are on it as you read this. The next president of the Packers will ultimately be the choice of the executive committee. Besides Harlan and Platten, the prestigious panel also includes Edward Martin, John Bergstrom, Carl Kuehne, John Fabry and Larry Weyers, all of whom are from the Green Bay area.

Harlan hired Mike Reinfeldt in 1991 as the team’s chief financial officer. Besides that role, Harlan also said that he earmarked Reinfeldt as a strong candidate to step in as the eventual team president. Reinfeldt was given the title of Vice President of Administration from 1994-98, overseeing all non-football staff in that time. Mike Holmgren and the Seattle Seahawks lured Reinfeldt away from Green Bay in 1999 as Senior Vice President. He was the Seahawks’ Vice President of Football Administration before he signed on to be general manager of the Tennessee Titans this spring. Whether or not the Packers could lure Reinfeldt back to Green Bay remains to be seen, but Reinfeldt probably is the strongest candidate out there for the job, but since he just began in Tennessee, he may not want to move. Outside of Reinfeldt, some feel that Green Bay’s vice president of player finance/general counsel Andrew Brandt may be a candidate. Brandt, who turns 47 on July 19, joined the Packers in February of 1999 as director of player of finance. Like Reinfeldt, he has been very impressive at handling player negotiations and the team’s salary cap. Brandt is probably the best in-house candidate to be team president.

There is a slight chance that the Packers may agree to have Jones return as president, but that seems very remote. Platten said on Saturday “there would be a possibility that he (Jones) would be able to come back in the future.” However, there wasn’t a whole lot of conviction in Platten’s tone of voice when he made that statement in front of reporters. Jones seemed to have the same out-going personality with fans that Harlan has, which is an important aspect of the position. Especially since the Packers are a publicly owned organization. Apparently Jones' philosophy on whatever it could be rubbed Harlan the wrong way at the wrong time, and now Jones is on the outside looking in. Whoever the Packers pursue, should have those qualities, plus the ability to make cold, hard decisions, like the one that Harlan made this past week on Jones. For now, Reinfeldt appears to be the best candidate, but the Packers probably will be looking closely at others outside the organization as well.

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DEMOVSKY'S CHAT PERSPECTIVE

DEMOVSKY: "I tried to lay it out as clearly as I could in my story that ran in Sunday's paper. Basically, it sounds like Harlan realized that Jones wasn't the right guy for the job so he basically pulled the plug on him. What exactly the "management issues" were might never be known, however based on talking to several sources it's clear Jones wasn't the best leader. People who worked for him were unhappy, and they made that clear to Harlan. Jones said he needed to "recharge his batteries" but that was the Packers' way of allowing him to save face. He'll be on leave until they get a settlement package worked out, and there's no way Jones ever will work for the Packers again. Reinfeldt is a logical candidate because at one point while he was here he was the heir apparent to Harlan. Maybe he wouldn't leave his new job with the Titans, where's head of the football side, but this would be a chance to run an entire team -- not just the football operations....I further suspect that Harlan was upset about this because Jones had been telling Harlan what he wanted to hear in order to curry Harlan's favor. I think that Harlan caught Jones in a lie, which raised a multitude of concerns about how he was going to lead (and if he was capable of leading) the Packers following Harlan's retirment as Chairman and CEO." But I dont think it was because he was going to fire Thompson...."

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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 ass 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.

[Cheesehead Craig]

Well, better to not put Jones in charge then have to remove him. Just get it done right.

[packinpatland]

I still think Jones and TT got caught doing 'something'.

[packinpatland]

Interesting..............a severence package in the works.
And complaining subordinates...


Posted May 30, 2007

By Pete Dougherty
pdougher@greenbaypressgazette.com


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.

[MJZiggy]

An idea has been in the back of my mind about this. I wonder if Bob Harlan didn't know that Jones was unsuitable for this position and kept it to himself until the last minute because this way, there is no one to take over the position and he gets up to another year on the job before he has to take on the forced retirement that he didn't really want in the first place...

[packinpatland]

Wouldn't that make him just a bit devious?

[MJZiggy]

Well, yes, but he gets to keep his job...

[packinpatland]

I'm curious what the subordinates were complaining about.

[Scott Campbell]

An idea has been in the back of my mind about this. I wonder if Bob Harlan didn't know that Jones was unsuitable for this position and kept it to himself until the last minute because this way, there is no one to take over the position and he gets up to another year on the job before he has to take on the forced retirement that he didn't really want in the first place...

....nevermind.

[TopHat]

UPDATE: DYNAMITE

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=612879

Harlan: Jones' issues surfaced in fall 'I'm probably to blame. I waited...," Packers' chairman tells reporters.

Green Bay - Problems with John Jones' management style began to concern Bob Harlan last fall, Harlan said today in a meeting with reporters at Lambeau Field. Here's what Harlan had to say: "What happened when this came to light last fall, my thought was we are going to be very patient, study this and re-evaluate it as time goes along and see if things improve. I wanted to give him (Jones) every opportunity to see if the situation wouldn't get better and we could move forward. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. And I'm probably to blame. I waited...."

[MJZiggy]

See? He knew about this last fall, but he's to blame because HE WAITED!!!

[packinpatland]

Just now on the NFL channel, Marshall Faulk mentioned Jones in one sentence with J Walker, A Green and R Moss. Opportunities missed or dropped.

[gureski]

It's like I said....

Either Jones was walking around the office in his underwear, slapping secretaries on the behind while lighting cigars with $100 bills (sex, ego, money)

or

This is an example of total incompetence on behalf of management...

it's looking more and more like incompetence. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't screw things up this bad but apparently......based on Harlan's latest interview......management truly did screw this up that bad.