JERRY, OUR JERRY...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

                                 "It's been hard not to wonder...how in the world this
                         dope was ever put in charge of anything."

Will Leitch, the New York Magazine columnist, wrote those words after "...watching (NFL Commissioner) Roger Goodell's nightmare month" -- September 2014. I have been watching JFNA for as long as you and I can remember, and I have a similar question for Michael Siegal about he who has become his man. Apparently, those with the power of doing something about this whether at the NFL, an incredibly successful umbrella, or JFNA, an incredibly unsuccessful one,  have determined that it is not in the interests of the owners of the NFL, or the federation owners of JFNA. Yes, friends, even as not a single lay leader of our continental entity can possibly identify a single achievement by JFNA during this CEO/President's first five years, something has compelled them to reward failure as if it were success. Here is a guy who should have less job security than a substitute teacher awarded with a contract extension. If his hiring was the joke it, predictably, has turned out to be, what words can describe extending his term for another five years?

At the outset of Silverman's contract someone(s) had the perverse idea that paying him like one of the top tier CEOs -- those who had actually led federations to great success over a period of years -- would make him one. They were so very, very wrong. In the incredible epitaphs upon Ben Bradlee's death, several attributed the following Bradlee directive to his staff: "Just get it right." Sadly, that dictate has been turned on its head at JFNA to: "Just get it wrong." They have...and there is no accountability whatsoever...if there had been, there would have been no extension whatsoever.

I learned that when Michael Siegal joined JFNA as Board Chair, he was committed to end the CEO Jerry "era." But something happened -- either he was  impressed by Jerry's obsequiousness, or "inspired" by Jerry's preposterous "ideas" -- from multiple TribeFests to a $1 billion special campaign for a free pre-school for one and all -- it certainly could not have been any real analysis of the failures of the last five years or his terrible hiring judgment (the two biggest hires of the recent past -- Gurvis and Rothstein -- were imposed on Silverman by Siegal) after his excellent engagement of Mindy Hepner bringing a superb pro back to 25 Broadway and offering hope soon dashed. Friends, where is the new muscle being built at JFNA -- the kind of new muscle built at Olympic Steel or the Los Angeles or Chicago Federation or at any business that aspires to success, where a real CEO understands how to build an effective organization. Clearly Michael Siegal has a high tolerance for embarrassment.

Sure, there is no one "out there" who might be the logical choice to succeed the current CEO -- that is to say the current group of controlling LCE are either too fat and happy to offer themselves for a daunting task or, like Miami's Jacob Solomon, just not interested (and, after all, they control [or think they control] Jerry's every move, maybe his successor would not so easily or readily bend to their every whim). But, the consensus view of so many who believed the time had come for Silverman to be succeeded by a professional of excellence, vision, discipline and purpose, is that Michael Siegal just didn't want to "spend the next two years in a Search for a successor." Just didn't want to be bothered. Just didn't want to be bothered. Michael, truly a good man with a great heart, decided, for reasons unclear that he would rather be nothing more than the steward of a daily disaster -- he now owns that disaster as if he created it.

The tragedy of Silverman's first five year Term was that he never understood the job -- he believed he had been (and probably was) hired to promote and build the "brand" (viz, JFNA itself), not the federations, not the annual or special campaigns. It was and is the brand, the brand, the brand.That's why Silverman is able to tell his JFNA lay "leaders" that they no longer serve the federations that appointed them as their representatives, but, instead, that they are now serving the "brand" -- something bigger (only that's not the case, of course). If Billy Wilder were a student of JFNA, he would have written Jerry's mantra: "I am/we are big, it's the federations that got small."

Follow the path of failure with me, friends:

• Community Heroes -- failure
• #ish -- failure
• More donors -- failure
• TribeFest 1, TribeFest 2, TribeFest 3 -- failure, failure, failure
• Complete the Journey 1 -- failure
• Complete the Journey 2 -- failure
• A $1 billion "campaign" to provide a free Jewish pre-school -- non-starter
• A whole series of GAs -- failure, failure, failure, failure, failure
• Global Planning Table Strategic Initiatives -- non-starters
• Global Planning Table itself -- failure
• "Stop the Sirens" Special "Campaign" -- failure
• Independent fund raising to support the JFNA Budget -- ha ha ha*
• Overseas Core Allocations -- failure
• Ukraine Emergency Fund -- failure

There are more, help me out here, but there have been no successes...none. Under Jerry's brand of leadership, JFNA had made no impact anywhere.

Given this record, were this private industry or, even, a local federation, the CEO would have been gone in a nano-second, with no second thoughts and no CEO-in-waiting, just the sense that we have to do better and that we can be better. A series of Inspector Clouseau moments does not a CEO make. 

Sadly, CEO Where-Am-I is so lost in the confusion of his own words, his lack of focus and in his sense of his self-importance at just being CEO that, if pressed, I doubt that he could tell you who he  actually is. But, he is blessed -- protected by the "masters of the universe" and a few lay leaders who should know better.

Then we learned that after JFNA lay leaders demanded that Silverman hire Mark Gurvis to effectively "run the store" (is he allowed to do so??) and Renee Rothstein to run Marketing and, apparently, the GA, (how's that going??) now there has been a decision somewhere to add two experienced retired CEOs, each more than capable to serve as JFNA CEO -- Max Kleinman and (name to be added later when and if confirmed) as "consultants." What the hell? What good is  building scaffolding on a structure already in collapse? If these hires aren't an admission of the failure of JFNA's CEO, what would be?? Today the "cost" in terms of the on-going incompetency has surely exceeded $1,000,000...that's more than ONE MILLION DOLLARS...a year for the "Office of the CEO/President." This is nuts.

I could write even more (and probably have), but no one has exposed Silverman's futility better than reporter Uriel Hellman in an article in JTA last week.

http://www.jta.org/2014/10/29/news-opinion/united-states/ahead-of-another-g-a-how-close-is-jewish-federations-to-its-stated-goals

I urge you to read it in its entirety. JTA accompanied the article with a picture of the CEO at his most shambolic, speaking at last year's GA, making it up as he went along. All Hellman did without commentary was to list CEO Here-Is-What-We-Aren't-Going-To-Do representations and promises in a year of speeches and interviews and then let Jerry bloviate and prevaricate in response. The article title begs its own question: "...How Close if Jewish Federations to its Stated Goals?" Answer: not close, not close at all. It is absolute farce in Silverman's own words. In an example of the worst kind, Silverman on the "fedovation" that will take place at the GA:

"Here’s how Silverman describes it: 'We’re going to be really pushing the envelope,' he said. 'We used to have an exhibition hall, where you’d walk up and down and see exhibitors. We’ve now created a whole space that has spaces for people to sit and have dialogue, spaces for different groups to meet. It’s real, new dynamic open space …We’ll see different groups go into a fedovation and then, whether it be volunteers or professionals, will come out and have a space to go really unpack them and say, ‘How can we apply it to our federation?’ ”

I had suggested on these pages that one condition of this CEO's extension be a "put a sock in it clause" -- Hellman just proved why merely by letting Jerry speak. It's failure writ large in Silverman's own words. Last month, one Large City declined to renew the contract of its CEO after three years of no campaign growth -- at JFNA, its CEO, so mired in failure that he can't explain it, just awash in gibberish...another contract. Michael Siegal: look yourself in the mirror.
 
Friends, as Jerry Silverman's contract has been extended it became absolutely clear that the only criteria for JFNA CEO today are the ability to tie a tie and form a sentence -- and even under those minimal criteria, Jerry Silverman almost doesn't get it. His apologists and enablers assist him in the attempts to create "an alternative reality to the one he is responsible for;" it is one filled with unicorns and cotton candy and...no relevance to reality. Mired in failure of his own making, Jerry Silverman will labor on.

Rwexler

* JFNA will suggest that funding from, e.g., the Ruderman Foundation is an example of success. And, sure, it's been successful for Ruderman to directly fund its own wonderful programs under the JFNA Banner. Help for the JFNA Budget...not so much.