Sunday, April 29, 2018

WAKE-UP CALL

I am never surprised when one or more of you offers insights so much better than mine. The following is one of those,


"This is not complicated.

There is no shared purpose, therefore no alignment of human and financial resources to accomplish anything. And it is this way because those with capacity to influence the direction of JFNA choose not to use it -- they want it this way.

Plain and simple.

If they wanted a powerhouse entity that brought the federated world together to identify what to do together and how to do it, it would be so.

It is time to do one or both of the following:

1. Enforce the rules of membership in JFNA, and be prepared to lose federations who fail/refuse. Make it the coalition of the willing, and start to get stuff done.

2. Determine once and for all the JFNA is a trade association; not a strategic leader for the federations, not an organization with an interest of its own. But an organization that does those things where the economies of scale work to the benefit of the communities. Human resources, information technology, communications/marketing, certain purchasing (like software rights) for example. Maybe the DC office. This isn't meant to be exhaustive, just a sample.
                    Oh, and still enforce the rules or you're out."

The chances of this leadership making this happen are sadly...nil.

Rwexler

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

this organization unfortunately needs something a bit stronger than an alarm clock!

Anonymous said...

The real blame is on the LCE club. Our lay leadership let it happen out of either apathy or simple lack of understanding but the LCE folks let it happen on purpose - because it served - still serves - their basic and selfish vested interests. That makes the difference here like the difference between criminal negligence and pre-meditated murder.

Anonymous said...

It will be interesting to see what happens as the membership in the "LCE Club" changes. We have already seen some things change with the addition of the New York EVP. Now that there are others like Shrage, Hoffman, etc stepping down will their replacements speak up and act.

Anonymous said...

Probably not - the people may change but the basic vested interests remain.

Anonymous said...

It's a sad reality that what you have described as the perfect storm of futility, a monumentally failed CEO, a succession of Board Chairs who just don't care, and a group of CEOs (mainly the Large City Execs) who can't be bothered or won't invest the time, these have combined to p[roduce an organization that neither reprents its owner, the feds, nor its Board members but only represent themselves. This pathetic JFNA knows how to do one thing to a "T" -- waste our sonors, our communities' hard-earned dollars with a return on investment only form Washington.

This has to stop; it should have been stopped a decade and more ago, it must be stopped now. Richard, I nominate you as Interim CEO.

Anonymous said...

Second the nomination!! But there is no waking this leadership up.