Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 1532: The Reference Circles

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“But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him.”

I just finished up serving on a college Dean search Committee.  I was the only non-academic on the committee and I learned a lot.  In most businesses, we don’t hire like higher education or even how a non-profit might hire by using a committee.  What is also unique is that in higher education, once the committee narrows down the final candidates, those candidates go public at their home institutions and basically tell their current employer that they are going to publicly present and interview for another job.  I found it quite courageous of these candidates to do so.  Imagine that happening in our businesses?  We’d be so freaked out we wouldn’t know which way is up.  And then another thing happens that is more common for all of us and that is a list of references are checked by the search firm of the committee.  But, that list is a list of people who are given to us by the candidate that are pretty much expected to be positive references.  But then the final list of references gets added onto by broadening the circle to those that the candidate has not given, but who would know them and have an experience with them.  This is where it gets interesting.  Going, “off-list” is when we start to learn about the other goods and bads of a candidate.  Too many times in business we just stay on the list given to us, or don’t broaden the circle enough.  One or two extra circles out can be where the truth is found.

So, if we were being referenced for our faith, who would be on the list and what would they say?  And, more importantly, when going, “off list” as the circles broaden, what do you think would be said?

Reference: 1 John 2:5 (New Living Translation)