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 3K114: Reference Checks

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“The godly give good advice to their friends…”

I was sitting in an Admiral’s Club in Tampa at the end of last week and behind me a Head of HR for an international company (I know that because she told the person she was talking to on the phone her name and job title) was providing a reference check on a former employee of hers.  She was beyond effusive with her accolades and endorsements.  But, as I listened, having also have provided maybe a hundred plus  (yes, I think so) reference checks over my life, was that she did a great job helping the person get the job, but she didn’t do any favors on helping the person be successful in the new job.  I know the feeling.  We have a couple of areas and ideas that we want to let the new employer know that if they want to be sure to help their new employee reach their full potential they need to know and understand, but we are afraid to say any of these things for fear of having the reference checker mark them down as a weakness that might disqualify them from the job.  What we need to ask those who do our reference checking for us is to ask the question differently and ask it every time: “As we build out a development plan to assure (fill in the person’s name) what are three things you’d suggest we include in that plan?”  Try it.  It works.

If God was doing a reference check on us today, what would He hear from our family, friends and co-workers?  If God was to ask the question to them on what we should be focusing on to grow and develop ourselves to become closer to Him, what would they say?  What I always find when I do a reference check on someone, is that each person has many blind spots and unless someone helps them see them, they don’t know they are there. So, it wouldn’t hurt for us be sure and ask others who share our faith to help us know where we need to develop and grow.

Reference: Proverbs 12:26 (New Living Translation)