About Us
Our Identity
With more than 100 years of collective experience in organization development and executive coaching, Ruffin Associates bring to their clients unparalleled insight and expertise in a wide range of areas from corporate strategy and culture architecture to executive team building. Our depth of personal experience in and out of organizations has brought inspiring lessons, informing who we are and the understanding we bring to our clients.
Our Philosophy
Organizations are interdependent and dynamic systems in a process of continual change. Any issue of concern has a holistic relationship to other key areas of organizational life. Organizational identity is a symbiotic relationship of strategic vision, internal culture, and corporate brand. All must work in concert for transformative results.
Our Promise
At Ruffin Associates, we have chosen to be catalysts in the process of unleashing purpose and passion in the organizations with whom we partner. We are committed to the co-creation of resolutions and evolutions, to cultivating a spirit of meaningful contributions in all who work there, and holding a common resolve toward a quadruple bottom line of
profit, people, planet, and purpose.
Our Core Team
John Ruffin, PhD, OD
John's 40+ years of consulting in strategy formulation, culture architecture, executive coaching, have demonstrated breakthroughs in the Fortune 100 corporations to the federal government and national foundations. His preference is organizational settings where volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are the challenge. John brings experience as a manager, owner and CEO, as well as a nonprofit Board Chair. His business ethic is “Do exceptional work, build committed relationships, and if there isn’t a bit of fun in it, don’t do it.”
Lisa Kollisch, MBA
Lisa Kollisch holds an MBA and Master of International Affairs degrees from Columbia University and a PCC coach certification from ICF. Lisa has certifications in more than a dozen instruments and methodologies for individual and organizational assessments. She has consulted and coached at the C-Suite level for clients in the Fortune 500, federal government, and international corporations. For more than 25 years she has facilitated whole systems performance, strategy and organization design, and the development of high-performance cultures. Lisa brings out the best in people and offers powerful ways to harness their individual and collective wisdom and capabilities, helping teams align, communicate, and collaborate to achieve results and higher levels of trust and enjoy their work.
Tamara Meyer
Tamara Meyer is an internationally known speaker, award-winning author, organization and media relations consultant, and holistic therapy trailblazer, and that’s just for starters. Tamara has the talent and record in conflict resolution like few others on the planet. As a second-generation Holocaust survivor, Tamara has been a participant in dialogue groups in Berlin that include former Nazis, Holocaust survivors, and their descendants, and has experienced first-hand the extraordinary challenge of engaging with those who would have been her enemies. Tamara translates her more than 30 years of experience into her work with executive teams, organizational silos, and labor-management issues. There are few consultants that are as broadly skilled and well connected as Tamara Meyer.
Jill Schnipke
Jill brings 18 years of experience coaching teams to improve their performance and organizational effectiveness. Her specialty is developing cross-functional teams including corporate executives and government leaders, to operations managers and line employees. Jill’s exceptional insight and positive energy allow her to transform “herds of cats” into functional, collaborative teams where all participants win.
Consulting and Coaching Methodologies
Founders and their Boards of Directors
The challenges faced by organizational Founders and their Boards of Directors are legion and frequently disruptive. Our research and experience in this area with nonprofit and for-profit organizations alike provide deep insights for managing through founder's syndrome and the complexity in these relationships. We can guide you in when and how best to bring about change in these difficult settings.
Appreciative Inquiry with Strategy and Planning
The Appreciative Inquiry technology is a powerful and widely used approach to the planning process that focuses on a positive and transformative mindset that can change your organization. It is based on the principle that the ways in which we leverage our positive experience will guide the quality of our behaviors and futures of our organizations.
Conversations that Matter
Organizations are in fact "on-going conversations", it's the way we get things done. As with any key function, it's important to keep those conversations maintained and allowing for productive change before they become crucial and more difficult to manage. We help you institute Conversations that Matter as the norm in working together vs the avoidance that may require more attention later.
Group Facilitation with the World Café
Achieving powerful outcomes in group sessions or management meetings is a usually a distant hope. Our process of facilitation in groups from 20 - 200 will produce an interaction and magical results that you have likely never experienced.
Synergistic Team Building and Coaching
We specialize in experiential team dynamics and can tailor activities and events to meet the needs and time available. Our coaching capabilities to help process the team learning will take these teams to new dimensions of personal and group awareness and resulting effectiveness.
Surveys and Assessments
Out-of-the-box surveys are developed for general populations, but your organization is unique. As such, we custom tailor any type of survey desired from 360's, to culture definition, to leadership competencies, but only after coming to understand your organization in real terms. Survey results are followed-up in-depth with subjects and respondents to maximize productive results. We also are licensed and experienced with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, StrengthsScope, and many others.
Among Our Values and Beliefs...
A smattering of values, beliefs, and insights that stimulate our practice
Curiosity is the best catalyst.
Appreciate the value of productive conflict
Leverage ambiguity; creativity never came from certainty
Lead with others’ engagement vs your entitlement
Recognize the power of questions vs assertions
Asking questions is easy; asking powerful questions is not
What if you held a meeting where the only communication allowed was asking questions?
Meaning is a hidden treasure in the workplace; find it, nurture it, and lead with it
Engage the Einstein in every employee
When generals can remember their time as a private, people will rise to their leadership
Synergy is about maximizing the power in differences.
It takes a bit of sand to make a pearl
Share future vision as a vision for your people, and they will take you to the future
When planning for employee retention, it’s already too late.
As a rule, always consider breaking the rules.
Hiring for a “cultural fit” can be like asking for a box of crayons in just one color. It makes for a flat picture.
The most valuable corporate measure is employee passion