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 1015: Those Are The Rules

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“Your laws are always right; help me to understand them so I may live.” 

Work is managed more through rules than we would even imagine, that is until we sit down and read all the through the policy and procedure book. No wonder some of the most creative people find ways to not go to work for big companies so that they aren’t subject to the myriad of rules and regulations. Of course there must be some set of rules in order for any organization to function and operate, but I have always been a believer that in the rule category, less is more. If we fill a book up with policies to try and cover every imaginable situation then we are surely penalizing those that don’t need to be penalized and we are creating statutes for the exceptions and that doesn’t bode well for a philosophy of trusting those around us. The companies that do it the best, in my mind, are those who manage from a place of values and principles first and rules second, and only when there is no other way around it they put a rule in place. The first time we encounter rules in our lives are as children and each of them are put there to set boundaries to keep us safe and out of harms way. As we grow older we want less boundaries and we search for independence and freedoms.

The same can be said for how we work. Within each of our jobs we want as much autonomy and freedom as possible and rules tend only to get in the way. But, they are a way of work life and unless we are in a position to influence how the rules are written, we just have to live within them. King David had the right attitude as it came to rules and laws. He said to God in Psalm 119:44; “Your laws are always right; help me to understand them so I may live.” We may not always think that the rules and laws within our work are right, but seeking to understand so that we can live within them will help bring some sense to why and how to manage within them. Don’t be a person who lets the rules get you down or cause your attitude to be affected because you don’t like the ways things are managed. Do your best, to understand the “whys” behind the rules and then find your own way to work and live within them.

Reference: Psalm 119:144 (New Living Testament)