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 2223: Flagrant Fouls

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“Those who despise flagrant sinners,and honor the faithful followers of the Lord,and keep their promises even when it hurts.”

I grew up playing sports of all kinds so I understand the rules of most games.  Something we didn’t have were “Flagrant Fouls”.  A foul was a foul and there wasn’t a need for a distinction.  As I was watching the Warriors play the Jazz on Saturday night, Kevin Durant was charged with a “Flagrant Foul 1.”  This is the lesser of the two, where a “Flagrant Foul 2” will get you ejected and reviewed for a possible suspension.  In the workplace there are also levels of infractions with the worst ones getting one fired on the spot.  But, there are gray areas that will be interpreted by higher-ups to determine what is the penalty warranted.  In industry, with all of the transparency and whistle-blowing possibilities, we are better to stay clear of any and all fouls to be committed because to what one would seem insignificant, to another could be considered criminal.

Today in our jobs we will both receive and inflict fouls.  It might be that we feel that we are on the receiving end of such an infraction that we have an expectation that the person fouling should be thrown out immediately. But more than likely we will feel that we are experiencing an ongoing set of fouls that start to eat at us and get us down. God doesn’t want us to be in that place.  He gives us hope, promises, blessings and peace so that we can overcome what has been set upon us. We can’t control when we get fouled, but we can control how we react and respond.

Reference: Psalm 15:4 (New Living Translation)