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 2165: BAM!

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“For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.”

In one of my conversations this last week, the CEO was talking about being a “BAM” company.  His company is all that and more.  BAM being Business as Mission.  He and his investors are crystal clear on the mission that they and the business serve and from there the products, services, business model and profitability is driven. While it seems like this Utopia-type of thing is too far-fetched to be real, it’s not.  But how can it work in our businesses that were already established long ago or where we don’t have any sway or influence over the corporate “mission”?  Certainly it is harder but not impossible for each of as either leaders of a team or group or as co-workers to set out our own mission to which the work that our team or group does, or our individual work, can flip to being in the service of a mission that we have established.  A manager can set out the mission that she/he is committed for their team and align each person to the same.  In fact, even the act of that alignment can create a new and positive dynamic.  So, let’s go into this weekend thinking about what kind of BAM we can bring to bear!

Within this blog I try to give us ways to bring glory to God within our work.  What is truly wonderful about our God is that He allows us to turn everything inside out so that we can, when we allow Him to be within us, to work to His mission, not ours.  Sometimes, I, and I believe all of us, come to a place where we are frustrated because we just can’t seem to live up to what we think God’s mission is for us.  It is then that we can sometimes best see that the answer is not us living up, but us living through and allowing God to just be within us.  The comfort comes that the more we let ourselves be driven by His Spirit, the more we become aligned with what He has already set in place as the mission for us.

Reference: 1 Corinthians 3:9