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 2141: Listening To Understand

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“Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “Listen,” he said, “and try to understand.”

Over the weekend, Patti and I attended the Napa Valley Film Festival.  The last movie of the weekend for us was a documentary titled, “Big Sonia”.  It was the story of an 86 year old Holocaust survivor and how she and her family are telling her story.  In one of the scenes she meets with a group of prisoners who have been in jail for 30 years and more.  She meets with them to leave her version of hope, forgiveness and survival.  There is a poignant moment when one of the prisoners speaks about what he learned from listening to Sonia and he says to the camera, “It sometimes takes someone who has been through something to reach those who are going through something.”  I was struck by his simple but powerful lesson of empathy that can come in the form of storytelling and listening.  I also was inspired to consider that if we are someone who has been through something, we have a story to tell that could be helpful to those who need us.  The idea of mentoring, or coaching, or advising, or just being there when called upon is a critical element to creating success for others in our businesses and organizations.  But, just as powerful is the message of listening to understand and the influence that can have on others.

Jesus encouraged us all to listen to His parables and to try our best to understand.  He was not only telling us to do this to grow our faith, but also He was telling us stories for us to learn to be empathetic and to care about what others are going through and in this, we learn about ourselves.  I am struck by the number of people we meet who never listen to others, and come across as knowing it all.  This is not the example of Christ.  Jesus listened.  Jesus asked us questions within the parables so that we could find our own way to Him.  Let’s consider, especially in these times of strong-willed points of view which, we are bombarded with daily, that we could best bring glory to Him by taking another approach and listening to understand.

Reference:  Matthew 15:10 (New Living Translation)