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 2130: Controllers

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“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

We generally don’t like command and control type of leadership style. We don’t like controllers.  No one does, except for Finance Leaders.  Most public companies have a Controller and that is their job, to “control” the finances of the company.  They are very black and white in their approach to business and they report to, or have a close relationship with, the Audit Committee to assure that nothing is out of control.  But even Controllers have to learn to do their job in a way that doesn’t alienate or put down others.  We all know someone who loves to be controlling in their style and we also know that if they are not careful, they will find themselves surrounded by no one, because no one likes to be controlled.  So, unless you have the title of Controller, and even if you do, a culture of controlling is not a culture that will bring to and keep the best people in the company.

Do you consider Jesus a controller over us?  He certainly could have been but God chose that this was not the way that Jesus would be with us.  Instead of being the controller, he is the shepherd who leads us not because he controls us to do so, but because we choose to follow.  If we don’t want to be controlled, we don’t have to be, but if we don’t control ourselves then we won’t be following the way of the great shepherd, the great non-controller.

Reference: Matthew 9:36 (New Living Translation)