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 2126: Talent Vs Character

“May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.”

I have been doing a fair amount of interviewing for one of my portfolio companies and I have been reminded that as we evaluate people it comes down to more of who someone is versus what they can do.  Yes, we need to have people who can do what we need, but if they do it in the wrong way, then they fail.  So, the how becomes as important, if not more important, than the what.  I recently heard a quote.  It was paraphrased to me so I probably don’t have it right, nor can I attribute it to anyone, but the way I heard it was like this, “Character can take you where your talent cannot sustain you.”  Whoever said this knew what they were talking about and we should take note.

God is all about who we are for Him.  He’d rather see us doing little things in life the right way to bring glory to Him versus big, grandiose activities that might have worldly impact but diminish who He is because we went about them in the wrong way.  For God, our character matters, way more than our talent.

Reference: Philippians 1:11 (New Living Translation)