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 2086: Slack

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“Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done.”

Slack is the business communication tool of the day.  It was designed to upend email and get communication channels in place that allow us to communicate in the same we work, in teams, pods, groups, etc. It was created to create slack for us.  This last week, one of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, wrote of the importance of slack, but he wasn’t writing about the communication tool.  He was writing about the slack we all need in our schedule and lives in order to be creative, postured, ready and peaceful.  I wrote yesterday that right now, I have no slack, but that doesn’t mean it will be like that forever.  Our business cycles all have slack time and if we work towards making that time the most productive, we will be more than ready for the times of no slack.

I marvel how Jesus could, under all the pressure and stress that he had, minister without any slack. Think about it for a second.  For three years, he was on, 24-7 without a pause, and at the same timing knowing what was coming in a short amount of life’s time.  I have a friend who I have gotten to know through playing golf with him.  Last week he was diagnosed with advanced and spreading cancer.  He now has no slack in his life.  Over him now hangs the stress and pressure that we all want to avoid.  He now will struggle with how to find any peace.  This past weekend, our speaker at our church challenged us to pray Jesus’ prayer that He prayed in the garden the night before His death.  Not the first part, that’s easy.  But instead, the second part, which is to allow God’s will be done, regardless. My take away is that it is the entire trusting on God’s will for us is the only way we can find the true peace of slack in our lives.

Reference:  Matthew 26:42 (New Living Translation)