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 2053: Denying Others

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“When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he asked, “What are you really accomplishing here? Why are you trying to do all this alone while everyone stands around you from morning till evening?”

This post may be, from the title, not what you expect.  This post is about what we deny others when we try and do too much ourselves.  It is human nature that we sincerely believe we can do better ourselves than someone else can do.  Call it confidence, ego, or worse yet even arrogance, but the reason many of us get things done is because we roll up our sleeves and just do it ourselves.  But, even though the job gets done it doesn’t mean that the work gets done in the best way.  What is always best is that when we do something that others could learn and would one day be able to do the task as well, if not better than we can do, that we consider letting them do it versus hang onto it ourselves.  And so, it becomes important for organizations to stay regenerative and that demands each of us being willing to give away, teach and pass along work for others to develop from.  And if we don’t?  Then we run the risk of denying others their full potential.

And so it is with how we treat others and what they see from each of us.  Not only do we run a risk of not doing the right thing by trying to do everything ourselves, we also risk having others feel like we have squeezed from them their opportunity and their potential.  But, on the other hand, when we do allow others to grow, develop, expand and blossom, we might create an opening for us to model the life that Christ has asked us to model.  God desires for us to hoard nothing, but to be giving in all that we do.  So, let’s not overlook the impact we can have by giving away to others what allows them to grow and prosper.

PS: Happy Leap Day!

Reference:  Exodus 18:14 (New Living Translation)