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 2046: O.T.E.

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“The thorny ground represents those who hear and accept the Good News but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares of this life, and the lure of wealth, so no crop is produced.”

Anyone who has worked in sales organizations or been a sales person, especially in software sales, knows what “O.T.E” means.  O.T.E. is what they work for and what they care about.  O.T.E. stands for “On Target Earnings”.  This is what a sales person would earn if she/he delivers all of their sales revenue, on target to their goal.  And so, O.T.E. becomes a very transparent and well-known number.  What is interesting is that we don’t have any issues with sales people knowing and being open with their O.T.E., but we get squeamish when those not in sales roles start talking about what they think they should earn. Instead of embracing that number and trying to figure out how to get someone to that target or something close, we will many times try to argue that number down or away.  And when that happens, then we run the risk of losing the spirit of commitment from that employee.

Jesus wasn’t against those who made money.  In fact, He and His disciples had to count on those who could support them as they ministered.  But, he was clear that when we allow Him and His message to get overwhelmed and crowded out by ways of the world, then we have set our priorities in the wrong order and put at risk that we miss out on what He is trying to give us.  So, we need to be sure that we have our targets set correctly.

Reference: Matthew 13:23 (New Living Translation)