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 2034: Parachutes

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“Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.”

I remember a long time ago Management Consultant, Gregory Smith, encouraging companies to make sure everyone in their company had a “parachute”.  At first reading, I was thinking that he meant a parachute as in some rip-cord safe-landing way to exit the company.  It wasn’t what he meant at all.  He described training as the parachute that all not only needed, but everyone deserved.  It’s true.  We send in new people or experienced people into something new and tell them, “You’ll figure it out”, and when they fail, it becomes their problem as they depart the company.  But what if?  What if we said, before, each and every time, we asked someone to do something new, we ensured that they received ample and proper training for the task or job at hand?  Imagine that we could reduce failure or rework rates by 50% or more?  In your business, would it be worth it?  I think if pencil goes to paper, we could be looking at packing some parachutes!

I fail each and every day.  The other day a friend (and one of the longest reading followers of purposed worKING) introduced me to someone else and he said we both were to him two of the more consistent men of faith he knew.  We both blushed a bit and looked at each other, and almost simultaneously confirmed verbally that we are sinners spared and saved only by grace.  What we were also saying is that we have with us at all times, THE parachute, who will always save us from our falls and failings.  So, lets each repack that parachute today with Him as we ready for another day of doing our best for His glory.

Reference: Jude 1:24 (New Living Translation)