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 2030: Duty Distribution

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“And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility.Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word.”

Not everyone can be the boss.  In fact, in almost all companies, it comes down to one person as the boss and everyone else works in some capacity for that one person.  And the boss decides how the company will be run. Those who run their companies well realize very specifically what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and who can do that work the best because of their talent and experience.  Those companies who flounder are those who do just the opposite; don’t define the work well, don’t get specific about dates and times when things are due, and haphazardly allow people to work on things, regardless if they are the best, or not.  And more often than not, they spend too much time asking people to do things that they don’t have the talent or experience, in hope they will prove someday that they do.  But until then, there remains lots of room for failure.

The Bible is not short on examples of distributing duties.  We read much of that in the Old Testament, but even in the New Testament, Peter and the Apostles were being pulled in all directions as they tried to both teach and administer.  Yet, they learned quickly, and they sorted out that there would be seven people would take care of the administration duties so that the Apostles didn’t have to concern themselves with finding food and shelter, only teach.  It’s a great lesson for us as we consider where we are gifted, and where we are not.  I know.  We want to be great at everything.  But, guess what?  We aren’t!  The secret is knowing we aren’t and then letting go of what others can do better so that we can focus on where we excel.  And so it is with our gifts.  It’s worth taking the time to truly acknowledge what God has gifted us with, and then first and foremost, ensure that we are at our best in those areas before we dilute ourselves too thinly and miss what those gifts were meant to enable through us.

Reference: Acts 6: 3-4 (New Living Translation)