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 1983: When Everyone Does It

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“The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.“

So much of change that wants to be accomplished gets hung up and derailed because not everyone, from the top of the organization to the bottom are all called to do the same thing, or make the same sacrifices.  We all have our stories about how the C-Suite doesn’t have to participate in a change, allowance or activity and how from that point on there isn’t buy-in from the rest of the organization. And that buy-in is especially not happening at the front line. Unless, everyone does it, it just never gets done.

When Jonah went into Ninevah to warn the people there of the impending doom (more on this tomorrow), everyone, including the King, sat in burlap bags in the dirt to show their repentance.  We are told that everyone did this and because of this God saw and listened. I’m pretty sure had it not been 100% participation that we wouldn’t be referencing this account of God’s mercy.  We are all asked to do things that we think are “below us”, but when this happens because we are being asked to participate with everyone else, then we can think back to why God spared the people of Ninevah; because they all did it.  As believers we are called to daily live in God’s ways and when we are asked to give of ourselves for the good of others, then we are becoming more like the least of us, and that is how God wants us to be.

Reference: Jonah 3:5 (New Living Translation)