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 1982: No Grudges

“When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.”

“I don’t get revenge, I get even”, said the CEO to everyone else around him who could hear.  He held grudges and because he did, the organization became one of “getting even”.  And that wasn’t just internal, but also external. And so, there wasn’t much trust among anyone and the worse thing one could do was cross another for it would definitely come back around.  You can only imagine what the culture became and also what opportunities were missed to either take a risk or push and disagree on an issue.  And all because one person held grudges.  Let’s not allow our organizations to slip into this silent but deadly mode.

Our God of the Old Testament didn’t hold anything back.  When He was mad, He showed it.  And He did what He said He was going to do.  But, we also learn that He didn’t hold grudges.  Look no further than in the book of Jonah when He spared Ninevah from destruction because the city residents became repentant.  And this same God, carried that same approach through Jesus as He spares us when we repent and come to Him.  He holds no grudges and if we are to be bring glory to Him today, then we have to let our grudges go too.

Reference: Jonah 3:10 (New Living Translation)