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 1959: Tea Bags and Hot Water

“…for anger gives a foothold to the devil.”

Eleanor Roosevelt is credited with saying, “A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water”.  The same can be said of leaders and managers. All is good until the water heats up and then we know what we are truly made up of.  This can be extended to our companies as well.  We don’t really know what we are made of until we get into some trouble and then our true selves will emerge.  The question we have to ask is, “Do we know who will we be when the heat is on?”

We are taught to not be angry and that patience is a fruit of the spirit.  If in the heat, we don’t control our temper and exercise patience then we might be showing others that our faith is weak, not strong like the tea bag that gets stronger the longer it stays in the hot water.

Reference: Ephesians 4:27 (New Living Translation)