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 1520: Building Social Currency: Part 2 – Context Matters

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I clipped out an article in 2010 from Fast Company  that was written by Ben Paynter, titled “Five Steps to Social Currency”.  I was so struck by Paynter’s five steps/lessons that I thought they would be worth exploring in depth and applying some of our purposed worKING thoughts to what he has written.  This will be the second in our five part series.

“Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord…”

I’ve written before about the importance of context when we go to market or sell.  The same is also true internally.  The employee who asks for a raise or promotion during a tough financial quarter or during a pressured month to hit the numbers, is probably not going to get what they want.  But, those companies, and people within a company, who understand how to use context to their advantage will be the ones to close the deal.  There is a reason we don’t sell school supplies in April or coats in July.  I’m over simplifying, but you get the point.  Paynter speaks of how even more important this is in the social realm.  Being out of context is like trying to strike up a conversation about basketball at a World Series Game 7 in the bottom of the ninth with the game tied.  So, we have to have a good sense of the contextual layers that come with building and delivering a successful message.

If we want to strengthen our testimony and witness, we would be advised to take a few lessons on how to read context. While being an encourager is a gift, even the best encourager knows that trying to shower someone with platitudes and accolades when instead what they need is a listening ear to hear their pain and hurting, can be more damaging than good.  I don’t at all want to take away from those who praise the Lord all day long, but the context of the workplace is important to recognize.  Jesus may have been the best ever at reading and applying context to what He came to tell us.  No one ever read the hearts and minds of people like He did and when He responded, it was nothing short of miraculous in what happened.  Well, actually it was all miraculous, because over 2000 years later we still are learning from Him.  Consider today the context that you work within and see how you can take that context and bring Christ alive in a way that matters to those around you.

Reference: Deuteronomy 28:10 (New Living Translation)