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 3K206: Attributions

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“The man answered, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.'”

If you have worked in a company where there is a strong, iconic leader as CEO, you will immediately identify with this statement (you fill in the blank of the name of the CEO): “_______ said…”  I have worked in more than one of these companies, and if the statements and proclamations that were attributed to the CEO were actually true, then that CEO wouldn’t have had any time to do anything else but sit around and just talk about things from all over the business.  I used to like to challenge the attributions by asking, “When did he say that?” and “Did you personally hear him say that?”  Usually, it was hearsay, conjecture, or more often than not, a convenient attribution to help someone make their own point, or more simply said, a lie.  We do this at work and we see it happen in the press or social media from our political leaders and then we carry these false statements into our workplaces and our homes.  Why do we do it and more importantly, why do we think that we have to have a quote from the top to decide to agree or disagree one something?  This is our world.  In business and life there are more followers than leaders and the fear of making our own declarations that could be wrong force us into trying to figure out what the top is thinking and saying before we make our own moves.  It is dangerous and deadly to a company when we have to stop and hear what the top, or the next rung up the ladder says about something before we come to our own statement and point of view.

We like to think that we are grounded in God’s Word and that we know that what we are following is Biblical, but there are many quotes and sayings in our world that people think come from the Bible, but they don’t.  These are many times very good and inspirational statements, but they are not of God’s Word.  This matters as we are God’s example and testimony to Him today.  We ask why we need to be solidly grounded in God’s Word, this is one reason why.  Today, take a moment and be sure that you read some of God’s Word and let those words sit within your mind and heart.  You never know when you may be called on to speak encouragement, or consolation, or advice to another person.  In those moments, having God’s Word to call upon can and will be powerful.

Reference: Luke 10:27 (New Living Translation)