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 1199: Blurred Lines

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“Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.”

No, this is not a post about the hit pop song of the summer.  This post is about what happens everyday in our work that causes all kinds of problems but can so easily be avoided.  Blurred lines are the discrepancies between what someone thinks they are supposed to be doing and what is actually expected that they do.  Let me give you an example:

“Can you update the group next week on our deal flow?”

“Sure, I’ve got it.”

Next week the CEO asks for the update on the deal flow:

“I’m here to give the update”

“Great, can you pass around the reports?”

“I, uhm, didn’t actually prepare any written materials. I thought I was just supposed to give an update”.

“How can we understand the flow if we can’t see the deals in process.  Go back and get this ready for next meeting and in the meantime, I guess we will just have to wait on you (said snarkily).”

In the debrief the conclusion is that this was a series of honest mistakes but no one is happy and the business has stalled because of blurred lines of what was supposed to have happened and what didn’t.  A few clarifying questions would have solved the whole problem.  When in doubt, there is a high chance of blurred lines happening.  Following up with one question can nail it all down,

“So I am sure I have this right, what would be the definition of a home run success from what you are asking me to do?”

That will do it…no blurriness.

Sometimes we need to go back and take out the blurriness of what is expected from us as we do our best to bring glory to God in our work and lives.  Jesus removed the blurred lines when he boiled down all of the commandments and said that we are to live with this as our most important commandment: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.”  If we truly were/are to follow this commandment then we would find that all else falls in place. As we head into the office today, let’s step back and ensure that our actions, thoughts and energies are all factored against what Jesus gave us a clear line of what we are to do and be.

Reference: Matthew 22:37 (New Living Translation)