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 1167: Consistency

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“He prayed three times a  day, just as he always had done…”

I was surprised to hear someone I know say (almost bragging) about being, “Consistently inconsistent”.  As soon as the words came out of her mouth, her husband validated this with, “And, that is the hardest thing about you”.  Wow, that was an honest exchange, and it was out in the open with other people around to hear the disclosures.  This interchange reminded me that if there is anything really hard to manage is consistent inconsistency, because even though you know to never expect the same more than once, knowing that there will always be an unknown to be expected can drive you crazy.  Okay, as we know, our businesses can’t run this way, otherwise we would never have a repeat customer and soon we would be out of business.  But, let’s think about the fact that inside of our companies there are many people and people like this person who likes to be consistently inconsistent.  Are we to think that these personal trait don’t carry over into the work that is being done, work that we expect to be consistently performed?  This is why we must pay attention to the details and continue to simplify and ensure that consistency is designed into our work, so that we remove the risks of inconsistency.  Consistent inconsistency is an ingredient that will spoil any recipe for success.

The account of Daniel in the Bible is a tremendous lesson of consistency.  Daniel conquered many troubles and rose to the top of the organizational chart and through it all he carried consistencies in his life. One being that we learn most; that he prayed three times a day.  When decreed that he couldn’t do so any longer, he couldn’t stop and so he consistently carried on.  Consistency in our time with the Lord will carry us through the roughest patches and also be a shining example when others are watching how we deal with the troubles in the office and in life.  Trying to develop habits and consistency in the bad times is almost impossible, so now is the time to make consistency a hallmark of who we are so that others can expect that from us.  Our God is consistent, so should we be.

Reference: Daniel 6:10 (New Living Translation)