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 1138: Counter Trends

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“Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for the next three and a half years!”

It’s hard, but not impossible to make prognostications about future trends and we will be right some percentage of the time.  But, to make predictions that are counter to trends that we see now or expect to emerge, well that takes guts and the risk of being right is much .  We all know plenty of people around us who can stand around and be dark and gloomy, predicting the worse.  Unfortunately, they will be right at some point like the weather forecaster who always predicts some chance or rain…yes, it will rain at some point, so he/she can say they were right.  But, to find people in our companies who see the future in a totally different light and predict that the trends will take a 90 degree turn, well, those people are precious and if  fortunate enough to have one or more of them, then do all you can to hold onto them and keep them thinking and talking!  Those companies who set the trends, not just follow are the leaders of tomorrow.  When we were all writing long and exhaustive blogs and posts, who would have thought that 140 character real-time messaging would make sense.  Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone thought so…thus Twitter.

It’s not hard for us as believers to know what the counter trends are all around us.  Our workplaces are consistent with competition, backbiting, negativity, speaking ill will of others, etc.  Yet, our faith is grounded in love, humility, encouragement, grace, forgiveness and positive words.  When we stand and act upon our values and beliefs we are counter trending and this is noticed.  It’s that easy, and that hard.  Will you find yourself  going with or being counter to the trends around you?

Reference: James 5:17 (New Living Translation)