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 1107: Reflections

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“For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.”

We like to throw around the phrase, “You need to look into the mirror”, but how many times are you willing to do so yourself. We have just completed the first financial quarter of the year and it’s a clear bet that we start to see CEO heads begin rolling soon. The end of a fiscal year and the beginning of another and the numbers not tracking in the right direction is a recipe for CEO terminations.  We’ve seen some already but the pace will pick up.  When you get down under the changes, it is not unusual to hear people inside the company talk about how the departing CEO didn’t listen, didn’t pay attention to the handwriting on the wall, didn’t seek input and advice from others, didn’t do enough reflecting on who was causing the problems.  The mirror is always there, but we don’t like to take a look into it if we don’t think we are going to like what we are going to see.  But when we are in leadership positions, either as a company or a person, we have to be courageous and humble enough to take a look every now and then and see what we can find in the reflection.

God expects us to look into the mirror through His Word, prayer time and fellowship with other believers.  When we don’t do that, we are turning our heads to the reflections that we need to see.  Why is this important?  Well, obviously for each of us that is critical for our own spiritual walk.  But, more so, if we are not cognizant of how we are reflecting Christ to others then we run the risk of messing up a lot of the work that God wants to be done through us.  I remain convinced that He wants us to be as diligent in who we are Monday through Friday as there are many hours of influence and impact that can be made in the office.  Maybe more so there, than anywhere.

Reference: James 1: 23-24 (New Living Translation)