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 1098: Trappings of Success

purposed worKING No Comments

“What is your charge against this man?”

When we are successful we can get caught in taking ourselves too seriously.  When this happens we can find ourselves acting out as we would be expected in someone in a position such as ours.  We can start to dress like we think we should.  We can start to hang with people that others want us to hang and who we think help support our position of success.  We can start to go to meetings, conferences, places that benefit our persona/brand more than give us growth or really mean anything to us.  We can start to take on the language of those like us and what we are expected.  If we are not careful, we can trapped by success and before long we are making decisions and moves that are those that are expected, instead of what we think are right or should be happening.  This doesn’t just happen with individuals.  Companies can also fall into the trappings of success and find themselves not innovating or resisting change and compromise because of their position of success.  Watch out, the trappings of success are subtle but very real and very, very dangerous.  Once trapped, it is very hard to escape.

We are nearing Easter weekend and all around the world churches are teaching the Easter account and the lessons that we can take from the events that occurred in the days leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion.  Our church in San Francisco, Cornerstone is doing the same.  The last two weeks we have we looked at the decision of Pilate and it was clear that he was a man who was trapped in his own success and when his final decision was to be made, He was so much a caricature of his position that for him to have gone against the request of the people would have been out of character and unseemly for one in his position.  We can learn something about ourselves in the actions of Pilate.  Have we ever been in the position where we wanted to stop and help someone else or go against the decision of the group but we haven’t because we are trapped into our own success and to to do something unexpected would put continued success at risk? Sure we have.  Now the question needs to be – will we stay trapped or will we rescue ourselves from this going further?  Consider today and as we get closer to Easter what trappings need to be shed?

Reference: John 18:29 (New Living Translation)