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 1084: The Discipline Of Constraint

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“Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just, and fair.”

One of the easiest things to lose in business is the discipline to be constrained.  There are no shortage of ideas, sometimes really big and great ideas, but being disciplined to show constraint is a real skill and one that is correlated to success.  Having a ruthless discipline to stay focused without drifting is not an ordinary trait that we find across companies and leaders.  Most cannot help themselves from building on, adding in, expanding, or brainstorming for the next big idea, before the current mission is accomplished.  In yesterday’s post about the Dunbar Model, we read that it might be that our physiological and neurological constraints of being able to hold a maximum of 150 meaningful relationships is a good thing to know and understand. Similarly, if we were to understand that we are not built with constraint as a normal human trait we could learn to discipline ourselves to this need.  In a recent Businessweek article, the successful venture capitalist Jerry Murdock said this about constraints (as he was referencing Dunbar’s theory); “And it’s the constraints that make great architecture. It’s the constraints that make great companies”.  Consider if your organization understands and has in its’ DNA the discipline of constraint.

God’s Word is chocked full of the need for us to practice constraint in our lives.  Many will read these constraints as legalism and as such, rebel against them and say that they are taking away from our abundantly-to-be-lived lives.  But, as we know, with constraint comes learning.  With constraint comes an increase in our understanding and context of an issue, problem or opportunity.  With constraint comes time, longer-thoughts, and conversation.  It’s worthwhile to take stock of our lives and know where we are practicing constraint and where we are not.  If we are seeking to hear, understand and know God, it is more than likely that we will find Him in the places where we are disciplined and showing constraint than in the places where we are not.

Reference: Proverbs 1:3 (New Living Translation)