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 1079: Organization Charts

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“His army was enrolled according to ancestral clans. From Judah there were 300,000 troops organized in units of 1,000, under the command of Adnah.”

Organization charts are as old as time. From the beginning we have had armies and the breakdown of the troops into smaller, more manageable units constitutes an organization and thus a way to see this breakdown visibly is an organization chart.  Lots of books have been written on how to organize and the newest to break the scene is “The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office” by Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan.  What the authors do is not only tell us about how companies can organize but also how we can provide greater productivity and efficiency through how we define work, incentives and output. They also posit that at the end of the day that how most companies have organized is pretty good and that with all of the fancy and innovative organization schemes that there is room for improvement, but we can still find that the traditional also works. The need for Managers still exist and the need for someone to define and hold accountable an outcome is still in fashion.

Even Jesus showed us a way to organize around His 12 disciples.  Much more than 12 (which I will explore again soon) and there comes a need for someone in between.  What I find fascinating and reassuring in Christ is that He never needed to put someone between Him and us.  Some religions do that, but as we read in God’s Word, He is the way, the truth and the life and we are all to be organized around Him, directly to Him. So, as we think today about how we organize our work and our lives, let’s be sure and keep Him at the top of the organization chart!

Reference: 2 Chronicles 17:14 (New Living Translation)