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 1071: Lying Around – Part 1: “Everybody Does It”

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“I must know one thing,” the king replied, “and tell me the truth.”…

Businessweek ran a story in last week’s edition titled, ” – “The Lies We Tell at Work :Why dishonesty thrives at the office” by reporter Christopher Bonanos. The title page of the story looked like this:

How often have you heard this list? 

  • “I really loved working with her. We didn’t have any problems”
  • “Yep, we’re almost done with that research”
  • No, I never got the message.  How weird”
  • “Wow, traffic was horrible getting in”
  • “It wasn’t my choice. My boss made me do it”
  • “Oh, that dinner was work-related”
  • “I don’t think I got that e-mail – maybe it’s in my spam folder”
  • “I can’t. I have a doctor’s appointment today at 5 p.m.”

Every been guilty of these, or others?  Of course you have, we all have.  The article basically says, “Everybody does it”. As Christopher Bonanos writes, lies are part of the workplace.  But, does that make them right?  Bonanos gives both sides of lying, but fortunately ends the article with “And our theory is that being honest is at the core of how we really want to perceive ourselves”.  The article is worth reading because this reminds us that lying is rampant and that companies that allow this create a very dangerous culture.

I am sure you know where I am going with this.  Just because “everybody does it”, doesn’t mean that we can.  Hiding behind that “everyone does it” is as ludicrous as when he heard Lance Armstrong say to the public that he didn’t see drugging as cheating because everyone else did it too.  Imagine standing in front of God and justifying being dishonest with this argument?  Ours is a greater responsibility and we simply cannot be part of the crowd that is “lying around”.  Today, yes today, we each will have tens, if not multiples of that times where we can speak truth or tell a lie.  Let’s today be about standing up and not “lying around”.

Reference: 2 Samuel 14:8 (New Living Translation)