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 1007: 110%

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“Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress”

“She gave it 110%!” 

We love to put “110%” out there as the number that signifies that someone gave it their all.  I don’t think it is physically possible to actually give 110% of yourself but that notwithstanding 100% of us would probably agree that if we are going to have our organizations achieving what we need to, that we need a large majority of the company who are willing to give 100% of themselves to the job at hand. No business or organization steps back and builds their products and work based on people giving 50% effort or some other low percentage.  We need the all of people to make significant and important strides forward.  The world we work in now is just too competitive for that not to happen. There are a number of major, well-known companies who are faltering today because their people are losing hope in the direction and leadership of the company and as such, I know they are not getting 100% because the market is flooded with the resumes of their employees.  It’s a worthwhile exercise to sit and make a list of the people on your team and put a % next to their names as to how much you think they are “giving” of themselves to their jobs.  If you are honest and you have people who end up with %’s that are less than 80%, then it’s time to take stock of what you need to do identify the problem and bring them back up in their contribution level. If you can’t, then you run the risk of losing them all together.

As ones who are working daily to bring glory to God in all that we do (our purpose), we just can’t afford to not give that effort 100%.  Paul tells Timothy to “throw” himself into his tasks.  We need to be willing to throw ourselves into God’s will and way for us.  Read the second part Paul’s statement for the result; “…so that everyone will see your progress”.  The world is watching, evaluating and always monitoring our progress.  We may not think this happening, but it is, all around us, all the time. Today, take note and put your own % next to your name as to how much are you giving of yourself to the Kingdom.

Reference: 1 Timothy 4:15 (New Living Translation)