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 1004: Conversations – Part 1: First Names

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“Then he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

Business is full of conversations. All day long we have them, repeat them, track them and follow up on them.  More than any of us would like these conversations can also get muddled, discombobulated, turned around, and downright misquoted or misstated.  While conversations can be powerful, they can also be dangerous if not guarded and tended.  Today we have software to help us in our conversations.  Salesforce has “Chatter”. Microsoft bought “Yammer” and of course we can still fall back on email, texts and Facebook.  But, the most important conversations we have are one-on-one when it’s just two people in real-time trying to solve a problem, create a solution, set a plan, or resolve a dispute, etc.  What is so powerful about these conversations is that it is the melding of two people who know each other, hopefully have some level of trust (if not, then it’s either an argument or a discussion) and can call each other by first name in a way that endears, strengthens and solidifies the relationship. The best conversations occur between people who are on first name basis.  The question for us in our businesses and organizations is what are we doing to ensure that the relationships between our people and teams is strong enough to withstand whatever conversation is thrust upon them?  Can we say today that everyone is on first name basis with each other?

At my church http://cornerstone-sf.org our Pastor is teaching on the conversion of Saul.  There are many. many lessons to take from this account, but one that struck me from the beginning of the series is that Jesus called Saul by first name when he spoke.  This is how God gets to us.  When we finally realize that He knows us by our first name and like when someone calls us by first name, even when walking down the street, we just can’t ignore the shout out.  First names are powerful.  If we want to model Jesus, then we might think about taking the time and the effort to know the first names of everyone around us so that when the time comes for us to call or say their names, in whatever the circumstance, they will know we care enough to have learned who they are.  That is our Lord.  He knows who we are and calls us, all the time, by our first name.

Reference: Acts 9:4 (New Kings James Version)