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 927: Trade Balance

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“I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of fair balance between your present abundance and their need, that that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.”

Each month we can read the report on the national trade balance.  This is the measurement of how much output and exports that we create in comparison to how much we import for consumption. This is measured in U.S. dollars and is a key economic indicator.  I am not an economist and most of this is far above my “pay grade” but I am smart enough to know that it is important to have a balance in this and other areas where countries, organizations and people depend on each other.  When the U.S. imports too much over exporting then the trade balance becomes weighted and it causes power and economic struggles. This is why we want to keep things in “balance”.  The same is true in our businesses where we have to keep a balance between what we trade with our partners, suppliers and customers.  Even having one customer that is too large as a percentage of overall revenues can create an unbalanced set of consequences. We can extrapolate the words of trade balance into many situations in our businesses and quickly identify where the balance is skewed.  We would be wise to look at these and correct them so that balance can be restored, or achieved for the first time.

Finding a “trade balance” in our own work lives is also important.  Consider if we are giving as much to others as we are asking?  Also consider are we ensuring that our abundance is being put to the right purposes so that we are helping those in need?  Too many times, I think, we rush to think about our monetary balances and then become protective of our “wealth”.  But, we as believers, can and should think bigger than that.  Our abundance of time, or our abundance of strength, or our abundance of patience, or any of the fruits of the Spirit are all ours, not to hoard, but to share and spread to others. If we are willing to open our eyes and hearts to see the imbalances among us we can be the ones to step forward and be a testimony of Christ by leading the way back to balance.

Reference: 2 Corinthians 8:13-14