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 903: Ordinary Time

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“Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!”

In any business or organization we want to stand out from the crowd and want to be something extraordinary.  The truth is that most businesses are ordinary in the way that they aren’t the only business in the world to do what they do. And even if they are unique for a timeframe, there will be someone else. What happens though is that we start reading our own reviews and we get this persona that makes us think we are above others.  I’ve always admired the company that never allow that to happen to them, but instead become the “sages” of their industry and aren’t afraid to share knowledge, learning and experiences with others to make the pie bigger for everyone. The best strategic alliances happen because someone decides that their ego isn’t too big to work together as ordinaries, sharing their time.

 We also run this same risk as individuals.  If we begin to think that we are above the ordinary we are going to be living contrary to what we are told is part of how we are to conduct ourselves.  All around us are people who are influenced by our witness and example and if we try to act above our peers, subordinates, and others, then we can be thought of as prideful, full of ourselves and worse yet as arrogant.  Let’s this week work towards reminding ourselves that ordinary time is time well spent.

 Reference:  Romans 12:16 (New Living Testament)