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 888: Auditing The Books

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“I search my soul and ponder the difference now.”

I had  lunch with a former public accountant and CFO. As we talked about many things, one of the topics we touched on were the challenges of financial accounting in these days of high-scrutiny, increased government regulations, and an overall anxiety from shareholders about how companies are managed and in particular, how the financial accounting is being done and reported. A Chief Accounting Officer that I once worked with taught me that a good bookkeeper (the old-fashioned term for financial controllers and accountants) is continuously examining the books and the financial records, and at the end of the financial period, where it be a month, quarter or fiscal year, that the process should be in place for a very fast close. He used to to say that a slow close left time for creativity. And, as we all know, two words that should never be paired are “creative” and “accounting”. The lesson learned from good bookkeeping is that there must be constant examination and scrutiny to ensure that the books are being kept correctly and that the numbers add up. It just makes sense.

Yet in our own lives, how often do we do our self-examinations to assure ourselves that we are being who we say we want to be and more importantly, who God wants us to be? If you are like me, not often enough. We might leave that examination period to be on Sunday morning, for example. Or we may leave that examination time for when we are in trouble and need to rethink how we are living because we are in a jam or a bad space. But, as the good bookkeeper knows; to find a problem after the end of a financial period, is to find a problem way too late. The only way to ensure that everything adds up and can be accounted for is to be looking at the books every single day. We must learn to do the same. King David not only examined himself continuously, he would go deep into his own personal accounting. We read in Psalm 77:6; “I search my soul and ponder the difference now.” He searched his soul to see where he stood in the eyes of God and to determine where he needed to make life course corrections. How often are we taking an account of our lives? How regularly do we self-examine our own personal books? Today, would be a good day to take a few minutes and check and see if everything is adding up the way you think God wants you to be? Today would be good day to do some good bookkeeping to make sure that all is in order, just in case today you are called to close your book!

Reference: Psalm 77:6 (New Living Testament)