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 882: Living By the Rules

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“Your laws are always right; help me to understand them so I may live.”

For every rule, there is someone who wants everyone to abide by it, someone who wants to change it, someone who doesn’t care whether it is there or not, and someone who just wants to break the rule.  Some people, like entrepreneurs are wired to look past the rules and then try and create new ones that best benefit their cause.  They start from a place of bringing about change, new, improved or different and then go from there.  If properly channeled this can be the secret of success and the drive that is needed to push through with a startup or new venture.  Staring down the barrel of conventional wisdom and not blinking is an admiral trait.  That said, this works best at the top of the organization with Founders/CEOs and is less effective the further spread into the organization this goes.  Sure, we talk a lot about “intrapreneurs”, but at the end of the day if everyone in the organization was about bucking the system, there wouldn’t be a system at all and that would translate to chaos and anarchy.  And, as we are mature enough to know those two characteristics cannot sustain a company.  So, let’s celebrate the entrepreneurs and the rule busters, but let’s also be sensible about it and be sure that all that we build is built on a foundation of the right values, principles and ethics.

God gave us laws first and then underpinned those with a set of values that should be inarguable. Even those who don’t believe can’t argue that the lessons of Jesus are applicable to a better organization and life.  Those of us who believe know that they are so much more. The lessons of Jesus are the love that He gave to us and the example of how we are to live out that love for others to see, recognize and become believers themselves.  How do we do this?  We do it through following His rules and subordinating ourselves to Him.  There are some times in life where living by the rules is the best route to take. 

Reference: Psalm 119:114 (New Living Testament)