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 876: Sit With It

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“Teach me, and I will keep quiet. Show me what I have done wrong.”

In business we are not good at letting ideas, actions, things just sit. One of the harder things to do is to shelve an idea, knowing that someone else will likely pick it up and run with it and then we will kick ourselves for not having followed through. Am I alone in this feeling? But, great companies and great leaders know how to say no and they know how to let the right things sit and how to have others get picked up and moved forward. There are a number of businesses that have failed because they wanted to be all things for all people and they moved forward when they should have let things just sit. We should each evaluate how and what needs to be put on the sideline and let sit for awhile until the time is right, if ever. We’d find that our focus, momentum and progress just might improve.

I read this in Christianity Today last month. It was written by Mark Galli and stuck with me. “At one point in the movie Patton, General Omar Bradley tells General George Patton that Patton may be given a crucial assignment: leading troops in the invasion of Europe. Though he had played a decisive role in the battle for Africa and in the invasion of Sicily, Patton at the time was cooling his heels in England, having been disciplined for slapping a soldier in a field hospital. So Patton is anxious to get back into the thick of battle, and when he hears about the possible assignment, he can hardly contain himself. Bradley tells him no decision has been made, that it’s in the hands of General George Marshall. Patton is a man of action, who took initiative while others stood around deliberating their options. But when he heard that his fate lay in the hands of Marshall, he calmed down. “He’s a good man,” he said of Marshall. “At least he’s a fair man. I’ll let it with him.” He said this based on his knowledge of who Marshall in fact was and how he comported himself in action. The god we know, the God we’ve seen in action has done this: He died for us. It is because of this that we way with confidence, “He’s a good God. He’s a fair God. All these questions that torment us – we can let those sit with this God.”

Reference: Job 6:24