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 855: Second-Hand Smoke

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“So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the message God has planted in your hearts, for it is strong enough to save your souls.”

In just about every part of the country we have now banned smoking in restaurants and places of public eating and drinking. There are lots of people who don’t like government and regulations but after enough years of knowledge and learning, for the most part, we have come to the conclusion that the government’s regulating smoking and in particular, second-hand smoke, is a good thing. It wasn’t that long ago we sat in restaurants, our offices, and in airplanes and inhaled the second-hand smoke of others. At that time, no one thought about the other people around a smoker, we were only concerned with the smoker themselves. We have since learned that the downstream affects of the products of a company and the actions of its’ consumers can have negative outcomes on others. If we were to stop and think about this in the times of product design and business plans, we might think differently about our businesses. I’m not saying that any of our businesses are creating second-hand smoke, but even in how we go about our business, conduct ourselves and our practices, and how we treat our people, can have their own negative consequences.

I can remember once as I was arguing for something that I thought was right, that someone said to me, “Who died and made you Pope?”. It startled me as I didn’t realize I was advocating so forcefully that I would come across as taking a moral high ground. It must not have been too important because I can’t even remember now what the conversation was about, but at the time I must have been passionate. As believers we are, by nature of our beliefs, burdened with watching for second-hand smoke impact. What I mean by that is that we have to monitor our own lives carefully and then we have to be willing to step up and into those areas where we have influence to be sure that we are not letting harm come to other people. And, no, it’s not always obvious what the cause and the effect is and can be. Allowing for that one person at work to be teased and made fun of behind his back could have ripple affects for generations on him and the others who get used to making the fun. It could be that we are put in the places we are put to be the ones to be the speed bumps, the blockades, the persuaders, and the ones who open the window for fresh air for others when the second-hand smoke comes in the room. It’s something to think about today.

Reference: James 1:21 (New Living Testament)