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 846: Accurate Wieghting

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“The Lord detests the use of dishonest scales, but he delights in accurate weights.”

I have written many times before about the importance of accuracy, integrity, and honesty, etc. I have even used the verse above literally as we think about the work that we do when it comes to completing a transaction. I had someone pull a fast one on me last weekend in Austin at SxSw. It was raining hard on Friday night and there wasn’t much of an option to get across town other than to grab a taxi. Imagine trying to get a cab in NYC on Friday afternoon at 5pm when it is raining. That was the same difficulty we were having on this rainy Friday night in Austin, TX. When it comes to this dilemma, I have resolved to find a hotel and have the bellman get you the cab. We went to the W Hotel which was around the corner from the Austin City Limits Music Hall. The bellhop, a young guy, does his job and within a couple of minutes we had a cab waiting. All I had was $20 and I asked him to give me back $17. As I got in the cab and unfolded the wad of ones and fives he had stuffed in my hand I found $13, not $17. An honest mistake maybe? But I knew it wasn’t as I looked back out of the rain dripped window and he was looking right at me to see if I had caught him or not. Had I not been in the car with others and we were already moving, and it wasn’t so wet and cold outside and the cab was dry and warm, I would have stopped and gone back. So, that kid picked up a few extra bucks, but with it, he hurt the reputation of the “W” and his other bellhops, which neither I or the other people in my cab, will forget. The point is, it’s the little things that can really matter. It always is and always will be.

As believers and ones who represent our Lord in our everyday lives and work, we can’t afford to cheat the system. The stakes are way too high for us to cut the corners and be vulnerable to others feeling like we didn’t deal with them fairly. Let’s today take a hard look at what we are doing and working on to be sure that we are accurately weighting how important our integrity and character is for those around us. The tip of the scales in a way that disfavors another can be more negatively heavy than we know.

Reference: Proverbs 11:1 (New Living Testament)