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 784: Influenced

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“Dear friend, don’t let this bad example influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do good prove that they are God’s children, and those who do evil prove that they do not know God.”

Within our work places they are all kinds of people who we could call influencing. The boss of course, those who work at the top of the organization, the Board, etc. But there are far more influential people within companies than those who have official titles. We know who they are if we will only stop and think about it for a moment. These are the people who for either positive, or not so positive reasons, people listen to and watch for the cues as to what they are up to or not. A study was done a few years ago about who were the influencing kids in a school and fashion was the barometer. The researcher kept asking kids why they wore the shoes they did and each time the answer would be because someone else did. The researcher kept following the names of the ones who were influencing until they got to the kid who said, I wear them because I think they are cool to wear. He was an influential. Why? It’s an intangible sometimes that is hard to pin down, but what’s important is that we know who the influencers are so that we can utilize them to help establish, move, and spread messages. Keeping our eyes open to know who these people are can make a difference in how we manage our businesses.

As there are those who are influential, we can also find ourselves being influenced. Why is it so easy to fall into the trap of following a bad example? Hard to know really, but going all the way back to high school it seemed like the “bad” influences attracted the “good”. Look no further than the movie Grease. The same happens around us everyday at the office. There will be those who are more political and undercutting. There are those who do the back channel talking. There are those who cut the corners and try and trim off the work. Lots of bad influences around us all day. The Bible tells us to watch for the examples around us so that we are not pulled down into their ways. We must stay above it and away from it as best we can. For when we are being influenced, we are influencing others. Think about that today. More to come on this tomorrow.

Reference: 3 John 1:11 (New Living Testament)