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 759: Paying Dividends

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“How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out
of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things”

There is lots of talk on Wall Street right now about paying of dividends. Companies that had suspended their dividend payments during the Great Recession are now being questioned as to when they will restore those payments, if ever? Companies that currently pay dividends and are recording record profits are being challenged to raise their dividends. Those who never paid a dividend, but are sitting on a tremendous amount of cash that they aren’t using for acquisitions or R&D are being challenged to give back that capital to the shareholders. It’s that time of the year when money managers are trying to see what their annual returns will be and dividends can be an important piece in that puzzle. Whether or not a company pays a dividend is not really as much about their financial condition as it is their belief system and how they consider and treat their shareholders. If there is a high consideration on their shareholders and the contributions that they make, then the dividend payments just become part of what they do and plan. Down deep in their corporate psyche do they believe they should pay, or not?

The dividends that are paid and expressed from our beliefs are those that we also choose to act upon or not. While we may put on a good show for a bit, when we are faced with troubles and challenges we will default to our core beliefs and actions and if they are not right, then what come from us will not be productive or in the example of Christ. Jesus says it to us in Matthew bluntly. From good, comes good. From evil, comes evil. It’s that simple. It’s that complicated. It’s that hard to stay to strong in our core beliefs so that we don’t drift and cause a problem. Think about what dividends you are paying out from the life that you live. How you speak, how you work, how you conduct your business can all be indicators and strong examples to others. We are held to high standards and we have to constantly monitor those dividends come from us.

Reference: Matthew 12:34-35