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 721: Start to Finish

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“Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.”

Every business or organization has its own business cycle that it follows. For some it can be a long cycle of product development, review, approval, customer acceptance, etc. For others, it is opening the door and counting the customers and cash register receipts by the hour. Regardless, there is a beginning that is filled with expectation and hope and unlimited upside; there is a middle of assessing and adjusting an necessary; and there is a conclusion of measurement and reconciling. For those who believe in continuous improvement, there are also postmortems to decide what worked well and what didn’t and then an application to the process, design or service to make things bigger and better for next time. The best businesses do it all. They know and prepare for a starting point and rally their organization towards that day or moment. They are watching from start through middle to end to recalibrate if need be, and they know how to conclude and celebrate in a way that brings the troops back for the next time.

We are the same way in our own jobs and the different aspects of our lives. We have cycles and seasons that we have to understand and manage. Having just experienced my first true hurricane season event, I found David’s words so true. With each morning as we prepared for Hurricane Irene; through the start of the blowing winds; through the passing of the middle of the storm, to the aftermath of nearly 90 hours without power; it was each morning waiting expectantly to see how the day would unfold. David teaches us to bring those requests and needs to God each morning and let that be our cycle, start to finish. His words and God’s promise are good ones. If we can string together day after day of listening for his voice and bringing ourselves to Him daily then from start to finish of the day, we will be as prepared for own work and life cycle as we can be.

PS: Thank you for the prayers, notes, support and encouragement this past week.

Reference: Psalm 5:3 (New Living Testament)