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 687: Acceptance: Part 2 – Shallowness

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“The good soil represents the hearts of those who truly accept God’s message and produce a huge harvest – thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as has been planted.”

Yesterday we explored that one of the reasons it is so hard for new talent to join and integrate into our companies is that we have created a pavement like barrier that never allows new talent to find a place and take root. Another cultural watch-out would be to evaluate those employees who come into the company and seem to get off to a great start and start taking hold but within a time-frame stop performing and growing. It is almost like they reach a plateau and then never quite live up to the expectations that we had for them when hired. Before we blame it all on that we we made a bad hire we should look and see how deeply we have invested in them. It may well be that the new person comes in, establishes themselves but then never gets developed or taught about the company and culture much beyond what they learned in orientation. They may also not have been given a way to get to know more people in the company, or have been given a mentor/buddy to show them the ropes. They become like seeds that are planted in shallow ground; they can take root and grow but they are not going to be able to go deep and establish themselves enough that they get fed, or watered enough and when the winds blow hard or something comes around to wash them out, that they too easily just go away. It may be that just the demands and the heat of the pressures cause them to just burn out and with no understanding or context of the company, they make the easy choice and leave. Providing only a shallow layer for new people to take root is an acceptance problem that we want to make sure is not part of our culture.

Jesus says that the Farmer sows the seeds into the shallow ground and it all looks good at first but when the sun comes out that the plants quickly wilt and die. We are so like this aren’t we? We go to church on Sunday and we leave so excited and replenished in His message and with each passing day of the week and the heat of the world, we can feel like we are wilting under the pressure and we just burn out. What God promises us is that it doesn’t have to be this way. If we truly accept His ongoing gifts and we commit to go deep with Him, He won’t let us wilt. But, that acceptance is our choice and we have to be willing to provide the soil of our lives that allow for His promising message to go deep and then tap into His nourishment. We can start today with opening up His Word and allowing him to take deeper roots in our lives.

Reference: Matthew 13: 1-23 (New Living Testament)