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 685: Fair Trade

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“The Lord demands fairness in every business deal; he sets the standard.”

Fair trade treaties are written between countries to ensure that a set of business standards are set and followed. We have laws in the United States that regulate how we can advertise, market, represent products, set pricing, etc. Yet, with all of this, we find businesses and business people who still try and tilt the scales away from fairness and take advantage of a consumer or a vendor. What should be fair, can easily end up being unfair. I sometimes marvel at the companies that have payment terms that are on receipt (immediate) when they themselves won’t pay their vendors for 30, 60 or even 90 days. We take it for granted that this is fair because the company gets the cash flow, etc. but for that vendor who barely makes it by, they don’t see the fairness. We seem to forget in business and how/when we create our policies and practices that what is good for one should be good for another, or better said, we should only do unto others what we would want done to us. If we lead a business, or any part of it, it would be a good practice to review and evaluate policies against a standard of true fairness.

As believers, followers of Jesus, and striving to be good business people, we can’t ignore the words of Solomon in Proverbs 16:11. He tells us that the Lord “demands” fairness. Notice this is not, “wants” or “desires”, Solomon tells us that fairness is a requirement! And, this is not in some events and circumstances, but instead in “every business deal”. It is God who sets the standard that we must follow. If we cut a corner, if we tip the scales, if we don’t establish fairness as our way of doing business, then we are not living up to His standards. Today, let’s take a look at how fair we are being and be sure that we are working and living up to His standard!

Reference: Proverbs 16:11 (New Living Testament)