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 668: Knowledge Transfer

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“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”

Knowledge transfer is a hallmark of successful companies. If knowledge can’t move from one person to another or from one generation of leaders to another, then companies stagnate and can even die. There are plenty examples of companies that were on the top of the heap and then after the group of leaders who held the knowledge either left or didn’t learn fast enough, the company falls, fails and never recovers. But, companies or organizations who know how to transfer knowledge from person to person or throughout the organization can build upon a knowledge base and improve. When we look at those organizations that have gotten better and better are those that can learn. Without learning we can’t grow. If we can’t transfer the knowledge we have, either formally or informally, then it’s nearly impossible to grow. If any of us are somewhere where we don’t feel like we can transfer knowledge then we can take it upon ourselves to ensure that we are transferring at least what we know. If we hold it to ourselves, then what good is that? So, today, find someone who can benefit from something we know and transfer it to them.

We read in Hosea that if we don’t have knowledge, knowledge of God, then we are at real risk, even as Hosea writes, the risk of being destroyed. Is this really a risk that we want to take? We have at our fingertips the full knowledge that we need. God gave us his Word, His Book, to read, explore, dive into and most importantly, to make real in our lives. If we can make the knowledge real for each and every one of us and make it personal to the point that we thirst for more knowledge then we will never be at the point of the risk that Hosea tells us about. The knowledge that we need to transfer can never be passed along unless we obtain the knowledge ourselves? Any of us who have ever been asked by a child, the question that can’t be answered unless we really “know”, knows that we have to obtain the knowledge first before it can be transferred. So, what have we been doing today to increase our own knowledge to then be transferred?

Reference: Hosea 4:6 (New Living Testament)