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 662: The Ups And Downs Of Culture

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“A glad heart makes a happy face; a broken heart crushes the spirit.”

Why is it that certain corporate cultures are generally “up” and others are “down”? There are certainly differences and of course the state of the business makes a big difference as if a company is growing it is hard to not have some of the downers to be masked. But, growth doesn’t guarantee an up culture. What guarantees a culture either being up or down is the spirit and attitude of the leaders. Show me a generally positive, optimistic and happy CEO and I will show you a corporate culture that reflects that attitude. And vice versa. Unfortunately, not many CEOs or Senior Leaders can stay consistent enough in their attitude and approach to deliver a culture that consistently reflects what it should. But, when it does, it is magical and it’s almost palpable when you walk through the doors of the organization. I love that feeling and I wish we all could experience it every day. If you are a leader, then you have the chance to counter a down culture with your own up approach. You won’t be able to mitigate all of the downers but you can do a lot within your own team or function.

As believers we have to work even harder to be up as much as we can. Remember, we have some good news, really good news, to share and if we are down in our attitude then why would anyone ever want to hear, or believe from us any good news. It’s a constant battle to stay up, but that is what we have to do. Today, before the day gets too far along, stop for a moment and ask our Lord to give you a positive and up disposition today that others would recognize and appreciate. Ask also for your up attitude to rub off and be a part of creating an up culture for everyone.

Reference: Proverbs 15:13 (New Living Testament)