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 655: All-Hands Meetings

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“Now in the early Autumn, when the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people assembled together as one person in Jerusalem.”

In start-up organizations there is a thing called, “All-Hands Meetings”. These are usually done on a very frequent basis, like once a week, or once a month. In these session everyone in the company comes together with the CEO to talk about the business to ensure that everyone is informed of what they need to know going forward. It is a great way to gain alignment and unity and best yet, most employees look forward to these meetings as the place and time when they will get the most up to date information and also interact with the leaders of the organization. As companies or organizations get bigger there comes a day when it becomes nearly impossible, or at least very hard, to get everyone together at once, so new methods are taken to achieve the same objective. Webcasts, or conference calls replace the All-Hands Meeting and typically the frequency elongates so this happens once a quarter, or once-a-year. There is a power in having everyone together that shouldn’t be missed or ignored. Being able to have everyone in the organization hear the same thing, at the same time, brings a unity and shared experience that can rally, align and ensure cohesiveness for some time. Organizations that have lost this activity, should find it and at least once a year bring everyone together.

In the book of Ezra we learn about the Israelites who were going to rebuild the altar. In verse one of Chapter three we learn that before they started reconstruction Jeshua held an “All-Hands Meeting” to get things going. We have an example right here of the power of assembly and unity before a big task is to be tackled. In this lesson is also the message of the importance of church and fellowship with other believers. If each of us is to be strong and aligned in purpose, the assembly we receive when we go to church for God’s “All-Hands Meeting” is important. When we stray or not feel close to God, we can question how diligent we have been in assembling with other believers. The next time we don’t feel like going to church, or small group, or other times when we gather with other believers to worship, learn and fellowship, we should ask ourselves, “Do we really want to miss the All-Hands Meeting”?

Reference: Ezra 3:1 (New Living Testament)