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 645: A Good Mood Day

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“The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice! Let the farthest coastlands be glad.”

People can be known for their moods. We all know someone who is known for their good moods, someone who is known for their bad moods and someone who is known for vacillating, or what we would call them to be, “moody”. Companies and organizations can be the same. There are companies that have a general positive disposition. Usually they are characterized by customers and clients as friendly, positive and helping companies. They can also be organizations that are in growth mode and therefore have lots of positive momentum and that mood follows. Then there are organizations that are known for their bad mood. Have you ever been to the Department of Motor Vehicles? Need I say more? And yes, there are the organizations that are also moody and can swing back and forth confusing both the consumer and the marketplace. What is true about all of these organizations is that it is the people within them that cause the mood of the culture, not the other way around. There isn’t some robot or machine that sets the mood. Mood and tone is usually set at the top and trickles or roars down from there. If you are in a management position then you set the tone and the mood for your team. You are getting some message from above (in the organization) and you can either reinforce or run against the tone/mood and from there decide what mood you personally want to be in and what mood you want your group, team, or department to share. Suffice it to say that your mood and your personal mood management makes a difference.

Sharing the purpose to bring glory to God in our work and all we do means also managing our mood. How can we be filled with God’s spirit and not be happy and rejoicing in it? Every day should be a day that we wake looking forward expectantly to what can be a day where great things happen. Those great things can be big, they can be small, but if our heart, mind and actions are all in the right place, the things that happen will be meaningful. I cannot tell you who you will touch and impact today, but I can tell you that each interaction you have is a possibility to leave something positive in someone’s life. You can start that with going into this day in a good mood and rejoicing and being glad that He is our Lord and He is alive and well! King David said it best, “The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice! Let the farthest coastlands be glad.” His is a the mood that is good.

Reference: Psalm 97:1-3 (New Living Testament)