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 613: Don’t Shoot the Messenger

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“They do not fear bad news; the confidently trust the Lord to care for them.”

We have all at some point in our career either said or thought, “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger”. Why do we do this? We do this because we fear that the person receiving the news won’t like it and are going to take it out on the messenger, which may be us at the time. No one likes bad news but what is most important is how we accept and deal with that bad news. Believe me, I have seen enough people who hate to hear bad news so much that no one will bring them anything but what they want to hear, Not surprisingly, somewhere along the way, they get surprised, are unaware and miss something that is very important that they shouldn’t have missed. To be the best we can be we need to hear all sides of a message and all sides of what is going on, even if we don’t like it.

King David tells us that we need not fear bad news because we have the Lord to trust in, regardless of the situation. If we decide to bring God to work with us then we can also trust in Him over the news that we will receive from our boss, co-workers, partners, customers or subordinates. Our faith can allow us to be prepared and accepting of any news if we allow ourselves to remember and fall back on God’s promise. There may be bad news out there right now that you need to hear, but because you have been guarded and not trusting that all will work itself out, you are avoiding it or others are keeping it from you. Start today in asking, “Is there anything else I should know and don’t feel like it needs to be kept from me….I truly do want to hear it all”. And then, when the bad news comes in, don’t shoot the messenger, but instead thank that person for having the courage and the openness to bring it to you.

Reference: Psalm 112:7 (New Living Testament)