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 577: Knowing When To Walk Away…

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Conversations turn deep, positions get firmed up, arguments become heated, and sides get drawn. Sounds like the beginning of battle or a fight getting ready to happen? And yes, it can also be the scene found in a conference room or an office on any given day in corporate America. We get passionate about our work and we can take our passions and positions all the way to the point of boiling over. And yes, sometimes beyond with words and actions that are irrevocable. Once we do that, it is very hard to recover and we will find ourselves either out of work or trying to win back support just to get back to even. The key to not letting ourselves get to the point of no return is to constantly be in check with our attitude and spirit. We can feel it when it is getting ready to turn in the wrong direction. I recently received an email from someone who is the CEO of an organization and the note begged for an argument. It so happened that I received the email just before dinner time so I let it sit, went to dinner, came home, slept a good night’s sleep and answered the email in the morning in a totally different spirit than I had held the night before. Sometimes, it is best to know when to walk away. This past weekend at our church our Pastor spoke on how to be gentle in our lives. He taught of how Jesus told James and John that their spirit was wrong and it was time to model a different behavior and made them leave and go on to another village because their spirit was wrong for that place, “But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them’. And they went to another village.” Jesus knew it was time to walk away. Let’s monitor ourselves in this way and when our spirit starts to turn ugly, be prepared to just walk away.

Reference: Luke 9:55-56 (New King James Version)