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 566: The Beginning of Churn

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It’s the beginning of 2011 and at some point “churn” was going to begin to happen in the market and I think time that is now. Churn is the natural movement of people from one job to another because of promotions, resignations, etc. What happens in a company is that for every one resignation at least one or more moves are made internally into the organization before the position is filled. If a company is managing their talent correctly, this provides upward mobility to people within the company. Churn has been stagnant for the last two plus years and no one was moving for fear of not having a job and the fear that another company may not do well, etc. There was the feeling, and maybe still is right now, that nothing is worse than being out work and trying to find a job during this employment market. Another part of churn that is rare, but happens, is the returning of an employee back to a company that they once left. The reason this doesn’t happen as much as it could actually revolves around the employees’ concern of how they will be received and accepted after having left the company and their teammates. Can they go back is very dependent on how they think they will be greeted with the news. We should welcome back those we have lost from our companies and we would all be better off if we had the attitude that having a great talent back on our team is better than them being on another team and most importantly we put aside our own concerns about what happens to us if they return. Having a spirit of welcoming back those who have strayed is what God tried to tell us in the story of the Prodigal Son. We read in Luke 15:20; “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” Is there someone who has strayed away from your company, or even someone who is still in the company buy who you know is disengaging and just needs to feel welcomed to come back? If so, then we as believers can be the first people to model that it is okay to return home. Imagine what our lives would like if Christ did not welcome us back consistently when we turn away from Him over and over?

Reference: Luke 15:20 (New Living Testament)