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 801: Rearview Mirrors

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“Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this”

Here in America we are taught in driver’s training lessons to glance into the rear view mirror every 10-20 seconds. I distinctly remember this lesson as my driver’s ed teacher (who I don’t remember his name but taught health and P.E. in the normal school year) had a stopwatch and every 10-20 seconds would say to us, “Glance”. It has stuck with me as you can tell. But, that’s not to say that we should spend more time than this with the rear view mirror. I know a number of executives who spend most of their time and energy contemplating and remembering the past to either romanticize a time that they wish they could return to, or worse to complain and bemoan how the past were the good “back in the day” times. Understanding and knowing the past can be very helpful in not making the same mistakes twice and of course history does teach us lessons and in some cases does repeat itself. But, that does not mean we can take our businesses and live in the past or have our leaders spending too much time in the rear view mirror.

In our daily lives we can learn from the verse in Ecclesiastes. Our God is a God of hopefulness and about a future beyond our comprehension. For us to live in the past or looking over our shoulder for the “ifs and buts and “what ifs” then we are turning our heads to what God would have in store for us. And, we might well miss what God wants us to do for Him. At the beginning of this New Year we should be looking forward and setting our goals for how we will grow and develop throughout the year. Goals are future focused and other than setting the starting point, there isn’t any good reason to spend time in the rear view mirror. Let’s make 2012 the year of the future!

Reference: Ecclesiastes 7:10