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 547: Agreeing On Direction

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Not a day goes by that at work there isn’t some discussion about the “direction we should be taking”. This conversation can be at the highest level about the long term strategy of the company or it can be about what we should do with a customer, a website feature, or even what direction we should take with people and the organization structure. Actually, the latter two points are the ones that get talked about the most. Just listen in on the conversations at an airport lounge and the same conversation about what direction to take with an employee, a boss, a candidate, etc. becomes universal across any company or industry. Just change the names and the conversation is the same. Being able to agree on direction is very important and without it all kinds of strife and consternation occurs. Too many companies struggle and sometimes fail over just this issue. Way too many people fail at their jobs because they don’t work a little harder to either understand what the direction is, or worse, they try and fight against the direction, only to find out that they become the odd person out. It is essential that there is agreement on direction and we have to do out part to be a part of the agreement. The Prophet Amos says in Amos Chapter 3:3, “Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?”. We know the answer. Who are we trying to walk with today but can’t because we haven’t found that underlying agreement and understanding on the direction that we all should be heading towards?

Reference: Amos 3:3 (New Living Testament)