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 515: Work Talk

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Sometimes we forget what is work and who is watching when we are working. I don’t know if any professional athletes read Purposed worKING, but there are some who I wish did so that they would recognize that when they are working, we are all watching. This past couple of weeks have found me watching lots of hours of baseball. Yes, I have been hanging around the workplace of, in particular, The San Francisco Giants and The New York Yankees. Maybe it is high definition TV or I have gotten better at reading lips but the work talk of baseball players is pretty distinct and a bit salty. And this is not just from the rank and file, but also from the management as the TV cameras head into the dugout. Okay, so most of us don’t show up on national television when we are working, but there are plenty of people who are watching and listening. The example that is left with one person, or ten, or thousands, is one that we need to recognize can be long-lasting. It is also hard to recover our reputation once the words start spewing. Paul says to us in Ephesians; “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” Some might be wondering why this theme of controlling our language comes up so often in Purposed worKING? The answer lies in the last time any one of us let a word slip that we so wish we wouldn’t have said and how quick the word rolled off our tongue. Some areas in our life need more reminding than others. Our work talk could be one of those areas.

Reference: Ephesians 4:29 (New Living Testament)