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 486: Vision

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Somewhere along the way in our work lives we will engage in an exercise that asks us, and likely a group of our co-workers, to think about the vision of our company. It may be that we are told what the vision statement is, or we may find ourselves right smack in the middle of defining and writing the vision for the organization. Regardless, the vision of the company or organization is part and parcel to how a business runs. Without a vision of where we are going, how would we know when we get there? What is hard for many people is to see a vision and embrace it with full emotion and commitment. Either the vision seems too lofty and unattainable or the vision is something that we tried a long time ago and its just a bunch of new people at the top restating what we already knew. It’s easy to be a “vision cynic”. But, to survive, thrive and grow there must be a well stated and well understood vision that everyone buys into and everyone supports. The best visions of the future are those that are clear enough that they make us decide on whether this is the best company or place for us, or not. Visions that force us to evaluate and recommit to going where the company wants us to go are the ones that are most inspiring and compelling. Still, it takes something down deep in all of us to really commit and sign up. As believers, we know that our faith should never placed in those things that are here on earth but rather on the things that are of God. That said though, we can look at the faith of those who came before us and learn lessons on how to act and conduct ourselves in this world that we now live. In Hebrews Chapter 11, many times referred to the “Hall of Faith” chapter, we read the accounts of many of the most faithful people of the Bible. The lesson I take from this chapter is that each of the people of faith described, once committed, never wavered and never faltered in following the vision that was put in front of them. If these people could be like this, then so can we. We may not be asked by God to do something extraordinary like Noah, Abraham or Moses, but we are called upon daily to put our faith in God and to believe that the work we are given here on earth to do is to bring glory to Him. We are just like these other men when we read in Hebrews 11:13; “…but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed the promises of God.” They had vision. We can have our own vision in looking ahead to the promises of God for what can happen when live and work according to His will and glory.

Reference: Hebrews 11:13 (New Living Testament)