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 467: Bowling Shirts

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A company I am the Board of just celebrated an important milestone. The CEO decided to commemorate the event by taking the entire team out for a night of bowling and give everyone a personalized bowling shirt. Another company where I am on the board gave everyone a personalized etched rock with the company logo and date to capture the launch of the company. These items become reminders and symbols of events, achievements and significant dates or happenings. They are great ways to keep top of mind and front and center those things that we want remembered and memorialized within an organization. I think we tend to forget these things as the larger a company gets and before long we talk ourselves into thinking that no one really cares about these symbols, and they are expensive to do for a lots of people anyway. I would challenge this thinking and as a leader, a manager or a supervisor, try and come up with ways to memorialize and commemorate whenever and wherever you can. The Old Testament is full of accounts where wells and altars were built after a battle won or something significant that happened. No one account is better known than what God did in Genesis 9:16; “When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.” God memorialized his promise for us by giving us each a rainbow that when we see it we can remember what He has said and done. God gave us a bowling shirt, if you will. Today if you have the opportunity to recognize, reward, commemorate or memorialize, don’t miss the opportunity. People will remember.

Reference: Genesis 9:16 (New Living Testament)