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 448: Be Nice To The Boss

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My friend and ex-colleague, Steve Arneson, just wrote and published a book called, “Bootstrap Leadership”. It is filled with many leadership lessons and a good read for anyone who leads other people. He also speaks and does leadership seminars. He spoke to a group of people that we all worked together back in the day and asked a great question. He asked the group how many of us had ever, over the dinner table, talked about our bosses? Every hand went up. He then asked us to reflect on the tone, tenor and content of those discussions. There was snickering in the room. He made a joke about how he was sure that we had all always had great things to say about our bosses and never would we speak poorly of them, especially in front of our family or friends. From that there was a good laugh. He then asked how many of us were bosses to other people. Everyone was. He asked if we could speculate on what the topic of the dinner conversation tonight was going to be at the homes of our subordinates. No one laughed. It was a poignant and sobering moment. We are hard on our bosses and our people can be hard on us. We can make the relationship with our bosses better and make them better as people by praying for them. We can pray for them to continue to lead well and accomplish their own purpose. We can pray for them to improve so that we can have a better working experience. There is nothing wrong with praying for our bosses. The servant Eliezer prays for Abraham in Genesis Chapter 24:12; “O Lord, God of my master”, he prayed, “Give me success and show kindness to my Master”. He goes on to pray that by God giving him success, as the servant, he would know that God has shown kindness on Abraham. How many of us actually care for our boss enough to pray for her/him? Today, let’s add the boss onto the prayer list and lets ask for his/her success and for God to show kindness on them. What better way to be nice to the boss than to offer a prayer for their success?

Reference: Genesis 24:12 (New Living Testament)