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 429: Working the Organization

Every organization has a structure to it that breaks down into functions and to some smaller groups of teams. These could be departments, work pods, etc. Most organizations are organized around functional expertise so we have finance, marketing, R&D, sales, operations, HR, etc., all reporting up to a senior team who brings it all together. The challenge is in how to work across the organization so that we don’t get lost in our functional departments and don’t get a chance to see the bigger picture. The key to this is to criss-cross the organization lines and build relationships with people in other areas and ask what they do, how they do it and how they fit into the broader mission and goals of the organization. This also requires that we know, understand and can process the mission of the company into what is done by people all over the organization. Sometimes this is not easy to understand but if we search hard enough we can find it and then apply it to what we know and to what we feel we need to know to be better at our jobs. If we do this, we will be better in our jobs as we have context and meaning for what we do. The same thing is happening in how we work to bring glory to God and make that our purpose. This starts with staying focused on what we know to be what God wants us to do and then to fall into His service with our talents, skills and experiences. In 1 Corinthians 12:5 Paul says; “There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord.” Just like we work in different functions and departments but all roll up in what we do for the mission of the company, we all can serve God in our own ways, and different ways, all rolling up in His service and calling. Today, check yourself and your work to see if you are rolling up what you do and who you are to what God wants you to do to serve Him best.

Reference; 1 Corinthians 12:5 (New Living Testament)