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 420: Masks

purposed worKING No Comments

If you have ever worked in a high-growth and fast-moving company, you know that the oxygen that fuels the fire is growth. Nothing masks problems like growth. When growth is present, the scrutiny on hiring decisions, compensation, promotions, purchasing, travel, anything where money is spent, goes way down. When in growth mode, the answer is usually “yes”. Yes, growth masks lots and lots of mistakes and insecurities. The issue with this is that as soon as the growth slows down or worse, stalls, all of the lack of process, bad decisions, bloated structures, etc. can fall under the proverbial roosters coming home to roost. In what feels like a nanosecond, we find ourselves trying to rationalize costs, defending hires, hanging onto projects, cutting projects, squeezing every penny, etc. Everything goes from awesome to ugly in short order. So, what are we to do in the growth years? This is the time of continued discipline and attention. It does not mean that we shouldn’t make hay while the sun is shining, but it is a time when we must ensure that when the growth slows that we haven’t overextended ourselves so much that we have to make a course correction. It is surely easier said than done but it is extremely important that we learn the lesson that growth is not the mask that we want to latch onto. There is only one great masker that is appropriate to become attached and addicted to and we read about this in 1 Peter 4:8; “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.” Yes, love is a great mask for so many things. Unlike other drivers that are temporary or are so fleeting, love is consistent and can be spread to cover everything. The Bible is not saying that we should go and sin and let love be the mask of our sins. Instead, what we are reading is that if we truly love Him and God’s love comes through and there is a transfer of that love truly to other people, that there are many sins that we will never commit because they just can’t be committed when you thoroughly and truly love another. The love of God is at the root of everything we can do if we will only allow it to cover us and become the mask that we desire and hold dearly day in and day out.

Reference: 1 Peter 4:8 (New Living Testament)