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 402: Weakest Link

We all have said or heard at one point or another, “we are only as strong as our weakest link”. This references the links of a chain. If one of the links of the chain are weak, then the whole strength of the chain is compromised. That is why we are to be sure that we hire, train and develop the strongest people we can for our teams. When we have someone on our team who is not as strong as others, then we need to be sure that we are continuously either upgrading or developing to make the whole team stronger. This is not easy to do and it many times will take an ongoing deep analysis of the overall team’s strengths as well as for each individual. What is most important is that we are committed to this exercise and that everyone on the team understands this. From here, each individual can grow and become stronger and the team will strengthen together. Yes, the weakest link determines the overall strength and sustainability of the team, just like a chain that holds the burden of any load. As believers we can always be improving our strength by ensuring that we are keeping ourselves close to the Lord in all that we do. We read in this Psalm; “I love you, Lord; you are my strength.” By allowing ourselves to fall deeper and deeper in love with God we can build more and more strength in this endeavor we call life. It is important that we never become the weakest link in the chain. God does not want us to be that in our work or our lives. Today, it may time to do a strength test and see just how strong you are. If you determine you need to become stronger, then you know where to go as the source of all strength going forward.

Reference: Psalm 18:1 (New Living Testament)