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 3K111: It Takes Time

purposed worKING No Comments

“He said, ‘No, if you weed the thistles, you’ll pull up the wheat, too. Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I’ll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.’”

 

Few things will drive one more crazy than to have to watch a person or competitor who we know play unfairly, bend and break the rules, manipulate, etc. to get ahead of us and they never get caught, punished or even deterred.  We might all be thinking of a company, an organization or even particular people we have come across where this happened.  Their “success” is inexplicable and can be demoralizing if we let it be.  But things do have a way of working themselves out.  This past week this happened (without mentioning names or companies) to a person who always looked to be “Teflon” with their ways, nothing ever sticking to them even though it was obvious how greed and ego were the drivers in what felt “criminal”. Well, the person may soon pay the price as substantial civil suit has been filed and the damages would be beyond this person’s net worth.  I want to be careful here to not say that what is due is coming but rather to use this as a cautionary tale that what we sow we can reap.

 

So how do we work next to or even closely with a person or the competitor that we know is doing wrong?  Well, we can try and be vindictive and bring them down, or we can do our best to remain steadfast in the ways of good and of God.  I think the Parable of the Harvest can be instructive here.  The Farmer had a choice for his workers when the thistles had been planted among the wheat.  He could have done what could be done immediately and removed the thistles.  But, that would have also destroyed the wheat.  Or, he could do what he decided, which was to let them both survive and both even grow, together, for now…for a timeframe.  And then when the time was right, he’d separate the two and the thistles would come to a fiery end.  The wheat?  It would be harvested as it should.  The lesson?  Yes, we might need to coexist with the thistles and the bad apples sometimes.  Maybe way longer than we should have to but it is on us to trust that God has His ways and that we are to just keep focused on growing and growing towards His most wonderful harvest.

 

Matthew 13: 29-30 (The Message)