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 393: Strike The Rock

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As business leaders in the secular marketplace we are constantly challenged and brought to task by our teams and the people who work around us. I like to say that if you are going to be a leader, it just comes with the territory. I have been in more than one situation in my career where when faced with the fork in the road, or the difficult decision to be made, or the feeling of inadequacy, that at the same time my team and peers were looking at me with the eye of challenge to see if they were going to agree or disagree with what I was about to do. I have never personally faced a full scale mutiny but I have seen it happen to others and when it does it is not pretty. What is amazing about it is that it typically builds up over time and then it is something very small that triggers the team feeling emboldened enough to go to their bosses and boss and register their complaints. Seldom do leaders recover and survive this level of dissatisfaction unless the next level above them intervenes and gives them the authority and the tools/resources to change the course. At my church we are studying Moses and what he went through when leading the Israelites. In Exodus Chapter 17 we read of how the people were about to remove Moses from leadership because they didn’t have water. They quickly turned against him and if not for God’s intervention telling Moses to strike the rock with his staff to create a flow of water, then Moses may have been done as their leader. I find the similarities striking too. Moses went above himself to find his way out of his leadership challenge and God was there to answer. We should take this lesson and learn from it as well. When we are challenged as leaders or co-workers, our bosses can help, before things get out of control. But even greater is the power and the answers that can come from a level above if we are to go to God for His answers. For Moses God asked him to pick up a familiar tool in his rod. God will give is our own rod and staff to pick up and a rock to strike if we will just ask and then listen and follow through.

Reference: Exodus Chapter 17 (New Living Testament)