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 356: Careful What You Ask For!

purposed worKING No Comments

I was on the phone with a senior executive who was telling me about one of his employees who he is having some trouble. Apparently, the employee is being very demanding and is pushing for each and every part of his responsibility to be defined, described and codified to the point that most of the conversations that are taking place now are about this employee’s role and job and not how the work the is to get done. The senior executive is at his own point of frustration now that he has gotten specific and detailed as requested but much of the fun and joy of managing this person has disappeared. As the conversation unfolded the executive said to me, “I want to give him so much more, but at this point, with what I feel is a lack of trust, I am just giving him exactly what he asked for, no more”. What the executive in this situation really wants is to be trusted by his employee to the point that the executive can heap on as much as he wants and be able to delight his employee. Instead the employee, with his demanding and distrustful ways, has without recognition of the fact, limited what could have been his and more. It seems we all do this to some extent. We want to dictate the terms and the rules and then be sure we get what is coming to us. I sat in a devotional session recently where a pastor dissected this attitude Biblically and taught a strong lesson on what happens when we work and live to this attitude. We will explore this lesson over the next couple of days. In the situation with my executive friend his employee ended up getting less than what he could have because of not trusting his boss to do the right thing. We can be the same way with God. In Psalm 106:15 David writes; “So he gave them what they asked for, but he sent a plague along with it.” Here we sit all day long telling God and others what is best for us but not knowing that with a little trust that God and others might have bigger plans than we can imagine. God will give us what we ask for, but we might get more than we bargained because we tried to do His work versus leaving it up to Him. Today, think through the areas in your life where you are trying to tell others and God what is good for you and see if with a little bit of an attitude adjustment you can’t see a difference in what start coming your way.

Reference: Psalm 106:15 (New Living Testament)