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 352: The Way We Work

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I recently had a long conversation with someone who is struggling with the way people work around him and what that means to how he reacts and acts in the workplace. It is hard to be in an office environment where those around you don’t share the same values and principles and you feel like you are always on the spot to either live out your values, principles and faith or choose not to and be like all the rest. The influence of the crowds and peers is a strong one and can feel like a tsunami of sucking out your values and then rolling back over you with the values, or lack thereof, of the others around you. It is why it is hard at work to stand firm in beliefs and to not cut corners, or to not tell the little white lie, or to not say one thing when you really mean something else, or to not fall into playing office politics when you know it is wrong to do so. Peers and influencers within a work setting can be worse than what we grew up with in high school. At this stage of life the ones influencing have careers and paychecks that they can wield instead of just name calling or teasing. It makes it hard to stand tall. But as believers and examples to others we have to take that stand and live out our values, live out our principles, and live out the way we work to honor God. In Colossians we are told that if we do so, we will grow and produce fruit that we may not even be aware has been produced; “Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.” On top of the fruit we will get an even greater blessing as we learn to know God better and better. Today, think through where you might be letting others influence the way you work and see if you can’t pull that back into your value set and not theirs. Take this one day and see if when going home tonight you can say I lived and worked today to honor and please the Lord. God has promised fruit for those who will take this opportunity!

Reference: Colossians 1:10 (New Living Testament)