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 345: Sure Fire Trouble

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Every company and organization has their own set of cultural norms, values and principles. After many years of being a student of human behavior at work, I would say that one of the signs of sure fire trouble is someone who is arrogant. I was reflecting on this the other day when I saw that they are bringing back the remake of the movie “Wall Street”. Apparently, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) returns after 20 years in jail. He comes back, or so it is advertised, as repentant and reformed. Even in the “Bonfire of the Vanities” days on Wall Street (that was 1980 or the early 2000’s?) even there it was arrogance to believe that one is above the law, that ultimately brought down many people. But even among the youngest and most junior in their careers, arrogance can create such a feeling of animosity among peers and co-workers that a person’s career can be damaged even before it hardly starts. It is a fine line between confidence, which we all need to survive in the workplace, and arrogance. I strongly believe that the difference is many times found in someone’s ability or inability to listen, be self-aware and take open feedback from others. The minute one stops listening to others, it means that arrogance has taken over. Even David talked about arrogance in Psalm 31:23; “Love the Lord, all you faithful ones! For the Lord protects those who are loyal to him, but he harshly punishes all who are arrogant.” Yes, there is sure fire trouble coming if we become arrogant. Today would be a good day to consider what parts of our lives have we allowed an over-confidence to turn into an arrogance that needs to be metered and removed? Do we have areas where we have stopped listening to others and as such, may have lost perspective about ourselves? One of the best ways to know this is to reach out to the one who loves us the most and begin to go to Him with the request to open up our eyes and ears to others so that we can see and hear what we we need to know. The best way to keep from trouble is to remove the sure fire signs of trouble that are there, but we just keep missing!

Reference: Psalm 31:23 (New Living Testament)