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 328: Distribution of Work

One of the most difficult tasks of a Manager is to properly distribute the work to be done. First of all, just being able to chunk the work down into easily identifiable and achievable parts is hard enough without having to add on the people part of distributing work. That is really the hardest part as each person has their own definition of what is the proper amount of work for them. My experience is that to get the balance just right all the time is nearly impossible. Someone always wants more and many want less, sometimes a lot less. So many people, regardless of what they have on their plates will feel like they are overburdened with way too much to do, so they complain, etc. That means anyone who has to assign work, who is trying to keep everyone happy, has a very, very hard job. Each of us then have to manage our own level of tolerance to the amount of work that we have and even though we shouldn’t, we do it in comparison to the workloads of others who work with us. When we feel like we have too much of the load to carry we can then find ourselves being upset to the point of becoming frustrated, angry and resentful. These are not the emotions that any of us want to harbor, but it is hard to not fall into that set of feelings. As we carry more and more of the burden at work, we have to look for ways to relieve that load. God tells us that He wants to be the one to pick up the load for us. He wants us to distribute the burdens to Him. That doesn’t mean that He can take the sales call, make the presentation, or create the spreadsheet for us, but He can be there with us each step of the way. What God wants from us is our load. We read this in Matthew 11:29-30; “Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” What God is trying to do is to get us to distribute the work to Him and even better, to get us to give Him the hardest of the work so He can give us his light yoke of love for Him. If you are overworked, overburdened and feel like the work is distributed too heavily your way, then look to God to take way the heaviness.

Reference: Matthew 11:29-30 (New Living Testament)