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 320: Watercooler Talk

The watercooler buzzes on Monday mornings to catch up on the weekend activities and also when something has happened at work that everyone wants to discuss. It’s almost like a tractor-beam that gets us up out of our chair and pulls us towards the place where we gather to drink coffee, eat and share a story or two. It’s hard in those moments to not get sucked into the gossip and what can turn out to be not-so-kind words about others. We all have experienced the feeling of being somewhere we shouldn’t be, and sometimes the watercooler takes on that characteristic. We all know the people who are there at every chance and they fuel the conversation and become known for spreading the news. Unfortunately, people love to hear the negatives and these people are the carriers of the negative sentiments and sometimes hurtful words about others. We don’t want to be one of those people. The Bible has so many great stories that take place around a well that it would be good for us to revisit some of those in the Old and New Testament to reset how we think about what conversation and what can happen around our own watercoolers. You can read in the book of Genesis Chapter 24 an example of how a well yielded a wife for Isaac because the right conversation with the right people occurred at their watercooler. Let us take the opportunity to turn our own wells, springs and watercoolers into a place of positive and uplifting conversations. And if we can’t, then let’s not be seen hanging out at the watercooler literally or metaphorically.

Reference: Genesis Chapter 24