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 262: What If?

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What if? It’s a common question we hear at work, or at least we should be hearing that question if we are ever to improve and make things better. Product and service innovations come from people asking just the question, “what if?”. Today, I would like to ask that question back to you. What if, today, when you arrived at your office or workplace, you were called into a meeting with your new boss? He had just arrived and he was going to be meeting with you for the first time to get to know you, talk about your goals and objectives, and discuss his way of working and his expectations for you. As we all know, since we all have gone through this before, this is an important meeting and one that you will prepare for so you look and act your best. Now stay with me and imagine that you walk into your new boss’s office and there sitting on the other side of the desk was Jesus, our Lord. Imagine that He says that He wants you to continue working in the job that you have, but He is now your boss and will be meeting with you every week to review and discuss your performance and see how you are doing with what He has requested of you. Would you think differently about how you go about your daily routines, tasks and objectives? Would you care more about your performance because you were answering to Jesus versus some other person who you may or may not respect or like? The answer is an easy one, of course you would, just like I would and every other person who would be in the same situation. If we were brought into the presence of Jesus and asked to work for Him, we would do everything in our human power to please Him and outperform. Well, that “what if” is kind of a real-life challenge for each of us. You see, Paul says to us in Colossians that we are to work with others as if we were working for Jesus Himself. We read; “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” We are supposed to work our boss, our co-workers and at our job as if we were working for the Lord. That means that today we are supposed to do all we can to outperform and have God be pleased with our efforts. If you are questioning today whether or not God is in our job and whether or not He would have you do what you are doing, then reflect on Colossians 3:23 and go through the day trying to live up to that verse. You may find that God has some very interesting and important work for you to do, right here in the job you have today.

Reference: Colossians 3:23 (New Living Testament)