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 224: Little Matters

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It’s the big things that matter at work. Much of our energy and emotion get tied to the presentations to the Board, the big sales meeting, the major cost saving initiative, the big marketing and advertising roll-out, the big idea from the shop-floor, etc. We tend to get excited and focus on the big things and we overlook the small things. But, the small things that are overlooked can drive us crazy. Have you ever been in a real rush with something important that needs to copied on the copy machine and as you are running your copies up comes the message, “out of paper”? Yes you have, we all have. After we throw our hands up in the air we start scrambling for the ream of paper that is lying next to the machine, which of course is barely full with not enough paper in it, so instead we start searching for another ream, which of course someone has rearranged the supply cabinet again and we can’t find the paper. And so it goes. How different that last scene may have played out had the person before us recognized that the paper supply was low and instead of walking away for someone else to deal with it, they would have found the ream of paper, replenished the copier and put an extra full ream next to the copier just in case someone needed it? We don’t get rewarded at work for the little matters as much as we do the big things. If we did then offices would be tidy, phone calls would be returned, emails inboxes would be empty, people would feel recognized and thanked for their work, and we might all be happier with each other. Little does matter in the bigger scheme of work and life. Without the focus on the details and the little things the bigger things would never happen. In 1 Corinthians 1:28 Paul tells us that God chose “things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.” Today you will be faced with things that seem so little that they can’t matter. They are nothings, really. But, they are something big to someone else and you taking a moment of your time to take care of the little thing could change the course of something big. Imagine the Sales VP who needed those extra copies before the Fedex man left, but couldn’t find the extra ream of paper and missed the delivery window because he couldn’t get the copies made in time and because of that the company missed out on winning the big contract, which was the make or deal for the year for him and everyone in the company. Little matters. God tells us so, so don’t take for granted that the little things you are given today at work are inconsequential, they may be quite important after all.

Reference: I Corinthians 1:28