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 219: University of Corporation

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Corporate Universities? Yes, places, while at work, to provide continuing education to employees that they couldn’t or wouldn’t go get while they are working. The idea has been around for a long time. One of the best known back in the 80’s and 90’s was General Electric’s Crotonville facility. They ran it like a university with faculty and all. As GE excelled and Jack Welch credited Crotonville for much of their business success, everyone wanted their own corporate university. Only a few could afford it though. Those who did would go and hire a “Dean” to oversee the university and then fill in the staff with external teachers and internal people who saw themselves more as educators and extenders of knowledge than just workers. There is an old adage; “he who teaches learns twice”. People who believe that love to teach others what they know. In one of my companies my team and I created one of these corporate universities and had multiple learning and educational discipline tracks with the goal that everyone would attend a “university” course sometime along the way each year. A commitment to continuous learning is part of building a great corporate culture. Apple has been one of the latest to jump on the corporate university bandwagon and they have created it to keep the learning around innovation alive and thriving within Apple; a life-blood for them. Threaded through almost every corporate university course will be some way of teaching and reinforcing the continuation of the values and principles of the company, which can lead to the development of wisdom and better judgment. If you have wisdom and great judgment when on the job, then you will likely do well at whatever you attempt. The Bible tells us that we should pursue both of these. In Proverbs 4:7 we are told: “Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do! And whatever else you do, develop good judgment.” Learning, developing and bettering ourselves with wisdom and judgment is a positive intersection that fits exactly with what our employers would like us to do and be. There are lots of conflicts with the direction of how we should work and the purpose that we are attempting to live out, but in this area, there are no conflicts. I can’t think of any manager who doesn’t want us to have more wisdom and better judgment around our work. God wants us to have more of both in our work and in our overall lives. You may get a chance soon to take a course or class that can better you. Do it! And if you are looking for a syllabus and textbook that you can study daily to add to your wisdom and judgment, look no further than God’s Word. A few minutes of study there a day and you are automatically enrolled in the university of all universities.

Reference: Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Testament)