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 186: Employee Satisfaction

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Many companies will once a year or so put out an employee satisfaction survey to evaluate the culture and see how the employees are feeling about working at the company. Larger corporations will go to far extremes to gain recognition on lists that detail the best places to work. These are good things to do to highlight the strengths and weaknesses in the culture so that if a company is committed, they then know what to focus on to improve. Yet, all of this does not guarantee that people will be any happier in their jobs or feel any more fulfilled in their work. More books than any of us would ever want to read have been written on the subject and still on any given day, any one of us go goes to work not satisfied and wishing we were doing something else other than being in the job we have. It is sad when this is a day-in and day-out attitude for anyone. I believe a lot of what makes this happen is that the person who is unhappy in their job and work (or with work overall) is like this because they don’t have a good internal understanding of what they want from life, and their work as a subset of life. They may be chasing one dream and feeling like they are going nowhere in what they do day-in and day-out. Much of what Purposed worKING is all about is trying to help us all align ourselves with a higher purpose and understand that the work we do can fit within that purpose and be a means…not the end. We are told in Matthew from Jesus Himself that none of us can be happy when we have our priorities wrong. In Matthew 6:24 He says, “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other.” This is where many of us go wrong. We elevate our jobs, and also the financial rewards that come from that job, to become the focus and the ends, versus the means. Then we look at our lives in totality and we become frustrated and angry that we have to spend so much of our time with our work and before long we begin to just hate what we do. There is not an easy solution to this so I don’t want to be trite, but God is giving us the antidote when He tells us that we just need to get our masters lined up in correct order. Today you may be wishing you were anywhere but at work. You may feel like your job is a daily weight around your neck and that you are trapped. Try today turning the tables on those feelings and looking at your job as a place and an opportunity to do the best you can to be an example to others of bringing glory to God in all you do. Take the time to build a new relationship or get below the surface of an existing relationship with someone in the office and then see if the reason you are working where you work might be to be there for someone else in their time of need. Every day is a new day when you think about the real and long-lasting opportunities within your job. Be positive and excited about what those might be and realize that when your focus is there, you are getting back to serving the one true Master.

Reference: Matthew 6:24 (New Living Testament)