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 181: Rounding Up

purposed worKING No Comments

Part of getting anything done at work is knowing your co-workers well enough that you can predict how they will respond to any request or idea. In effective presentation or public speaking classes this would be called, “knowing your audience”. It is true, those who are most in tune with the people around them are usually the ones who are the best influencers and can get the most done. If we are not one of those people, we know who that person is and we take our issues to them and get their advice on how to get through to someone or sometimes we ask them to carry the message for us. Being able to know people well enough that you can predict their answers and reactions is a real skill to be developed and honed. Another outcome of this ability is that once you know someone at that level they begin to trust you in return. It’s a nice reciprocal. I have also seen that a trait of these people is that they tend to see the best in people as well. They “round up” on others. This means that they aren’t always looking for the worst in people, like many people do, instead they look for the best and they see those traits and they build them up and reinforce the goodness in them. If you want to try something that builds trust from others then if you do nothing else, just do this. So many people walk the halls at work worried about where and when the next cutting remark, or the questioning of their ability or performance is going to hit. For many, self-confidence in their jobs is low to start with and then add on the concern that someone is lurking out there just waiting for them to slip, makes for a lot of people walking on egg shells around their co-workers. When someone comes along who will build them up and give them confidence and assurances, then that person becomes someone they trust, listen to and follow. And yes, that same person who rounds up others becomes the one who can influence and get things done through others. Are we not to be the ones who round up on other people? In Psalm 37:31 we read; “Consider the blameless, observe the upright…” Yes, we are to the be the ones in the office who round-up on people not round-down or look for the faults in others. Everyone, other than our Lord, has faults and issues. We don’t have to go further than the mirror to find someone with faults. So, as we strive to be the living example of a person for others to want to listen to, learn from and see our purpose then let’s start with the simple notion and lesson of “rounding up”.

Reference: Psalm 37:31 (New Living Testament)