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 172: Contracting

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There are some people at work who are better at negotiating than others. These are the people who know how to get the best deal from the other side of the table and they have learned how to find the last dollar or cent in savings from a project or a vendor. These are also the best people to negotiate contracts as they know how to ensure that as much risk has been removed before signing the deal. And if they are really good they do all of this with the other side of the negotiations feeling good about the deal. All big companies now have this skill set resident within the organization. It just makes sense today to have these experts on hand. Long gone are the handshake and gentleman’s agreement. There was a time that business ran on such but over the years as relationships, integrity and trust eroded and these values became less integral to getting done what needed to get done, business leaders have had to rely on the contract for assurances of what to expect. And even then on both sides of a contract still look for loopholes and omissions so that they can attempt to gain the upper hand or a better deal. In today’s world it seems we are always negotiating and seldom in a moment of peace and productivity. Isn’t it great though that we have a much higher authority that we can count on and trust to never break the contract that was given to us? As long as we enter into the relationship with sincerity and earnestness then we don’t have to worry about the other side trying to take advantage of us. We read about this in Hebrews; “”Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting Him…Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep His promise. ” This assurance is the best of all contracts. This is a contract that will not be broken. While we have to protect ourselves and our organizations in the work we do with written agreements and contracts, it does not mean that we can’t live and work as personal examples of the promise that God gave us. If we can become known as a person of integrity who means what she/he says and says what he/she means, then we are role-modeling the behavior and actions of the One we follow. Today, you will be asked to “contract” with others. It will likely not be sitting down to write out what is expected of you, but rather it will be someone requesting assistance, or sending a question over email, or leaving a simple request on your voice mail. How you respond and live up to the contract of your own performance could be the determiner of how someone sees our Christ through you. Let us all strive to stay close to God and be the same example as one who delivers and keeps out promises.

Reference: Hebrews 10:22-25 (New Living Testament)