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 157: Fill It Up

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I have been in meetings the last couple of days where I was struck by either someones intense intellectual curiosity and insatiable appetite to learn and try new things or another person’s complete opposite reluctance and unwillingness to learn. In one meeting I could hear both sides. The learner is asking, “Why do we do it that way?”. The other person will say in the same conversation, “We have tried it that way before and why would we want to do it any differently?” It’s fascinating to watch and listen. It makes me wonder why we slow down our learning and in some cases just allow our minds to calcify. As I write this I am with a group of people who are on the front line of changing the way we educate and retrain people using technology. They are all learners and open to new and different ways of getting things done. Even among themselves there aren’t many of the people who resist the new. When you are with these kinds or people the feeling of the room is full of positive energy and optimism. It is almost palpable and certainly evident on the faces and the body language of each person in the room. it began to make me wonder why some people want to take in the new, have others reveal to them what they don’t know, and then there are others who put up one barrier after another to other feedback or advice. The Bible tells us that we are to be open to the words and advice of others. As such, I believe that we are to be open minded to new ideas and ways we do our work. To close down and not accept advice and instruction is to be foolish. We see this in Proverbs 19:20;”Get all the advice and instruction you can, and be wise the rest of your life.” So today when you are hearing from others that there is a “better way” and your first reaction is to shut them down and not listen then try listening and looking at what the others are saying in a different way; optimistically, with an open-mind, and with a positive reception. What you are likely to find is that not only will you feel more positive but that others will react to you by delivering back their own positive vibes. If we are open to this advice and instruction we can be filled up with all kinds of found wisdom. Yes, fill it up, please.

Proverbs 19:20, (New Living Testament)