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 130: Potiphar’s Joseph

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Joseph is one of the great men and heroes of the Bible. Joseph was not a prophet, a judge,or a king. Joseph was a worker and in fact he didn’t make, move, or sell anything. He was an administrator. In today’s vernacular he was General & Administrative overhead (G&A). And today, when things get tough the first part of the business to cut are G&A costs. “Why do we need more administration or people watching over things?” the board of directors may ask. It is a good question but the board of directors in Potiphar’s house would not have gotten the answer they might have wanted from Potiphar. It says in Genesis 39:6 that Joseph was so successful in everything that he did that, “…Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn’t have a worry in the world, except to decide what he wanted to eat.” How good was Joseph that he was that good? Well, we know that God had blessed him and that whatever he took on God made it good and successful and we know later that he was so good at what he did that he became the number two person over all of Egypt for the Pharoah. Joseph was really, really good at what he did. He also got to these positions because he was fully trustworthy, responsible and accountable. He became so accountable that when tempted with Potiphar’s most prized possession that he turned his back on the temptation. Joseph was the ultimate “right-hand person”. Don’t we all wish we could have a Joseph working for us? We might have someone who is close, but we just never know where the line gets drawn. What we can strive to be is a Joseph to our own boss. We can do what it takes to build the trust, credibility, and responsibility to be known as one who can get things done and gets them done in the right way with other people. We can build our reputations as people who have earned the privilege of doing more. Joseph had God on his side. So, do we. Joseph was faced with one trial after another and with God’s support rose above them. We also have God who through our faith will do the same for us. If we choose to be, we can be Potiphar’s Joseph!

Reference: Genesis 39:6 (New Living Testament)