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 3K79: Boomerangs

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“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging.”

“What goes around, comes around”.  We know this to be true.  The old adage of leadership is to remember that the person we might be working with today, or even leading today, could one day end up being our boss.  It happens, a lot.  So, what does go around can come back around to bite us.  When we think about how we are treating others it shouldn’t need the threat hanging over our head that we might one day be on the receiving end of what we have dealt out, but if that is what it takes, then so be it.  I’ve seen CEOs and Founders who have pushed others beyond what is acceptable only to find themselves soon not to be leaders and unable to put together a team in the future, nor able to attract much needed investors.  What we do today, will matter in the future.  It always does.

Jesus instructs us that we can expect a boomerang of a critical spirit.  Why is it so easy to fall into the traps of picking on others, jumping on their failures and criticizing?  It’s because our broken nature leads us in this direction so we have to counterattack this tendency daily.  If it is human nature, then we need God’s nature to keep us from being what we shouldn’t.  Today, like every day, is a testing ground for us.  Let’s be sure and be up to the tests and be the example that God wants us to be.

Reference:  Matthew 7: 1-2 (The Message)