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 92: No Quitting!

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We all have reasons and times to quit and leave our jobs. Sometimes it is the work. Sometimes it is the lack of progression or pay. Sometimes it is the direction and future of the company. Sometimes it is the people we work with and more often than not, it is because of our boss. Yes, all the research says we don’t really work for companies, we work for people and the most influential people are the people who we directly work for; our bosses. And if there is ever anything that wants to make you pack up the boxes, email in the resignation and stomp out the door, is when your boss is upset or angry with you and you know that he/she just doesn’t “get it” or understand or worse, want to take the time to really understand the situation at hand. So, we let it get under our skin, fester until we can’t take it any more and then we make the decision to quit, if for no other reason than we can’t stand working for that boss anymore. Sound familiar? This happens all the time and I would say that a very high percentage of people issue conversations I have had in my career have linked directly back to a bad boss/subordinate relationship. Many of these failed “relationships” ended up with the subordinate leaving the company in a huff and not feeling good about the company or themselves. Something that could have been fixed became the catalyst for a major life change. The Bible has so much to say about work, but I am guessing that you wouldn’t think, like I didn’t, that we are actually given a word about this particular topic. In Ecclesiastes 10:4 we are told: “If your boss is angry with you, don’t quit. A quiet spirit can overcome even great mistakes”. Amazing, huh? So the next time that your boss or your bosses boss takes aim at you and they are angry with you and you with them, know that you are to not let it get to you. We are to draw upon the strength that we find in our faith and let the quiet spirit and peace take us through this rough patch. The over-arching message I receive from this verse is that once again we are to tame our tempers and our reactions to the tempers of others, even when the tempers of others are so influential like they are when it is our boss. We are human but the reactions that we decide to allow of ourselves can have serious consequences or very positive results. The choice remains ours each and every day. If faced with this choice today, we now know how we are to respond.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 10:4 (New Living Testament)