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 38: Motion Offense

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It’s time for the big decision. Everyone is looking to you to be the one who can save the day and what you come up with is going to be the for sure answer. The deal will only happen because of your negotiation prowess. We will only get this account because you always know what the right thing is to say at the right time to bring the account across the finish line. The machine will only start back up because you have the knowledge to diagnose the problem. We will only get this funding if you can do like you always do, and convince them to give us the next round. None of these examples are any pressure at all, are they? Who are we kidding, these can feel like work life or work death decisions and points in time. And, it is only worse when our necks are out there, and down deep inside, we aren’t sure we have the right answer, decision, or direction. What do we do then? That is when we follow Solomon’s advice in Proverbs 15:22 and we reach to as many people as we trust to give us counsel. He says specifically, “Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many counselors bring success”. I grew up in Indiana, and during that time, there was a guy named Bobby Knight who coached the Indiana University basketball program. Coach Knight ran what he called the “motion offense”. What that meant was that when on offense, the ball and the players were always in motion until the ball and a player was in the best spot to take the highest percentage makeable shot. My basketball coach ran the same offense and like Coach Knight, if the ball didn’t change hands at least four times before a shot was taken, he would sit down the shooting offender. This is what Solomon was saying, we need to find the players/counselors around us who we can pass the ball to multiple times before we take the shot, before we make the big decision. Do you have your counselors in place? Are you in the habit of seeking their advice and counsel and passing the ball to them before you take the shot? Proverbs says that many counselors will bring success. Today would be a good day to begin getting them in place and to start practicing your own work version of the motion offense.

Reference: Proverbs 15:22 (New Living Testament)