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 3K48: The Communication Gap

purposed worKING No Comments

“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

What is a communication gap?  Well, the definition is actually this:  “A failure to convey and/or understand the information, intent, or meaning of another, especially between individuals of different perception.” Yep, that makes sense.  And, it makes sense that in each and every conversation or communication we have there could be that gap.  Sometimes small, sometimes the size of the Grand Canyon.  A survey just came out that shows a very large gap occurring right now in the workplace.  The results showed that “66% of communicators think they know what updates employees need. Only 31% of employees agree.”  That’s the Grand Canyon there!  Imagine that we communicate to our teams thinking that we are giving them what they need and only hit the mark with less than a third?  That may well be what is happening.

How many times have we thought we are conveying a message of love and grace, only to find that it wasn’t taken that way by the receiving person or party?  I know it has happened to me more than I would like to admit.  Even once is too many but to miss the mark by more than a third could be the difference between making a positive or negative impression or influence on others.  What if we started our communications with the precursor of “I want them to be sure they see, hear and feel that no matter what, they are loved.”  If we did that, how would we communicate differently today?  Might love be the bridge to close the communication gap?

Reference: 1 Corinthians 13:1 (New Living Translation)