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 2815: Showing Approval

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“And may the Lord our God show us his approval and make our efforts successful. Yes, make our efforts successful!”

Last week I wrote of how we are missing validation and approvals by being out of the office and only interacting online in very episodic ways from one Zoom call to another.  That hit a nerve and more people are feeling this loss than I even thought.  We can fix that by being deliberate in follow ups after meetings with a text, a call, an email or even think of creating a slack channel #jobwelldone and be sure that the stream is always full.  We are going to need to continue to be on the lookout for the small gaps in how we used to work can get filled so they don’t become large unintended consequences that create longer term problems.

While we know we are to look to God for our approval, let’s really try to carry that through to those who may not have God to lean upon or who need more from those around them.  In crisis our weaknesses and vulnerabilities get magnified and when we see those who are out of sorts or just not themselves, let’s be the first one to cheer them up and maybe give them the approval and validation that they are missing.  We can do that.  One, “You are awesome at what you do” can change the trajectory of a day and possibly even a life.

Reference: Psalm 90:17 (New Living Translation)