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 2808: Contracts

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“When you make an agreement with your neighbor to buy or sell property, you must not take advantage of each other.”

The definition of a contract is this: “a written or spoken agreement, especially one concerning employment, sales, or tenancy, that is intended to be enforceable by law.”   So, we should be able to count on contracts staying the same once agreed upon and signed by both parties.  But, that is not always true.  Even contracts can be, during extenuating circumstances, changed or modified, even though we don’t want that to happen.  Take right now, that rents are not being paid and leases are being broken because of the economic situation. Sometimes this is happening because the renter can’t pay and in many cases it is happening because the landlord has been willing to change the terms to delay or forgive payments because they feel the circumstances call for them to make an exception to the contract.  And there are those who know that they should modify a contract but they don’t and then use that in a way that ends up feeling unfair.  We’ve been watching ESPN’s “Last Dance” about the final season of the Chicago Bulls with coach Phil Jackson. One of the things that happened in that time was that Scottie Pippen, who had signed a long-term contract with the Bulls became far more valuable as a player in the league than his contract terms had anticipated.  The GM of The Bulls refused to open up the contract and renegotiate more of a fair-market value for Pippen.  The Bulls were well within their legal rights to do nothing and that is what they did, but then, and now 35 years later, it didn’t reflect well on how The Bulls handled the situation or their players. So, sometimes, contracts are contracts and other times, contracts become the starting off place for new arrangements that can feel more of a win-win versus one-sided.

God made contracts with the Israelites and He made a contract with us when He promised us eternal life with the giving of Jesus for our sins.  We are being challenged right now economically to decide what is the right thing to do with our businesses, teams, customers, etc.  It’s far from easy to figure out, but let’s consider that people of their faith, which makes them people of their word, their commitments and contracts are people who can find what is right by leaning on their faith to lead and guide them through any time of uncertainty.  On the backside of all of this, will be strong memories of those who did the right things by others and honored them as best they could.

Reference: Leviticus 25: 14 (New Living Translation)