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 2746: Hedonic Adaptations

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“Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.”

I’ve been reflecting on the holistic structure of organizations and how we as workers fit into that structure. When we zoom way out what we see is a “way” that promotes competition, striving and politics.  “That can’t be”, you say as we have been doing all the culture and happiness work to make it not so.  Well, unless your organization pays everyone the same, has as many CEO’s/top positions as there are people and promotes people all at the same time, then there is competition, striving and politics. That is what we are fighting against with all of the efforts but I sometimes wonder if we can ever win the war and instead just tend to celebrate the small battles?  But, it’s still worth the fight and we are better at attacking and defending if we know what we are fighting against.  Let’s remember that no one (or a very rare few) will always be happy for long in the moment and the seat they sit in today.  There is a reason for this and it’s called “Hedonic Adaptation”. Researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky defines it this way, “Empirical and anecdotal evidence for hedonic adaptation suggests that the joys of loves and triumphs and the sorrows of losses and humiliations fade with time. If people’s goals are to increase or maintain well-being, then their objectives will diverge depending on whether their fortunes have turned for the better (which necessitates slowing down or thwarting adaptation) or for the worse (which calls for activating and accelerating it).”  This is why the person who is so excited and motivated with her promotion can turn sour six months later when time passes or she sees someone else being promoted.  Yes, it’s complicated but it is the battle we must fight.

I first heard the term hedonic adaption when Alex Constanzo spoke at our church last month.  She used the term in the context of our gratefulness within the situations we live.  It’s a great lesson in that we will only be happy, grateful and continually hopeful if we ground ourselves in the grace and humility of Christ and accept that what we have been given is within His will for our lives.  It’s a question and challenge that we have to ask ourselves daily, especially at work, if we are to avoid being lured into a place of disappointment, frustration, blaming and regret.  God’s will is never for us to be in that place.  He just asks that we return to Him and His grace, love and mercy to reorient ourselves back to perspective we are supposed to have.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 1:8 (New Living Translation)