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 2701: Work In Progress

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“Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress.”

If there is one thing in business that I am sure of is that a business and the people within a business are always works in progress. There is no stasis state in a successful business. What does that mean to us? What it means is that we can approach the constant state of change and flux in two ways.  One, we can look at the ebbs and flows and the pressure that comes with change as a negative, a worry and a set of stressors on us.  That’s how many approach it.  Or, we can think about the state of change as positive parts of being a work in progress.  Declaring our businesses and ourselves as a work in progress allows us to be fallible and for others to see that we are committed to always improving.  Let’s be real.  Today, something is going to hit us that we weren’t expecting.  All will have been planned and we think we have it grooved and then, out of the blue, the curve ball comes at us.  Let’s take that challenge and today, turn it into an opportunity to make our work in progress a positive.

Is there a better Biblical example of a work in progress than Peter?  I was reflecting on where he came from developing into a right hand disciple of Jesus, then to falter in such a big way.  But, to watch him as a work in progress to get to where he did in his later life and how he still stands today for us as an example and role model to follow, is just amazing. Peter shows us that our Lord loves that we are a work in progress.  God never gave up on Peter, even after Peter turned his back and denied having even known and followed Jesus.  Today, be assured that God’s grace, mercy and love is Him letting us be His work in progress.

Reference:  1 Timothy 4:15 (New Living Translation)