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 2612: Ambidexterity

“He told many stories in the form of parables, such as this one: “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds.”

In today’s business environment I believe you must be “ambidextrous” to succeed.  That is we need to be both prepared and ready to speak data and numbers and then back them up with compelling storytelling.  We all know someone who is great at this and we need to learn from them, for as the world speeds up and we are overwhelmed with data, it won’t be the “quants” that stand out, it will be those who can wrap a story around the data.

Jesus was the greatest storyteller of all time. His parables stopped people in their tracks as they tried to see themselves within what He was teaching.  Jesus also used numbers to illustrate and make real the impact that He was bringing to the people around Him and to the world. Whether it was 5000 fed or one sheep lost, He showed us that He could bring all sorts of things together. We each have a story.  We are one among billions.  But when our story gets told genuinely, authentically and in congruity to what we believe then we become more than one and our story can be heard as His story. That should feel encouraging today!

Reference: Matthew 13:3 (New Living Translation)