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 2609: Paint By The Numbers

“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. I am the Lord your God.”

Dan Robbins thought that he could innovate the way people painted and maybe at the same time allow those who didn’t have the creativity, but did have the patience, to create paintings one would be proud to hang. There was also plenty of controversy – was this really art? And along the way Robbins and the company that he worked for at the time, sold a lot of paint.  A whole lot! I spent a number of years following Mr. Robbins’ instructions and so did millions of others who learned to paint by numbers.  Paint by numbers is the ultimate in understanding that a “system” can be built that others, who could never build the system, can follow.  That is if, and it is a big if, the system builder can make it so simple that anyone can follow it.  We have these systems all across our businesses and we should be looking hard for them attempting to find the simplicity, so that we can create a way that those who want to follow the system, can.

Since the beginning God has given us instructions on how to follow Him. It’s not always as easy as paint by numbers but when we follow Him, the outcome is without question, His masterpiece. Will we go to Him today and to His Word to find our next set of instructions?

Reference: Leviticus 18:2 (New Living Translation)