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 2512: Points Of View

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“And Jesus responded, “Then I won’t answer your question either.”

Many years ago, it was told to me that a point of view was worth ten IQ points.  Given that I need as many IQ points as possible, I never forgot that lesson and have passed it on to many others.  I have done so, because even though we can’t equate really how much intelligence is perceived by having a point of view, it is true that when in a meeting or any setting that there will be more people without a point of view than those who have one and speak it openly. When in doubt, express what you are thinking with confidence and others will listen.  Sure, some will judge, others will ridicule and many will disagree, but at the end of the day, the points are earned by those who speak up.

Jesus asked the leading priests and teachers of the time a hard question.  Before they answered they spoke among themselves and decided that it would be better to just say, “We don’t know” rather than have to defend their answer as a stance as their point of view.  So Jesus responded back by telling them that He wouldn’t answer either. He was trying to get these learned men to give their point of view and when they refused, He withdrew from the conversation.  I read this as a valuable lesson for us as we attempt to bring glory to Him as the purpose of our daily work.  He wants to be in the conversation with us and equips us daily to carry the conversation forward for Him into our work and relationships, but when we stand down and don’t bring our point of view forward, He is telling us that we are not modeling what He asks of us.  I think we can get hung up sometimes on whether or not we are doing God’s work in the marketplace because we aren’t “evangelizing” daily.  Sure, there are opportunities to share our love of Jesus to others and what He has done in our lives and we should not pass up those moments, however He is also giving us times to speak up for the values by which He has taught us to live and work by; truth, grace, mercy, forgiveness, patience, kindness, generosity,  etc.  When we pass up having a point of view on those things, we are removing ourselves from very important conversations.

Reference:  Luke 20:8 (New Living Translation)