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 2378: Taking One For The Team

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“He is to cast sacred lots to determine which goat will be reserved as an offering to the Lord and which will carry the sins of the people to the wilderness of Azazel.  Aaron will then present as a sin offering the goat chosen by lot for the Lord. The other goat, the scapegoat chosen by lot to be sent away, will be kept alive, standing before the Lord. When it is sent away to Azazel in the wilderness, the people will be purified and made right with the Lord”

No one or any team likes when they are singled out as the reason for a defeat or a mistake. But, it’s pretty much inevitable that this happens.  Someone almost always becomes the “scapegoat”.  Why we do it is beyond my understanding of the human condition but it’s our nature to feel down deep inside that someone has to take the blame and then we assign it to a person. Sometimes the scapegoat rolls with the punches and is ultimately okay in the long run, but other times the blame can turn to shame and guilt and it gets the best of them.  So, no matter where we sit in the organization, it’s imperative that we think long and hard before we assign blame and assign the scapegoat.

The definition of a scapegoat is “a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.” As mentioned above, we assign the blame to others, but at some point, we all have been the scapegoat.  It hurts.  It seems unfair.  It feels like we failed beyond what was expected from us.  And, we have choices on how to react when this happens.  I take something away in the scriptures as we are to remember this; the scapegoat lives.  The scapegoat in his own way relieves the pain of others. When we are a scapegoat, are we a gift?  Hard to say, but when we are a scapegoat, we can be a purpose.  Then it is up to us to find how we want to accept and fulfill that role.

Reference: Leviticus 16:10 (New Living Translation)