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 2368: Break It Down

“Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces…”

An engine can’t be fixed from the outside, it has to be broken apart, parts replaced and then put back together. And so it is with companies that aren’t working. Cosmetic changes to an organization are almost useless.  While it is hard and painful work, what must happen is that an organization needs to be taken a part, each piece (function, department, team, people) examined and then repaired or replaced and then the organization can be put back together to work again successfully.  Too many times we see companies pare back their workforce by a few percentage points of headcount only to find that other than their labor costs reducing a bit, the same dysfunction remains that got them to this point. It takes guts, time and resolve, but if you are hearing a knocking in the engine, it’s time to break it down and find out what is really wrong.

I’ve always been fascinated by one line in the account of Jesus’ miracle of feeding the multitudes.  After Jesus thanked God for the fish and loaves and we are told that He “broke them into pieces”.  Before the miracle of multiplication, we see Jesus breaking down the vehicle of the miracle.  And so too, Jesus’ earthly life had to be broken before the miracle of resurrection and our eternal salvation was given.  And so for us, we might feel that we are now in a broken stage and time, but that in fact might be the precursor to the miracle that is about to happen.

Reference:  Matthew 15:36 (New Living Translation)