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 2358: Team Responsibility

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“If the entire Israelite community sins by violating one of the Lord’s commands, but the people don’t realize it, they are still guilty.“

For the past month we have read of the horrors of what happened over decades within the gymnastics community.  By association that the doctor was a professor and on the staff of Michigan State University, the entire University became embroiled in the crimes committed, causing the President of the University and their Athletic Director to resign (I expect there will be more).  The entire Board of Trustees of USA Gymnastics also were forced to resign. All, because of the actions of one man who had he never had committed these crimes, none of this would have occurred.  It is a very strong reminder that what members of our team do, day in and day out, have profound consequences on the rest of our company and organizations.  Something was amiss in the values and principles both at USA Gymnastics and MSU that what happened could have lasted for so long without it having been addressed years earlier.  Whenever we have doubts about what is happening inside our organizations, look back at the values stated and be sure that we are living up to those and that they are being utilized.  If our values are  honesty and integrity, but no one ever brings forward a challenge of those being lived up to, then it means that someplace in the organization someone is withholding the actual truth.  Because, none of us, no matter how good we are, has 100% honest people.  If it is all quiet, all the time, then something is too good to be true.

As employees in a company or organization, we own the problem of what is happening around us.  That is because it is us, each one of us, adding up to the whole that makes the reputation of the company and what is truly our culture. When we don’t live up to our company’s values, our own values, or to God’s values, we put the whole team at risk.  It’s bad if any person does this, it is worse when it is us because as Believers on God’s bigger team, striving to bring glory to God through our work, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard.

Reference:  Leviticus 4:13 (New Living Translation)