Bob Lauridsen and Carl Reinhardt will visit BookSmart 6 p.m. Feb. 9

Published in the February 1 – 14, 2017 issue of Morgan Hill Life

By Staff Report

BookSmart will host a special book-signing visit with Morgan Hill authors Bob Lauridsen and Carl Reinhardt at 6 p.m. Feb. 9. The two recently published the business guidebook “More, Better, Different: Getting What You Want through a Proven Dynamic for Success Leadership.”

The book helps readers tackle business problems through the advice the authors draw on their decades of working with corporate leaders. Lauridsen is the founder of Lauridsen Group Consulting and is the author of “Boss Talk: A Manager’s Guide to Exceptional Productivity and Innovation.” Reinhardt is the co-founder of RNP Advisory Services based in Morgan Hill. Since 1969 he has assisted individuals and businesses in accomplishing their financial goals.

Morgan Hill Life asked the authors for their advice on how businesses leaders can gain their goals.

“More, Better, Different” gives leaders a blueprint to optimize the way they control their outcomes in achieving goals. Briefly, what is the essence of the message you share with readers in your book?

Reinhardt: We share a simple yet highly effective system that individuals, business owners, and corporate leaders can use to get the results they want. The essence of the book is to start with the simplicity of where you are now, where you want to go and how you are going to get there. That is why we started with three intersecting circles.

Circle 1 is the now, Circle 2 is the Future, and Circle 3 is the doing. Each step has a process and connector steps to the next phase or circle. You have to start with the now to assess your present situation including structure, processes, and assets that can be used to help you determine where you want to go with your business. This is like GPS system having to know where you are now before it can guide you to your destination.

You tell readers about finding the “power” to get done what a person says they will get done through the contributions of others, especially if they are in a leadership role. What do you mean by that?

Reinhardt: What we mean by this is a leader tapping the power of teamwork to garner the best ideas, experience, and solutions so that members are energized, give their best, and feel good about their contribution. Through assuring proper alignment, support, and accountability, a leader creates a very powerful dynamic that literally transfers power from the leader or individual to the team. Ultimately we’re talking about “team or group power” since, in our view, power lives in the team or unit, not in some individual heroic leader. We could also say that power might be better thought of as the relative competence of any leader to get results rather than domination or control.

Your book discusses the principle of “shifting from drifting to designing” in working on a project. How does creating a structure for “designing” for “doing” help a leader achieve their goals more effectively?

Lauridsen: Entrepreneurs are bright, energetic, ambitious, and way too busy. Assignments and projects typically come at them from all directions. They get energized and go to work, simply rolling up their sleeves and jumping into action. This probably worked early on in their careers and may even be the reason they were promoted or their business grew. However, the higher they go in management or the larger their business becomes, the more they will be dependent on others, relying on them for key deliverables.

Things change. They have problems getting people to deliver, support each other and be accountable. What worked before can lead to failure. These leaders are operating in a drift, often doing what is comfortable or habitual including forgetting or neglecting their priorities and simply doing whatever they are doing at any given moment. The antidote is having a bulletproof productivity system that will serve them in dealing with obstacles and breakdowns, or adroitly avoiding them throughout the rest of their career. They are operating by design when they are leading in the context of a proven productivity system that alerts them to problems then shows them exactly what to do “right now” to correct or intervene and get back on track.

What is your purpose for writing this book, and what might you hope readers get out of it?

Reinhardt: My personal passion has always been to have people better off after they met me. The book is an extension of that, and now I feel I can touch more people with a proven productivity system that will leave them better. I would just like to add in our one-year pilot group of entrepreneurs, that is what happened, which led to writing the book.

What is your personal motivation for helping leaders achieve more with their time and energy from the lessons you give in “More, Better, Different”?

Lauridsen: My purpose and passion over the past 25 years of management consulting has been to foster a work environment that works for all by sharing with leaders ways of making their work more productive, profitable, easier, and more satisfying. Working with companies I’ve seen great leaders and entrepreneurs in all types of businesses. I witnessed the damage done by poor leaders and the exceptional results generated by good leaders. Over the years, I worked on developing methods and tools that generate a dynamic system that has work for leaders in all positions. Like Carl, the goal now is to share this with more people.

DETAILS

What: “More, Better, Different” authors talk
When: 6 p.m. Feb. 9
Where: BookSmart, 1295 E Dunne Ave.