Posts by Yoram Solomon
Why Trust Is the Foundation for Constructive Disagreement
In 2010, after two years and 348 pages of research, I found the answer to my research question of “why are people so much more creative when they work in startups than when they work in mature companies?†I could really boil it down to two words: innovation culture. More research showed that innovation…
Read MoreActions, Motivations, and Trust
(Excerpt from my upcoming book The Book of Trust): One element of personal shared values is encompassed in the why we are taking action, and what action we choose to take. Imagine two people as in the image below. Each is driven by motivations and interests that are not necessarily made visible to the other person. These…
Read MoreGreat Ideas are NOT Accidental!
In 2010, I had an idea for a new product for the company I worked for. I had put together a business plan and presented it to the company’s CEO. A week later I presented it to the board of directors. My presentation was very well received, and the directors described the product as very…
Read MoreFairness, Trust, and Innovation Culture
As noted in previous articles (You don’t have an Innovation Problem, You Have a Trust Problem! Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), trust is the foundation for a culture of innovation, and a culture of innovation is the foundation for innovation and the financial results from it. In this article, I will address one of…
Read MoreHow Behavioral Economics is Killing Innovation
When my daughter Maya was in middle school, she decided to repeat a behavioral economics experiment featured in Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational for her science project. In her experiment, she offered participants from the control group two options. Facebook access, she suggested, was going to cost money. It would cost $5 a month to access Facebook…
Read MoreHow a Shortage of Innovation Leads to Unemployment
Some believe that robots will take over all our jobs and therefore innovation (specifically in the area of robots) will cause unemployment. But in reality, it’s the other way around. You may be familiar with the product life cycle diagram. Every product (and when I say “product” I also include service, process, or business model)…
Read MoreThe Unintended Consequences of IoT (Internet of Things) Deployment
Three of the most hyped technologies in recent years include Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Thing (IoT). And how do I know that they are hyped? Because in August 2018, Gartner published its latest hype cycle report for emerging technologies, putting IoT barely past the “peak of inflated expectations” (that’s when we believe…
Read MoreSimple Formula That Explains Why Anyone Would Buy Your Invention
The following is taken from a course that I developed and currently teach at the Cox Graduate School of Business at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, named “Evaluating Entrepreneurial Opportunities” (CISB 6226) The subject of this article is the million (or 10 million, or 100 million, or a billion ) dollar question.…
Read MoreWhat you need is a Chief Culture Officer
Peter Drucker said that– business has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Well, your company probably already has a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), and most likely a Chief Innovation Officer (CINO, to distinguish from your Chief Information Officer, CIO). So you have both Druckerian functions covered. You may also have a Chief Strategy…
Read MoreThe Hiring Mistake That Would Kill Your Company’s Innovation Culture
The growth stage of a startup is scary and painful. With perfectly good intentions, founders make this mistake, that may lead to the company’s failure. When a startup is born, its founders are the creators of everything. They are the ones responsible for product (or service) development, for initial marketing and sales, and everything else that’s needed. They get their…
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