Showing 91 - 100 of 157
Are you ready to be an entrepreneur? (Part 2)
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 25/09/2014
» My last column identified five decisions you need to make when starting a new venture: Do you have an entrepreneurial mindset? Is your business idea really worth pursuing? When should you start? Should you go it alone or with partners? How to structure a partnership? Here are the other five decisions you must consider carefully to have a good chance of succeeding as an entrepreneur.
Do you think you're ready to be an entrepreneur? (Part 1)
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 11/09/2014
» 'Who wants to be an entrepreneur?" I asked my graduate students in a course on decision-making. To my surprise, three-quarters of them raised their hands. It seems the American futurist John Naisbitt was right when he said: "We are shifting from a managerial society to an entrepreneurial society." Being customer-focused in all that I do, I added a section on entrepreneurial decision-making to the course. After all, becoming an entrepreneur and then making a go of it requires making big decisions wisely and avoiding the common traps that Noam Wasserman outlined in his book The Founder's Dilemmas. In this column and the next, I'd like to share 10 pieces of advice for entrepreneurs to help you discover if you're ready for entrepreneurship.
Get creative with your inbox and take control of email
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 28/08/2014
» Do you have email fatigue? Does your inbox constantly contain hundreds — even thousands — of emails? Does that number continue to grow? For many of us, email seems more of a curse than a blessing, a source of stress rather than a useful and speedy means of communication.
Fear of losing may be why you're not winning
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 14/08/2014
» As part of the decision-making course I teach to graduate students in business, I introduce them to prospect theory and the related cognitive biases. One of these biases, loss aversion, helps explain why many individuals and organisations are unable to realise their full innovation potential.
Escaping the commodity trap through customer experience design
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 31/07/2014
» Have you noticed that your profit margins are dropping? Is competitive pressure transforming your once-unique products and services into commodities? What can you do about this? General Electric chief executive Jeffrey Immelt once said, “Managing innovation better may be the only way out of the abyss called commodity hell.”
Fresh innovation lessons from the 2014 World Cup
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 17/07/2014
» On Sunday, the final of the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil was played. A month of dramatic matches and great performances showed us what it takes to succeed on football’s greatest stage. And the lessons learned there can help us to succeed in business generally and in innovation specifically.
The Input-Process-Output model of innovati on
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 03/07/2014
» All systems can be understood using an input-process-output (IPO) model, and the system we call “innovation” is no exception. This model is likely familiar to you from information technology and manufacturing. Let’s see how it can help in innovation:
Are you really who other people think you are?
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 19/06/2014
» A few weeks ago, I was in Hong Kong to teach a few classes and to meet with some companies. While there, I demonstrated my company’s new innovation profiling method, which categorises people’s innovation styles. One person who saw the demo thought people might try to skew their results and suggested a way to prevent that.
World Cup footballers can give innovation lessons to business
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 05/06/2014
» Next week the 20th Fifa World Cup will begin, and for the next month much of the world including me will focus on the momentous trifle that is football. Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Everything is connected to everything else.” So let’s connect our passion for football to our passion for innovation. What does a team need to win the World Cup? And how can that help us win at innovation?
Building a functional bridge over the efficiency-creativity divide
Business, Detlef Reis, Published on 22/05/2014
» In my last column, I showed that humanity has entered a new era, the age of creation intensification. Thriving in this new innovation economy requires that organisations become more innovative. Unfortunately, many companies find it difficult to support innovation.