MIDDLETOWN – The head of local technology firm Rite-Solutions has won praise in a new book about the power of iconoclastic thinking.

In his new book, “Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently” (Harvard Business Press, 2008), Emory University professor Gregory Berns commends Rite-Solutions CEO Jim Lavoie and his partner for creating a company culture that he says promotes rather than diminishes innovative thinking.

Berns writes that Lavoie and his partner, Rite-Solutions president Joe Marino, have “formed a company whose founding principle is the creation of a culture that fosters fun and innovation. … Lavoie and Marino are not iconoclasts, but they are attempting to coax potential iconoclasts out of their shells.”

Berns specifically cites the success of Lavoie’s “Stock-Market Game,” or “Idea Market.” On the day they begin work at Rite-Solutions, all new employees receive $10,000 in “opinion money,” which can be invested in an internal stock market that trades in ideas that the company’s employees have come up with.

By doing so, Berns says Lavoie and Marino have found a way to avoid rewarding the presentation of new ideas rather than the substance of them – a common problem, he says, in companies where the ideas that get taken up are those brought up by employees who happen to be the best presenters, rather than the best thinkers.

Berns also notes that the attrition rate among Rite-Solution’s 150 or so employees is just 2 percent, “a feat unheard of in the software industry, in which the norm is 10 to 20 percent.”

This marks the third time in the past year that Rite-Solutions has been featured in a business book. The company was previously featured in “The Future of Management” (Harvard Business Press, 2007), by Gary Hamel, and “Spiral Up, and Other Management Secrets Behind Wildly Successful Initiatives” (AMACOM, 2007), by Jane Linder.

For more information, visit www.ritesolutions.com.