Leading and Building a Culture of Innovation
- Dates: 08–13 DEC 2024
- Format: In-Person Learning takes place on the HBS campus or a designated location.
- Location: HBS Campus
- Fee: $16,000

"Participants learn how to unleash the creative potential in their colleagues and create a more innovative organization."

"This program has helped me inspire my team to think and act with fresh energy and vision."
Summary
Today's leaders are evolving their approaches to leadership and innovation in response to quantum shifts in how we work and live. In the midst of economic, societal, and technological disruptions, leaders must build and lead agile organizations able to collaborate, leverage digital assets, and innovate again and again.
This lab-style leadership program immerses you in every stage of the innovation process. You'll roll up your sleeves and experience first-hand what it really takes to build the culture and capabilities required to encourage collaborative problem-solving, creative thinking, rapid iteration, and learning from success and failure. You will focus on addressing one of your organization's innovation challenges—and return to work ready to foster the innovations that will drive your organization's competitive advantage and growth.
This corporate innovation program is offered in cooperation with the HBS Leadership Initiative.

This program is eligible for the Certificate of Management Excellence. Learn More
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Summary
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Today's leaders are evolving their approaches to leadership and innovation in response to quantum shifts in how we work and live. In the midst of economic, societal, and technological disruptions, leaders must build and lead agile organizations able to collaborate, leverage digital assets, and innovate again and again.
This lab-style leadership program immerses you in every stage of the innovation process. You'll roll up your sleeves and experience first-hand what it really takes to build the culture and capabilities required to encourage collaborative problem-solving, creative thinking, rapid iteration, and learning from success and failure. You will focus on addressing one of your organization's innovation challenges—and return to work ready to foster the innovations that will drive your organization's competitive advantage and growth.
This corporate innovation program is offered in cooperation with the HBS Leadership Initiative.
This program is eligible for the Certificate of Management Excellence. Learn More
DetailsExpand AllCollapse All
Help your organization achieve ambitious goals in complex and uncertain timesHelp your organization achieve ambitious goals in complex and uncertain times
- Improve your organization's ability to collaborate and innovate boldly and consistently
- Innovate in the face of today's competitive pressures and prepare to take advantage of longer-term opportunities while meeting shorter-term objectives
- Work effectively with peers and upper management to facilitate necessary change and realize the potential of pioneering ideas
- Embrace your role as change agent
Bring out the best in peopleBring out the best in people
- Create a supportive environment that enables people to take risks, experiment, and learn from failures
- Unleash the diverse talent in your organization to create "collective genius"
- Manage your network of relationships with colleagues, employees, and other stakeholders to break down barriers to change
Step up to new challengesStep up to new challenges
- Expand your leadership practice to encourage behaviors that drive creative thinking and a new level of collaborative learning across your team and organization
- Create a culture that promotes both incremental and breakthrough change
- Build agility and respond more effectively to shifting priorities
- Execute innovative ideas at scale
Expand your personal and professional networkExpand your personal and professional network
- Extend your network by living and working with accomplished executives from various backgrounds, industries, and countries
- Build relationships with a diverse group of peers who can provide wide-ranging insights into your business challenges and career decisions
Help your organization achieve ambitious goals in complex and uncertain times
- Improve your organization's ability to collaborate and innovate boldly and consistently
- Innovate in the face of today's competitive pressures and prepare to take advantage of longer-term opportunities while meeting shorter-term objectives
- Work effectively with peers and upper management to facilitate necessary change and realize the potential of pioneering ideas
- Embrace your role as change agent
Bring out the best in people
- Create a supportive environment that enables people to take risks, experiment, and learn from failures
- Unleash the diverse talent in your organization to create "collective genius"
- Manage your network of relationships with colleagues, employees, and other stakeholders to break down barriers to change
Step up to new challenges
- Expand your leadership practice to encourage behaviors that drive creative thinking and a new level of collaborative learning across your team and organization
- Create a culture that promotes both incremental and breakthrough change
- Build agility and respond more effectively to shifting priorities
- Execute innovative ideas at scale
Expand your personal and professional network
- Extend your network by living and working with accomplished executives from various backgrounds, industries, and countries
- Build relationships with a diverse group of peers who can provide wide-ranging insights into your business challenges and career decisions
Who Should Attend
- General managers who lead companies, business units, divisions, or other large-scale organizations, as well as executives with cross-functional responsibilities
- Change management executives
- Leaders focused on innovation, R&D, or IT, including chief innovation officers, chief technology officers, chief information officers, and chief HR executives
- Leaders from corporate strategy, finance, legal, human resources, marketing, manufacturing, customer service, and sales
Individuals and teams are welcome to attend. Participation by multiple company representatives will foster teamwork and amplify the program's impact on your organization.

Program for Leadership Development participants earn 5 PLDA Points on completion of this program.
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Who Should Attend
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- General managers who lead companies, business units, divisions, or other large-scale organizations, as well as executives with cross-functional responsibilities
- Change management executives
- Leaders focused on innovation, R&D, or IT, including chief innovation officers, chief technology officers, chief information officers, and chief HR executives
- Leaders from corporate strategy, finance, legal, human resources, marketing, manufacturing, customer service, and sales
Individuals and teams are welcome to attend. Participation by multiple company representatives will foster teamwork and amplify the program's impact on your organization.
Program for Leadership Development participants earn 5 PLDA Points on completion of this program.
Learning and Living at HBS
When you participate in an Executive Education program on the HBS campus, you enter an immersive experience where every aspect of the learning model has been carefully designed to facilitate your growth. Your learning will take place on your own, in your living group, and in the larger classroom, driven by the renowned HBS case method.
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Learning and Living at HBS
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When you participate in an Executive Education program on the HBS campus, you enter an immersive experience where every aspect of the learning model has been carefully designed to facilitate your growth. Your learning will take place on your own, in your living group, and in the larger classroom, driven by the renowned HBS case method.
Admissions Criteria and Process
Answering Your Questions
Application Submission
Application Review
Fee, Payment, and Cancellations
Answering Your Questions
Application Submission
Application Review
Fee, Payment, and Cancellations
What You Will Learn
Immersing yourself in the process of exploration, experimentation, failure, and examination, you will discover new ways to surface and develop ideas, discuss them openly, evolve them, and set the stage for ongoing innovation. As you dig into the characteristics of innovative organizations, you will learn what it takes to lead the changes that transform promising ideas into reality.
Balancing Collaboration and Personal Reflection
While this innovation program emphasizes collaboration, you also will engage in guided self-reflection and a unique approach to peer-to-peer collaboration that is designed to boost your creativity and expand your innovation mindset.
Your Innovation Challenge
During the program, you will work with a team of peers, known as a "brain trust," to spark new thinking on innovation and help you evolve your ideas. You'll have the opportunity to focus on an innovation leadership challenge facing your organization, share your approach with your brain trust, and iterate your solutions with their help.
Participants should expect to spend at least 9-12 hours on self-paced case preparation prior to attending the program. Case materials will be made available approximately two weeks prior to program start.
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What You Will Learn
-
Immersing yourself in the process of exploration, experimentation, failure, and examination, you will discover new ways to surface and develop ideas, discuss them openly, evolve them, and set the stage for ongoing innovation. As you dig into the characteristics of innovative organizations, you will learn what it takes to lead the changes that transform promising ideas into reality.
Balancing Collaboration and Personal Reflection
While this innovation program emphasizes collaboration, you also will engage in guided self-reflection and a unique approach to peer-to-peer collaboration that is designed to boost your creativity and expand your innovation mindset.
Your Innovation Challenge
During the program, you will work with a team of peers, known as a "brain trust," to spark new thinking on innovation and help you evolve your ideas. You'll have the opportunity to focus on an innovation leadership challenge facing your organization, share your approach with your brain trust, and iterate your solutions with their help.
Participants should expect to spend at least 9-12 hours on self-paced case preparation prior to attending the program. Case materials will be made available approximately two weeks prior to program start.
Key TopicsExpand AllCollapse All
Understanding the realities of innovationUnderstanding the realities of innovation
- Anaylzing the differences between execution, innovation, and change
- Considering innovation broadly, not limited to products and services
- Exploring how innovation can become a mandate for everyone in every function
- Identifying common practices that can stifle collaboration and innovation
- Understanding what contextual intelligence is and how to apply it to thrive in different environments
Developing a leadership approach that fosters innovationDeveloping a leadership approach that fosters innovation
- Interpreting the responsibility for driving innovation
- Framing the leader's role as social architect
- Playing the role of change agent and advocating for change at different levels of your organization
- Embracing the often-messy process of collaborative innovation
- Balancing the inherent tensions and paradoxes of leading innovation
- Fulfilling three key leadership imperatives—managing yourself, your team, and your network—in ways that facilitate innovation
Instilling habits that can unleash creative potential throughout your organizationInstilling habits that can unleash creative potential throughout your organization
- Creating more opportunities for creative collaboration
- Recognizing how diversity expands the range of possibilities and elicits more and better ideas
- Fostering trust and a shared sense of purpose and values
- Understanding and managing creative abrasion, creative agility, and creative resolution
- Institutionalizing experimentation, risk-taking, and the tolerance for failure
Creating structures that support innovation in your organizationCreating structures that support innovation in your organization
- Organizing spaces that support collaborative problem solving
- Introducing new, innovation-specific rules of engagement
- Developing an effective marketplace of new ideas
- Developing processes to support the generation of breakthrough innovations while simultaneously maintaining existing business operations
- Identifying and overcoming obstacles to collaboration and innovation
- Evolving decision-making processes to align with the nature of innovation
Transforming innovative ideas into realityTransforming innovative ideas into reality
- Analyzing and managing the implications and trade-offs of promising new ideas
- Leading the changes needed to experiment with an innovative solution
- Dealing with the obstacles to change
- Working with different constituencies in your organization to ensure successful implementation
Understanding the realities of innovation
- Anaylzing the differences between execution, innovation, and change
- Considering innovation broadly, not limited to products and services
- Exploring how innovation can become a mandate for everyone in every function
- Identifying common practices that can stifle collaboration and innovation
- Understanding what contextual intelligence is and how to apply it to thrive in different environments
Developing a leadership approach that fosters innovation
- Interpreting the responsibility for driving innovation
- Framing the leader's role as social architect
- Playing the role of change agent and advocating for change at different levels of your organization
- Embracing the often-messy process of collaborative innovation
- Balancing the inherent tensions and paradoxes of leading innovation
- Fulfilling three key leadership imperatives—managing yourself, your team, and your network—in ways that facilitate innovation
Instilling habits that can unleash creative potential throughout your organization
- Creating more opportunities for creative collaboration
- Recognizing how diversity expands the range of possibilities and elicits more and better ideas
- Fostering trust and a shared sense of purpose and values
- Understanding and managing creative abrasion, creative agility, and creative resolution
- Institutionalizing experimentation, risk-taking, and the tolerance for failure
Creating structures that support innovation in your organization
- Organizing spaces that support collaborative problem solving
- Introducing new, innovation-specific rules of engagement
- Developing an effective marketplace of new ideas
- Developing processes to support the generation of breakthrough innovations while simultaneously maintaining existing business operations
- Identifying and overcoming obstacles to collaboration and innovation
- Evolving decision-making processes to align with the nature of innovation
Transforming innovative ideas into reality
- Analyzing and managing the implications and trade-offs of promising new ideas
- Leading the changes needed to experiment with an innovative solution
- Dealing with the obstacles to change
- Working with different constituencies in your organization to ensure successful implementation
The HBS Advantage
Our Executive Education programs are developed and taught by top faculty who are widely recognized as skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors. Through their board memberships, consulting, and field-based research, they address the complex challenges facing business leaders across the globe.
Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration
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The HBS Advantage
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Our Executive Education programs are developed and taught by top faculty who are widely recognized as skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors. Through their board memberships, consulting, and field-based research, they address the complex challenges facing business leaders across the globe.
Faculty ChairWallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Organizational BehaviorFaculty
Your Peers Expand Your Learning
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Your Peers Expand Your Learning
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Global PerspectiveExperience the world in your classroom.Global PerspectiveExperience the world in your classroom.8%Africa18%Asia Pacific16%Europe6%Latin America16%Middle East36%North America8%Africa18%Asia Pacific16%Europe6%Latin America16%Middle East36%North AmericaTop Industries RepresentedInsights from a range of industries ignite your thinking.Insights from a range of industries ignite your thinking.22%Financial9%High Technology9%Nonprofit Services9%Professional Services6%Manufacturing5%Communications5%Education5%Raw Materials / Energy5%Chem / Pharma / Bio5%Health CareTop Industries RepresentedInsights from a range of industries ignite your thinking.22%Financial9%High Technology9%Nonprofit Services9%Professional Services6%Manufacturing5%Communications5%Education5%Raw Materials / Energy5%Chem / Pharma / Bio5%Health CareExperienceExperienceYears workedYears workedExperienceYears workedLess than 10 yearsLess than 10 years10-14 years10-14 years15-19 years15-19 years20-24 years20-24 years25-29 years25-29 years30-34 years30-34 years35-39 years35-39 years40 years or more40 years or moreLess than 10 yearsLess than 10 years10-14 years10-14 years15-19 years15-19 years20-24 years20-24 years25-29 years25-29 years30-34 years30-34 years35-39 years35-39 years40 years or more40 years or more

"Participants learn how to unleash the creative potential in their colleagues and create a more innovative organization."
