Today's leaders are evolving their approaches to leadership and innovation in response
to quantum shifts in how we work and live—shifts that have been accelerated by the
COVID-19 pandemic. 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.
Today's leaders are evolving their approaches to leadership and innovation in response
to quantum shifts in how we work and live—shifts that have been accelerated by the
COVID-19 pandemic. 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 program is eligible for the Certificate of Management Excellence. Learn More
Key Benefits
Focusing on the nature of innovation and on your leadership practice, you will expand
your personal effectiveness in building an organization able to execute innovative
ideas at scale. As you explore the culture and capabilities needed to inspire organization-wide
innovation, you will practice the behaviors and skills needed to drive innovation
and change, deepening your understanding of what it takes to lead creative and collaborative
teams that empower everyone to innovate.
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
Focusing on the nature of innovation and on your leadership practice, you will expand
your personal effectiveness in building an organization able to execute innovative
ideas at scale. As you explore the culture and capabilities needed to inspire organization-wide
innovation, you will practice the behaviors and skills needed to drive innovation
and change, deepening your understanding of what it takes to lead creative and collaborative
teams that empower everyone to innovate.
Details
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.
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.
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.
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.
We admit candidates to specific sessions on a rolling, space-available basis, and
encourage you to apply as early as possible. Although most programs have no formal
educational requirements, admission is a selective process based on your professional
achievement and organizational responsibilities.
Our Program Advising team can help you at any stage of the admissions process—starting
with identifying the program that best addresses your learning and development goals.
Contact a program advisor via email or call 1.800.427.5577 (outside the U.S., call +1.617.495.6555).
Application Submission
We recommend that you apply at least four weeks before the program start date. You
may use our online form or download an application. HBS maintains all application
information in strict confidentiality. We acknowledge receipt of applications via
email. In the unlikely event that you do not receive an acknowledgment, please email
us at exed_admissions@hbs.edu or call us at +1.617.495.6226.
Application Review
To optimize the learning experience and maximize the exchange of ideas, our Admissions
Committee makes selections that balance each participant's experience, scope of current
responsibilities, and type of organization. HBS seeks candidates who reflect a broad
range of industries, functions, countries, and backgrounds. We review applications
monthly and will contact you via email with the Admissions Committee's decision.
Fee, Payment, and Cancellations
The program fee covers tuition, books, case materials, accommodations, and most meals.
You will be invoiced upon admission to the program. Invoices are due within 30 days
of receipt, or upon receipt if the program start date is less than 30 days from the
invoice date. If you need to cancel or defer your participation, you must submit your
request in writing more than 30 days before the start of the program to receive a
full refund. Cancellation or deferral requests received 14 to 30 days prior to the
start of the program are subject to a fee of one-half of the program fee. Requests
received within 14 days are subject to full payment.
We admit candidates to specific sessions on a rolling, space-available basis, and
encourage you to apply as early as possible. Although most programs have no formal
educational requirements, admission is a selective process based on your professional
achievement and organizational responsibilities.
Answering Your Questions
Our Program Advising team can help you at any stage of the admissions process—starting
with identifying the program that best addresses your learning and development goals.
Contact a program advisor via email or call 1.800.427.5577 (outside the U.S., call +1.617.495.6555).
Application Submission
We recommend that you apply at least four weeks before the program start date. You
may use our online form or download an application. HBS maintains all application
information in strict confidentiality. We acknowledge receipt of applications via
email. In the unlikely event that you do not receive an acknowledgment, please email
us at exed_admissions@hbs.edu or call us at +1.617.495.6226.
Application Review
To optimize the learning experience and maximize the exchange of ideas, our Admissions
Committee makes selections that balance each participant's experience, scope of current
responsibilities, and type of organization. HBS seeks candidates who reflect a broad
range of industries, functions, countries, and backgrounds. We review applications
monthly and will contact you via email with the Admissions Committee's decision.
Fee, Payment, and Cancellations
The program fee covers tuition, books, case materials, accommodations, and most meals.
You will be invoiced upon admission to the program. Invoices are due within 30 days
of receipt, or upon receipt if the program start date is less than 30 days from the
invoice date. If you need to cancel or defer your participation, you must submit your
request in writing more than 30 days before the start of the program to receive a
full refund. Cancellation or deferral requests received 14 to 30 days prior to the
start of the program are subject to a fee of one-half of the program fee. Requests
received within 14 days are subject to full payment.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Program content, dates, schedule, fees, technology platforms, and faculty are subject
to change. In accordance with Harvard University policy, Harvard Business School
does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex or sexual
orientation, gender identity, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, political
beliefs, veteran status, or disability in admission to, access to, treatment in, or
employment in its programs and activities.
