Core Module 1 - Fostering Innovation in the Age of Disruption - Lead the Future Onboarding

In the beginning of the module, we establish why we need innovation capabilities to succeed at doing new things, how they differ from more familiar management practices, and why they are critical for any new activity, whether it be creating a new product, changing a process, launching an internal initiative, entering a new geography, starting a new project, launching a new venture, adopting digital tools, or launching a digital transformation. Whenever you do something new there are untested assumptions, some of which you may not be aware. We introduce innovation management, or “Blue” ways of working, as a second and complementary toolkit to existing management practices that will help you increase your chances of success in doing new things. In essence, this is about the “how” of innovation, Blue Ocean Strategy, ambidexterity, explore vs exploit, and other frameworks that may be familiar. We proceed to discuss the tools that established companies could employ to become more agile and more effectively navigate an uncertain future and innovate themselves. We conclude the week by introducing the three elements that are at the heart of effective innovation: people, process, and philosophy.

You will also find guidance on how to make the most of the module, information on completion requirements, and an overview of the upcoming week’s journey. Lastly, you'll also receive an introduction to the "Action Learning Practice" (ALP), designed to help you apply the concepts learned in the course to your work.

In Week 1, we tackle the “people” element by exploring our research into the behaviours of innovative leaders. Creative leadership is one of the most prized leadership capabilities yet most of us believe it to be genetic. Research shows however, that it is mostly a learned behaviour. Our research, based on interviews and surveys with thousands of leaders, unpacks the behaviours you can practice and coach in your teams to increase the ability to generate new ideas, new ways of seeing things and new approaches to old problems. We discuss these behaviours in detail with examples and tools to practice. In addition, we provide you with the opportunity to take a professional assessment of these behaviours, tested with over 16,000 leaders, to give you a benchmark for personal development and to reflect on how to improve your innovation capability and leadership.

This week, we take you into the heart of the Innovator's Method: the process to more effectively test ideas. These tools synthesise the latest frameworks from lean start-up, design thinking, agile methodology, and business model innovation, into a process that will allow us to more effectively innovate our way through uncertainty. We show how to apply this process in established companies or startups, B2B or B2C, private or public, to test a new product, process, business model, internal initiative, transformation strategy, or any other situation involving uncertainty. We discuss traps and remedies identified in over a decade of our own research applying these tools and from the broader body of empirical research and field experiments on how to repeatedly innovate.

In Week 3, we will take a deep dive into the process element of the Innovator’s Method. Guided by Professor Furr, we will introduce a set of tools, with examples of them in action in a real-life case study. Then you will be given the chance to practice these same tools applying them to another innovative project. We will then show these tools used in a B2B setting and a public institution setting before inviting you to apply them to your own situation

In Week 4, we explore how to create the context for innovation to happen. One dilemma we all face is that many of our organisations, and personal habits, are designed for repetition and execution. In this environment it is particularly challenging for new ideas or approaches to surface and mature. This week explores the philosophy of innovative organisations, which is a catch-all term for the leadership, governance, infrastructure, and culture that allow for innovation. We will describe the research-backed best practices with the objective of giving you ideas, inspiration, and approaches to lead innovative, agile organisations.

In Week 5, we touch upon a foundational attribute critical to innovation but rarely discussed: uncertainty ability or the ability to face uncertainty well to discover new possibilities. Although we talk frequently about innovation, change, and transformation, we rarely acknowledge that to do these things, we must first step into the unknown. Moreover, life and careers are full of surprises that create setbacks, disappointment, and unplanned uncertainty. Yet few of us are given the tools to navigate either planned or unplanned uncertainty. Drawing upon the research described in The Upside of Uncertainty (Harvard, 2022), we explore the tools that innovators, creators, designers, and leaders use to face uncertainty with courage and resilience, as well as help those they lead to build their own and their organisation’s uncertainty ability.