One of the toughest challenges, in any type of organization, is getting traction for a new idea. It can be a struggle to win over staff, peers, managers, and board members, and powerful new ideas often get stuck in place. This is especially true in the cultural sector, where there is little time and even less money for experimentation and risks. To keep realizing your goals, arts and cultural leaders need to create an environment where new management and program ideas can effectively be created, shared, evaluated, and the best ones successfully put to work.
Leading Innovation is taught by:
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David Owens, Ph.D.
Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University
Key Learning
Leading Innovation is a highly interactive two-day experience where you will learn how to make an "innovation strategy" a fundamental component of your organization's overall strategy. In this seminar you will learn to:
- Analyze constraints on innovation in your organization, foresee obstacles and opportunities, and develop a shared vision
- Develop a process to manage the demands from multiple stakeholders, shifting priorities, and the uncertainty inherent in new initiatives
- Create a culture for innovation and risk-taking that generates new perspectives and challenges existing practice
- Create a strong customer focus within your organization that anticipates customer needs
Seminar Sessions
Day One
Session 1: The Context of Innovation
In this first session, you examine a model of the innovation process that can help an organization become intentional as it strives for innovative action.
Session 2: A Framework for Innovation
You explore this new framework for innovation through direct experiences, discussions, and short applied exercises throughout the first day. We examine common challenges that individuals face as they attempt to generate new ideas and get those ideas adopted by others. We then use a group exercise and discussion to understand how group dynamics affect innovation. We complete the model by exploring how organizational structure, sector-wide factors such as resource availability and competition, and societal norms further affect innovation.
Day Two
Session 1: Applying the Innovation Framework
The faculty leads an in-depth discussion of the issues facing an organization that is prized for its ability to "routinely innovate" when it is asked to innovate in a dimension beyond its comfort zone.
Session 2: The Innovation Process
The process used for innovation is also critical to creating new answers and putting them to work. We now examine a systematic process for innovating that reflects your unique context.
Session 3: The Innovation Process Applied
Working in your organizational teams in an extended class exercise, you will choose an innovation problem facing your organization, and then use the frameworks explored in the class to generate, select, and plan the implementation of an innovative solution.
Session 4: Next Actions
In this closing session, you reflect on your experience using the innovation process, identify and discuss the key constraints that affected your innovation process, and use these insights to identify critical next steps for your organization.
Recommended Team
Leading Innovation is designed for top program, management, and board leadership. We strongly recommend a team of three or more people; large organizations should consider sending larger teams. In selecting your team, it will be helpful to include:
- Key board, administrative, and program staff you see as either potential change agents or possible barriers to change
- Influential representatives of key stakeholder groups (for example, orchestras have brought musicians)
