3 semester credits

In the first course of the Executive MBA, students were introduced to the notion of being a leader in an era of disruptive change. Students take this course to continue the discussion on disruptive change by focusing on the importance of innovation in achieving business success. Innovation is not an end result. Rather, through creativity and foresight, it is a way of thinking that enables individuals and organizations to define critical problems, identify possible solutions, and foster positive change more effectively.

In particular, students in this course focus on increasing their abilities as creative leaders, those who can readily apply imagination to resolve complex problems and who can unleash the creative talents of others by establishing a work environment that facilitates creative thinking. The ultimate goal of this course is to provide students with a set of proven creativity methods, skills, and strategies that enable innovative breakthroughs to occur in a much more deliberate and predictable manner.

To accomplish this task, students describe why creativity and innovation are considered crucial 21st-century skills; learn to manage their judgment, so that they become more flexible, tolerant of ambiguity, and open to new ideas and possibilities; employ a variety of creative thinking tools useful in resolving problems that do not have easy answers; apply design thinking principles aimed at user empathy and rapid prototyping; identify what creative leaders do to promote innovation in their teams and organizations; and recognize how a systematic approach to creativity enhances the probability of innovative breakthroughs.