Leading for Creativity
Leading for Creativity
Go Deeper with Certificate Programs
Leading for Creativity is part of a certificate program:
What You'll Get
Week 1: Introduction
Week 1: Introduction
Watch a sneak peek
-
Leading for Creativity—A taste of the learning experience
3 Video Lessons
-
Getting Started—A preview
-
The Mindset of Curiosity—The power of questions
-
About Your Instructor: Tim Brown, Chief Executive Officer, IDEO
1 Assignment
-
Finding Answers Through Questions: The next meeting you go to, record all the questions asked. Think about what these questions started to illuminate.
2 Discussions
-
What does leading for creativity mean to you? How might your team or organization benefit from more creative support?
-
What’s your biggest question? What inspires you and pushes you to think bigger?
Week 2: Leading with a Strong Point of View
Week 2: Leading with a Strong Point of View
4 Video Lessons
- The Explorer—Setting the course for success
- Frame a Challenge—Striking a balance
- Frame a Challenge—Creating challenge questions
- Other Ways to Lead with a Strong Point of View—Hiring talent
1 Assignment
-
Leading with a Strong Point of View: Connect your day-to-day work with your organization's purpose and vision.
4 Discussions
-
When have you seen leading with a strong point of view shut people down? When have you seen it inspire others?
-
Imagine a challenge you're working on right now. What would your dream team look like?
-
What are other examples of leading with a strong point of view?
-
What will be easy to integrate into your team or organization? What will be difficult?
Week 3: Leading Through Culture
Week 3: Leading Through Culture
5 Video Lessons
- The Gardener—Nudging culture
- Design a Ritual—Reinforcing beliefs & behaviors (Part I)
- Design a Ritual—Reinforcing beliefs & behaviors (Part II)
- Other Ways to Lead Through Culture—Physical spaces
- Nudge Culture—Nudge culture with IDEO
1 Assignment
-
Leading Through Culture: Design and try out a ritual for your co-workers, family, or friends.
5 Discussions
-
Think of a time you saw a change in culture make a significant difference. What happened? What was the impact?
-
How does your organization or team’s culture compare to our list of creative beliefs and behaviors? What are the gaps and tensions?
-
What inspired you about using physical spaces to set conditions that help creativity thrive? How might you translate this to your own work or life?
-
How might you design a moment to encourage open conversation within your organization? What are the ways you might nudge your organization's culture to better support creativity?
-
What do you personally find most challenging about leading through culture?
Week 4: Leading Alongside
Week 4: Leading Alongside
3 Video Lessons
- The Coach—Staying present
- Guide an Experiment—Supporting your team at critical times
- Other Ways to Lead Alongside—Career navigation
1 Assignment
-
Leading Alongside: Practice coaching your team through ambiguous moments
4 Discussions
-
What person has played a coaching role in your life? What's one unique characteristic or skill this person possesses?
-
Share a time when you guided an experiment and it didn't go as planned. Where was the breakdown? Which tip could have helped you guide your team forward, and why?
-
What other ways do you find yourself leading alongside others? How has that experience helped you grow as a leader?
-
What are your strategies for staying present and engaged? How will you know when to lean in and when to create space for your team to take ownership?
Week 5: Conclusion
Week 5: Conclusion
1 Video Lesson
- Course Conclusion—Go lead for creativity
1 Assignment
-
Final Project: Design your leadership plan and commit to behaviors and mindsets from the course.
1 Discussion
-
What's the thing you're most excited about taking with you as you go off and lead for creativity?
Meet Your Instructor
Tim Brown
Chair of IDEO
Tim Brown led IDEO for more than 19 years. He speaks frequently about the value of design thinking and innovation. He has earned numerous design awards and exhibited work at galleries including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He wrote the book Change by Design.
Tim Brown
Chair of IDEO
Tim frequently speaks about the value of design thinking and innovation to business people and designers around the world. He participates in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and his talks Serious Play and Change by Design appear on TED.com.
An industrial designer by training, Tim has earned numerous design awards and has exhibited work at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He takes special interest in the convergence of technology and the arts, as well as the ways in which design can be used to promote the well-being of people living in emerging economies.
Tim advises senior executives and boards of global Fortune 100 companies. His book on how design thinking transforms organizations, Change by Design, was released by Harper Business in September 2009 and revised and updated in March 2019.
FAQs
We offer three types of courses: self-paced courses, cohort courses, and certificate programs. Cohort courses run on a set calendar, with fixed start and end dates. Course learning is self-paced within those dates and requires approximately 4-5 hours per week over 5 weeks. Courses consist of videos, activities, assignments, access to course teaching teams, and feedback from a global community of learners. There are also optional 1-hour video Community Conversations, held weekly by the teaching team.
All of our cohort courses are fully online, so you can take them from any time zone, anywhere in the world. With our cohort course experience, while you'll be learning alongside other learners, you'll still have the flexibility to work at the pace that fits your own schedule. There aren't mandatory live components, so you don't have to worry about having to log in at a specific time. At the same time, you'll have access to a teaching team who will answer your questions and give feedback on your assignments throughout the course.
Cohort courses run on a set calendar with fixed start and end dates. You will be learning alongside other learners, but still have the flexibility to work at a pace that fits your own schedule—there aren't mandatory live components. In cohort courses, you'll have access to a teaching team who will answer your questions and give feedback on your assignments throughout the course. Self-paced courses allow you to start, learn, and finish a course completely on your own schedule. Since courses are on-demand, there's no community experience of going through the material with other learners. In on-demand courses, there is no teaching team providing feedback on your submissions.
Upon completing a course, the certificate and digital badge for the course will automatically become available to you on your profile page within 24 hours. There, you can view your certificate, download it, and access your Credly badge. We've partnered with Credly, a leading digital credentialing platform, to provide learners with a digital badge that they can share on social media, email signatures, or add to their LinkedIn profiles or resumes.
IDEO U courses are not currently eligible for university credit.
You'll need a stable internet connection and a device (computer, tablet, or phone) with a modern web browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge. Some course activities may work better on a computer than a mobile device. You'll also need to be able to view videos, which requires a browser that supports HTML5 video.
Once you enroll in a course, you can access it by logging into your IDEO U account at ideou.com and clicking on your profile icon in the upper right corner. Then click on "My Courses" to see all of your enrolled courses. Click on the course you want to access to go to the course page. Your courses are always available in your account, even after the course end date.
We offer a 10-day satisfaction guarantee for our cohort courses (starting from the course start date). If you're unhappy with the course for any reason, reach out to us within 10 days of the course start date and we'll give you a full refund. To process a refund, contact us.
Yes, we do! We offer group pricing when you purchase 5 or more seats for the same course. Contact us at learner-success@ideou.com to get a quote.
Collaborate with a Global Community
Work with Expert Coaches
Our teaching team has extensive applied industry knowledge. They'll help deepen your understanding and application of the course content by facilitating written discussions, live video moments, and assignment feedback.
Expand Your Network
Join virtual live discussion groups for deeper conversation, reflection, and connection led by teaching team members and available multiple times a week across time zones.
Receive Feedback
Gain tips, techniques, and a downloadable feedback guide; and share and receive feedback on assignments from peers.
Loved by Learners Across the Globe
Leading for Creativity
“It was perfect timing with my desire to shift my firm's vision as we were beginning to hire new staff. It really provided insight to the process in ways I hadn't experienced just by listening to TED Talks and reading articles. The assignments added more focus to the learning.”
Leading for Creativity
“Leadership is a new role for me and I found a lot of great information from the course. I think that those who have been in a leadership role for a period of time will also find this course beneficial to get them to think in a different way.”
Leading for Creativity
“I learned how to bring design thinking into my role as a cultural facilitator and in-house executive coach and built an entire program by applying IDEO U's creative framework to my work. The energy around these new skills springboarded me into launching a consultancy and taking huge, creative strides as a leader.”
Leading for Creativity
“A few months after taking the Leading for Creativity course I was promoted to lead design in our organisation. The fact that I was already demonstrating creative leadership qualities helped the leaders make this decision, and I felt confident enough to accept the offer, knowing what is expected of a creative leader.”
Learners Also Purchased
-
![Storytelling for Influence]()
Storytelling for Influence
Build the foundational skills of storytelling. Move your audience to action.Cohort Course 5 Weeks- Regular price
- $899
- Sale price
- $899
- Unit price
- per
-
Part of Certificate Program
![Cultivating Creative Collaboration]()
Cultivating Creative Collaboration
Learn to lead collaborative teams from Mike Peng, CEO of IDEOCohort Course 5 Weeks- Regular price
- $899
- Sale price
- $899
- Unit price
- per
-
![Power of Purpose]()
Power of Purpose
Learn to work and lead with purposeSelf-Paced Course start anytime- Regular price
- $250
- Sale price
- $250
- Unit price
- per
Enroll As a Team
The practice and application of design thinking, innovation, and creativity is highly collaborative and team based—which is why we believe that learning is better together. Take a course as a team and develop new skills and mindsets, have deeper discussion during course kickoff and debrief sessions, and build a shared understanding.
