Leading Innovation in Arts and Culture

Vanderbilt University via Coursera

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/arts-culture-innovation

Introduction

### Course Review: Leading Innovation in Arts and Culture **Course Overview** In a rapidly evolving cultural landscape, the ability to foster innovation is crucial for leaders in the arts and cultural sectors. The Coursera course **"Leading Innovation in Arts and Culture,"** developed by David Owens at Vanderbilt University in collaboration with National Arts Strategies, is a must-take for anyone looking to make a tangible impact in these fields. This online course is specifically designed to help arts leaders create an environment where new ideas are generated, evaluated, and effectively implemented, addressing one of the most significant challenges in innovation: gaining traction for new ideas. #### **Course Syllabus Breakdown** This course offers a comprehensive syllabus that addresses individual, group, organizational, industry, societal, and technological constraints to innovation, ultimately equipping participants with the tools to lead effectively. 1. **Context of Innovation**: The course kicks off by examining why innovation often fails within creative fields, despite the inherent creativity in the arts and culture sectors. Participants are introduced to a six-level framework for understanding constraints on innovation, emphasizing the need to identify and eliminate barriers rather than merely enhancing innovation skills. 2. **Individual Level Constraints**: The second week delves into the individual level, exploring the various personal constraints—perception, intellect, and expression—that can hinder creativity. The emphasis here is on self-diagnosis and developing strategies to navigate these common challenges, encouraging participants to recognize how these constraints can affect both themselves and their colleagues. 3. **Group Constraints**: The dynamics of collaborative creativity are unpacked in week three, highlighting the importance of group cooperation and cultural norms. Insights from social psychology provide a basis for understanding how group processes can facilitate or impede innovation, equipping participants with tools to enhance team innovation. 4. **Organizational Constraints**: Moving beyond teams, week four focuses on how an organization’s structure, strategy, and resources can either hinder or foster innovation. This section encourages participants to reflect on their organizational environments and consider how to align them with innovative goals. 5. **Industry/Sector Constraints**: In week five, the interplay between innovation and the broader industry context is explored. The case study of Kodak's digital camera failure exemplifies industry-related constraints, prompting critical analysis of competition and market dynamics. 6. **Societal Constraints**: The societal implications of innovation take center stage in week six, examining how societal values and historical context influence the acceptance of change. This module resonates deeply within the arts, where societal perceptions often shape the discussion around creativity and innovation. 7. **Technological Constraints**: Week seven shifts focus to the technical aspects of innovation, exploring how physical limits, scientific knowledge, and ecological considerations impact creative endeavors. Participants will gain insights into identifying and overcoming technological barriers. 8. **Leading an Innovation Strategy**: The final week encapsulates the course by discussing leadership in driving innovation. Using the Apollo 13 mission as a case study, participants will learn about essential leadership behaviors that facilitate successful innovation, including managing innovation portfolios and understanding their own constraints. #### **Why You Should Take This Course** The "Leading Innovation in Arts and Culture" course is tailored for individuals who are not just looking to enhance their creative skills but also looking to enrich their leadership capabilities in a complex cultural environment. Here are a few compelling reasons to enroll: - **Practical Framework**: The six-level framework for innovation constraints is a powerful tool that can be applied across various contexts, making it relevant for diverse roles within the arts and culture sectors. - **Interactive Learning**: The course is designed to be interactive, featuring diagnostic surveys, reflection essays, and case studies that encourage hands-on engagement with the content. - **Expert Insight**: Developed by David Owens, an expert in innovation and creativity, the course draws from leading research and empirical evidence to guide its teachings. - **Networking Opportunities**: Engaging with fellow participants provides an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas, share experiences, and build a network of like-minded professionals in the arts and culture industries. #### **Conclusion** For arts and culture leaders eager to navigate the complexities of innovation, the **"Leading Innovation in Arts and Culture"** course on Coursera is an invaluable investment in your professional development. With its well-structured syllabus and expert guidance, this course empowers participants to break down barriers to innovation, cultivate a culture of creativity, and lead with confidence in an ever-changing landscape. Don’t miss the chance to transform your approach to leadership and innovation—enroll today!

Syllabus

Context of Innovation

We are in creative fields, so this stuff should be easy, right? But we hear all the time from people in the field that it really isn't. Conversations keep circling the same old ideas, while exciting possibilities languish. Our first module introduces the course by examining the context within which innovation takes place. We start by exploring the question of why innovation fails. The proposition is that it is more effective (and probably easier) to stop stopping innovation, than it is to get better at it. We'll look at a 6-level framework for understanding innovation constraints. Your goal is to gain a high-level overview of the course content.

Individual Level Constraints

Our second week starts our in-depth examination of the framework at the individual level. Everyone in arts and culture is creative, right? Well, probably more creative - or more comfortable with creativity - than the average person. But people in arts and culture also understand better than the average person that creativity is a process, and you can get better at that process. In our model of individual constraints we will look carefully at Perception Constraints, which are failures to gain access to new and relevant information; Intellection Constraints, which are failures in thinking strategies to expose new insights and relationships; and finally, Expression Constraints which represent failures in our ability to express or articulate our ideas in ways that allow us to test our thinking or convey them to others. Our goals this week are 1) to diagnose our susceptibility to these constraints, 2) to develop strategies for overcoming them, and 3) to recognize how others may experience these constraints as we share our ideas with them.

Group Constraints

The lone genius hard at work in her garret is, we know, not exactly how the world of art and culture really works. This week's topic is Group Innovation Constraints and is grounded in the research and insights of the field of social psychology. We will be exploring the way that group dynamics affect the problem of innovation. Our basic premise is that in order to move from a creative idea to an innovation, you will need the cooperation and collaboration of others. We will take critical looks at emotion processing in groups, at group cultural norms, at group processes, and even at the environments within which groups function.

Organizational Constraints

This week's topic is Organizational Innovation Constraints. We are interested in understanding how organizations function in ways that can facilitate or constrain innovation in terms of their Strategy, Structure, or their Resources. This perspective is grounded in the idea that to develop and execute an innovative idea, you are going to need some form of organization, and the choices you make in terms of its functioning are consequential to its ability to innovate.

Industry / Sector Constraints

This week's topic is Industry/Sector Innovation Constraints. We are interested in understanding how the dynamics in a sector will facilitate or constrain innovation. We start with the story of Kodak's invention of the digital camera, trying to understand why they were unable to be successful at commercializing it. While there are some organizational innovation constraints that apply, we'll see that taking the perspective of economics and strategy, looking at competition constraints, supplier constraints, and market constraints, can provide a much more powerful analysis and explanation. We end with a brief overview of the "Disruptive Technology" (aka Innovator's Dilemma) work of C. Christensen, showing it's place within and consistency with the innovation constraints framework.

Societal Constraints

This week's session explores the perspective of the sociologist and anthropologist. People who adopt this view argue that innovation is likely to be constrained by (1) the views that a society holds of itself, (2) how it enforces those views, and (3) the history by which it came to hold and share those views. In more basic terms, this view suggests that innovation will fail when a society does not see how a proposition for change can make it become more of what it wants to be. Society will oppose changes that are antithetical to the ideals that it holds for itself. This constraint should feel familiar to arts and culture, where so much work challenges how we as individuals, groups and societies see and understand ourselves and our world. As in other sessions, in addition to the watching the lectures, you are asked to do the diagnostic survey and reflection essay, and participate in the forum discussions. As an additional exercise (All Students), this week will also require you to analyze a case study.

Technological Constraints

This week takes the perspective on innovation of the scientist and engineer. This view holds that innovation is constrained by the laws of nature and our ability to manipulate them. It focuses on the physical limits we hit when we try to do things like improve acoustics, present light-sensitive artifacts in an engaging and immediate way, or bring together thousands of people in one place for a festival. We will develop a model of these "technological constraints" by understanding the roles of 1) our knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology, 2) the nature of time and sequencing, and 3) the natural environment and ecology that form the context for our innovation. The perspective is that innovation will fail when the proposed change does not function or functions in unanticipated ways.

Leading an Innovation Strategy

Our final week takes on the problem of innovating as if it really mattered. We start with the story of Apollo 13, a life-or-death situation that required intense creative problem-solving, and consider the leadership behaviors that made successful innovation possible. Next, since our focus so far has been on improving our own ability to innovate, we discuss how to use the innovation constraint model to drive adoption by those people who are the targets of our change. We then revisit the question of process, and look at the role of the leader during each phase of a team's innovation journey. Moving to the organization-level of analysis we explore innovation portfolios and their ability to help us manage risk. Finally, by way of conclusion in the course, we talk about the nature of YOUR constraints and the ways that you can continue to identify them and find ways to work around them.