Module 1
Innovation culture as a system
- Culture, climate and observable behaviour.
- Exploration versus execution tensions.
- Innovation myths and anti-patterns.
- Diagnosing blockers and enablers.
- Leadership signals and role modelling.
Intermediate / Advanced Programme
Fostering Innovation: Culture, Leadership and Teams
Create the leadership behaviours, team conditions, learning routines and accountability required for sustained innovation.
Course overview
Create the conditions in which people can experiment, learn and innovate responsibly.
Fostering Innovation: Culture, Leadership and Teams focuses on the organisational conditions that allow innovation to become repeatable rather than exceptional. Participants examine leadership behaviour, psychological safety, challenge, collaboration, incentives, decision rights, learning routines and accountability across teams and functions.
Participants work through structured exercises and a realistic innovation challenge, progressively applying innovation culture as a system, psychological safety and constructive challenge, collaboration, diversity and team design and the later course modules to make evidence-based decisions rather than treating innovation tools as isolated techniques.
The course emphasises practical judgement, usable outputs and workplace transfer so that participants can apply the methods immediately after the programme and adapt them to their organisation’s strategy, governance and innovation environment.
Learning outcomes
What participants will be able to do.
By the end of the course, participants should be able to:
- Explain how culture, leadership and systems shape innovation behaviour.
- Diagnose barriers such as fear, hierarchy, silos and incentive conflict.
- Strengthen psychological safety while maintaining accountability.
- Apply leadership behaviours that support exploration and disciplined learning.
- Design cross-functional collaboration and decision practices.
- Build feedback, reflection and learning routines.
- Align recognition and incentives with desired innovation behaviour.
- Create an innovation-culture improvement plan with measurable actions.
Who should attend
Designed for professionals building innovation capability.
- Executives and functional leaders.
- People managers and team leaders.
- Innovation and transformation leaders.
- HR, talent and organisational-development professionals.
- Innovation champions and cross-functional teams.
Prerequisites
Practical, professionally relevant entry requirements.
- Participants should have experience working in or leading teams.
- A current innovation-culture challenge is useful for diagnosis exercises.
- No formal organisational-development qualification is required.
Course structure
A five-part journey from innovation climate to leadership routines and team practice.
The sequence may be delivered across five days or adapted to another approved format while preserving the learning outcomes.
Module 2
Psychological safety and constructive challenge
- Speaking up and intelligent dissent.
- Learning from failure without rewarding carelessness.
- Candour, respect and accountability.
- Leader responses to bad news.
- Team norms and challenge practices.
Module 3
Collaboration, diversity and team design
- Cross-functional innovation teams.
- Cognitive diversity and inclusion.
- Boundary spanning and silos.
- Decision rights and conflict.
- Team roles and operating agreements.
Module 4
Incentives, learning and management routines
- Recognition and incentive effects.
- Experiment reviews and retrospectives.
- Knowledge sharing and communities.
- Time, slack and resource access.
- Learning metrics and leadership cadence.
Module 5
Culture intervention and leadership plan
- Culture diagnostic.
- Priority behaviours and system changes.
- Leadership commitments.
- Measures and feedback loops.
- 90-day innovation culture action plan.
Learning experience
Apply ideas—not simply remember terminology.
The course uses a structured mix of explanation, facilitated discussion, realistic innovation challenges and workplace-focused application.
Analyse
Integrated innovation case
Participants diagnose a realistic innovation situation and progressively build the course-specific innovation approach.
Practise
Tools and working templates
Exercises produce practical maps, canvases, decision aids, experiments, analyses and other course-specific working outputs.
Decide
Scenario-based workshops
Teams assess evidence, compare options, manage uncertainty and make defensible innovation decisions.
Reflect
Professional judgement
Facilitated reviews connect innovation methods with leadership behaviour, governance, ethics and accountability.
Apply
Workplace transfer
Participants identify how to adapt the methods to their own innovation challenges and organisational environment.
Reinforce
Knowledge checks
Short reviews, peer challenge and facilitator feedback confirm understanding and identify areas requiring further development.
Completion requirements
Demonstrate participation, application and professional judgement.
- Participate actively in discussions, exercises and innovation workshops.
- Complete the principal course outputs assigned during the programme.
- Contribute to the final application or decision workshop.
- Complete knowledge checks and a personal workplace action plan.
Participant outputs
Typical course outputs include:
- Innovation culture diagnostic.
- Behaviour and blocker map.
- Team operating agreement.
- Leadership routine design.
- Innovation learning cadence.
- 90-day culture and leadership action plan.
Delivery options
Choose the format that fits your people and business requirements.
Instructor-led
Live Classroom
Facilitated face-to-face learning with group exercises, case work, discussion and immediate feedback.
Instructor-led
Live Virtual Classroom
Interactive online delivery with facilitated workshops, collaborative activities and real-time discussion.
Flexible
Blended Learning
A structured combination of preparation, live facilitation, assignments and follow-up application.
Organisation-specific
Corporate and In-Company
Customised delivery aligned with the organisation’s strategy, terminology, innovation environment, governance and capability priorities.
Frequently asked questions
Course information and participation.
Do I need previous innovation experience?
The expected experience varies by course level. Foundation programmes require no formal innovation qualification; intermediate and advanced programmes benefit from relevant workplace exposure. The prerequisites above provide the course-specific guidance.
Will participants receive practical tools?
Yes. The programme uses structured templates and produces practical outputs that participants can adapt to their organisations, subject to local governance, legal and methodology requirements.
Can the programme be customised for an organisation?
Yes. Corporate delivery can incorporate organisation-specific innovation challenges, strategy, cases, governance, terminology, tools, portfolio priorities and expected outputs.
Does completion provide a professional certification?
The course develops practical innovation capability and provides an INDENTRA course-completion record where applicable. It is not presented as a third-party professional certification unless separately stated.
Can the five Modules be delivered in another format?
Yes. INDENTRA may adapt sequencing, exercises and delivery format while preserving the stated learning outcomes and overall learning effort.
Take the next step
Create the leadership behaviours, team conditions, learning routines and accountability required for sustained innovation.
Discuss public delivery, a corporate cohort or a tailored programme aligned with your organisation’s innovation priorities.