New Programs from Columbia Business School Executive Education Show How Entrepreneurship, Creativity, and Data Can Be Used to Drive Business Success
MBA Blog / 12th January 2017
If you have been wondering how to be more entrepreneurial at work, how to win that leadership role you’ve coveted, or even how to synthesize the enormous amount of data available when making business decisions, new programs from Columbia Business School Executive Education may help you find answers. These new programs are focused on giving participants the ability to produce fast yet innovative results, solve challenges inherent in contemporary business situations, and stay relevant in the ever-changing world of business.
“Over the next six months we are introducing a number of programs intended to help participants think like entrepreneurs while working within large organizations,” said Donna Sharp, executive director of Executive Education at Columbia Business School. “The knowledge they will gain and skills they will learn will help them create a culture of innovation within their own companies.”
The new courses from Columbia Business School Executive Education are:
1. Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship, an online program taught by Professor Rita McGrath, a world-renowned expert on strategy and innovation, particularly in uncertain or volatile environments. Professor McGrath will provide executives with tools that will help them be more effective in creating new businesses from within their firms. The program is offered in three parts that can be taken individually or as a series and addresses the three central challenges of corporate entrepreneurship: ideation, incubation, and acceleration.
2. Developing and Leading High-Performance Teams, a three-day program led by Professor William Klepper and designed for executives in leadership positions or participants who want to assume leadership roles. Since it is widely known that well-managed and well-led teams are key to an organization’s success, this program will give participants skills they can use immediately and the knowledge to help them face their challenges successfully. Professor Klepper has worked with a number of companies such as AT&T, General Electric, and Pfizer on their leadership programs.
3. From Idea to Prototype in 5 Days, based on The Design Sprint from Google Ventures. This program blends design, engineering and business concepts in order to teach executives the rapid prototyping process so they can implement it in their own organizations. Participants create this process for product development that quickly reduces risk and increases revenue. Columbia Business School Professor R.A. Farrokhnia, who teaches this course, is active in the New York and Silicon Valley startup, tech and design communities.
4. Quantitative Intuition: Making Smarter Decisions with Imperfect Information. This course helps participants get out of their comfort zones by teaching them how to make bold decisions, even with incomplete information. The faculty director of this program, Associate Professor of Business, Oded Netzer, developed the quantitative framework that participants will use to synthesize information from a clutter of data and enable them to make smarter decisions.
5. Design Your Innovation Blueprint: Leveraging Systemic Inventive Thinking, a hands-on, three-day program that teaches participants how to generate creative and useful solutions to problems. Faculty Director and Professor of Business Gita Johar teaches this course jointly with academics and practitioners. She believes that to be truly effective, innovation has to be pervasive and consistent in an organization. Participants will learn how to plan, develop and implement self-sustaining innovation for their organizations.
6. Innovate on Demand, also taught by Professor Gita Johar. This is an online course that gives participants – no matter their level in an organization – the tools to help them overcome barriers to innovative ideas. Participants will understand how to quickly generate and implement their own creative ideas by leveraging their knowledge and expertise.
For more information on Columbia Business School’s Executive Education program, please visit http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/execed/home.
