This course is part of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation and Leadership & Management track.
Introduction to Leading Change and Organizational Renewal

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Leading Change and Organizational Renewal

$1,850
Next 6-week session starts July 16th
Lead your organization through successful transformation by learning how to execute for today and innovate for tomorrow.
6
weeks
5-7
hours per week
6
modules
Self-Paced
with regular deadlines

 This course earns you a Certificate of Completion from HBS Online. What you earn.

Overview
Syllabus
Enrollment
Stories
FAQs

Key Concepts

Explore the roadblocks to change and how to overcome them
Analyze the root cause of your organization’s performance and opportunity gaps
Develop strategies for building an ambidextrous organization that can execute short-term success and long-term innovation
Build your organization’s architecture by understanding the relationship between its hardware (structure, processes, and systems) and its software (capabilities and culture)
Discover how to set strategy, improve execution, and lead innovation streams
Craft the right leadership style by knowing which levers shape organizational capabilities and how to use them
Use power and politics to address resistance and maintain control during a transition
Understand the link between personal and organizational renewal
Apply course concepts to a change initiative within your organization

Who Will Benefit

Drive innovation within companies of all stages and sizes—whether an established market leader, a fast-growing midsize organization, or a dynamic emerging business.
"The course’s content and teaching method through case studies and practical examples was remarkable."
Vishal Vyas
Assistant Vice President at TTK Healthcare Limited
Advance your career by learning to respond to external shifts, drive transformation, and lead change initiatives within your organization.
"HBS Online courses are excellent for anyone who wishes to learn more about a particular subject area or further develop their career."
Corina Cristea Lavoie
Corporate Services Manager at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
Identify and analyze performance and opportunity gaps to overcome barriers to change and effectively inspire and lead your team.
"This was an excellent course with concepts that were immediately applicable to my consulting business."
Kerri Roche
Owner and Strategic Planner, Sift Strategic Planning at Sift Strategic Planning
Master of Business Administration, Memorial University of Newfoundland

What You Earn

Certificate of Completion

Certificate of Completion

Boost your resume with a Certificate of Completion from HBS Online

Earn by: completing this course

Certificate of Specialization

Certificate of Specialization

Prove your mastery of leadership and management or entrepreneurship and innovation

Earn by: completing any three courses within either subject area to earn a Certificate of Specialization

Syllabus

6 Modules, 30-35 Hours
Download full syllabus
5-6
hrs
Module 1

Challenge of Dynamic Capabilities

Examine the cause of organizational inertia and understand the tension in all businesses between getting today’s work done and innovating for the future.

Highlights

Innovation Streams
Identifying a gap
Open Innovation
ShowHide Details

Concepts

  1. Welcome to Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
  2. Exploit and Explore
  3. Organizational Renewal
  4. Personal Case Project

Featured Exercises

  • Categorize different innovation types and conceptualize innovation streams for your organization
  • Diagnose why most organizations fail in response to external disruption
  • Identify an opportunity or performance gap in your organization and write a gap statement
4-5
hrs
Module 2

Strategy, Execution, and Purpose

Explore how strategy is generated by an organization’s purpose and competitive context. Differentiate each component of a business’s architecture and diagnose misalignments in the system.

Highlights

Strategy, Organizational Objectives and Purpose
Authentic Leadership
Identifying misalignments
ShowHide Details

Concepts

  1. Defining Organizational Strategy
  2. Diagnosing Root Causes of a Gap with the Congruence Model
  3. Personal Case Project

Featured Exercises

  • Analyze the alignment or misalignment of a business’s hardware and software and reflect on its impact on organizational strategy
  • Perform a thorough root cause analysis of your performance or opportunity gap and determine any misalignments preventing your organization from executing it
  • Relate organizational renewal with your own personal renewal
4-5
hrs
Module 3

Culture and Competitive (Dis)Advantage

Discover the meaning and underlying psychology of company culture and how a strong culture can be a competitive advantage—or a disadvantage. Identify the managerial tools you can use to change your organization’s culture.

Highlights

Defining Culture
The LEASH Model
Rewards at AGC
ShowHide Details

Concepts

  1. Culture at AGC
  2. Aligning Culture with Strategy
  3. Personal Case Project

Featured Exercises

  • Evaluate a company’s culture through a culture exercise
  • Reflect on the values, norms, and behaviors that constitute culture
  • Diagnose your company’s culture by connecting the LEASH model to your organization
7-8
hrs
Module 4

The Dark Side of Alignment

Demonstrate how and why organizational alignment can lead to inertia and identify and describe the different types.

Highlights

Resistance to Change
Reflecting on what went wrong
Achieving Scale
ShowHide Details

Concepts

  1. Inertia
  2. Overcoming Inertia
  3. Personal Case Project

Featured Exercises

  • Brainstorm how to explore and exploit ideas simultaneously to balance short-term success with longer-term innovation
  • Create a social movement to combat organizational inertia
  • Develop a solution to your performance or opportunity gap and identify actions to address the inertia you’ll encounter
4-5
hrs
Module 5

Structural Ambidexterity

Understand the key characteristics of an ambidextrous organization and corporate explorer. Differentiate between three innovation phases—ideate, incubate, and scale—and what constitutes the successful execution of each.

Highlights

Corporate Explorers
The Three Innovation Disciplines
Ideation at Amazon
ShowHide Details

Concepts

  1. Building an Explore Function
  2. Amazon & Intel
  3. Personal Case Project

Featured Exercises

  • Analyze the role of corporate explorers in driving innovation
  • Reflect on the importance of aligning senior teams around strategy, vision, and values to ensure dynamic innovation
  • Provide feedback on peers’ personal case projects
6-7
hrs
Module 6

Leading Change

Explore the link between personal and organizational renewal. Assess the core issues in leading systemic change and develop the tools and frameworks to address resistance to change and maintain control during the change process.

Highlights

The Link Between Personal and Organizational Renewal
Innovability
Staying Uncomfortable
ShowHide Details

Concepts

  1. Organizational and Personal Renewal
  2. Leading Punctuated Change
  3. Personal Case Project

Featured Exercises

  • Reflect on what makes you passionate and make adjustments for your own personal renewal
  • Examine the benefit of informal communication networks to shape your change efforts
  • Revise your integrated action plan based on peer feedback
Free E-Book

How to Become a More Effective Leader

Learn about the difference between leadership and management, uncover the qualities and skills that characterize an effective leader, gain an understanding of common leadership styles, and explore how you can unleash the potential in yourself and others.

Upskill Your Team, Transform Your Organization

Whether you represent a large multinational corporation or a small local business, we have a solution for your learning and development needs.

Our Difference

Leading Change and Organizational Renewal equips experienced team leaders with practical frameworks, tools, and skills to anticipate and respond to external shifts, overcome barriers to change, and drive transformation.
Stay active by engaging in a new activity every three to five minutes and apply course concepts to a change initiative within your organization.
Stay active by engaging in a new activity every three to five minutes and apply course concepts to a change initiative within your organization.
Get social by collaborating and networking with a global community of peers before, during, and after the course. Learners who successfully complete an HBS Online program are added to the HBS Online Community's Official Networking Group and gain exclusive access to events and other networking opportunities.
Get social by collaborating and networking with a global community of peers before, during, and after the course. Learners who successfully complete an HBS Online program are added to the HBS Online Community's Official Networking Group and gain exclusive access to events and other networking opportunities.
Immerse yourself in real-world, case-based examples brought to life by business leaders from organizations of various sizes, stages, and industries, including Cloudflare, Lululemon, Havas, Deloitte, AGC Glass, Nedbank, and Enel.
Immerse yourself in real-world, case-based examples brought to life by business leaders from organizations of various sizes, stages, and industries, including Cloudflare, Lululemon, Havas, Deloitte, AGC Glass, Nedbank, and Enel.

About the Professors

Michael Tushman
Leading Change and Organizational Renewal

Baker Foundation Professor and Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School
"You’ll develop strategies for building an ambidextrous organization capable of balancing short-term success with long-term innovation."

Charles O’Reilly
Leading Change and Organizational Renewal

Frank E. Buck Professor of Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
"You’ll gain tools to shape your company’s culture and overcome the inertia that plagues established businesses."

Dates & Eligibility

Starting
Jul
16
6 Weeks  $1,850 + applicable international taxes
Payment deadline July 10
View weekly calendar
Enroll Now
Starting
Sep
10
6 Weeks  $1,850 + applicable international taxes
Payment deadline September 4
View weekly calendar
Enroll Now
  • No documentation required

All learners must be at least 18 years of age, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the course.

Learn about bringing this course to your organization.

HBS also offers an executive education version of this program for individuals with extensive work experience interested in on-campus programming.

Learner Stories

90%
are more self-assured at work
My favorite part of the program was interacting with my cohort members where I received valuable shared experiences, feedback and was able to be a thought partner around strategies and best practices in varying scenarios.
Raymond Porch
Manager of Diversity Programs at Boston Public Schools
The course has given me the confidence to know that my suggestions have a solid business basis.
Jennifer Moret
Financial Analyst
* Source: 2022 surveys and course data
 
All FAQs

Leading Change and Organizational Renewal FAQs

Participants in Leading Change and Organizational Renewal are eligible for a Certificate of Completion from Harvard Business School Online.

Participants are expected to fully complete all coursework in a thoughtful and timely manner. This will mean meeting each week’s course module deadlines and fully answering questions posed therein. This helps ensure your cohort proceeds through the course at a similar pace and can take full advantage of social learning opportunities. In addition to module completion, we expect participation in the social learning elements of the course by offering feedback on others’ reflections and contributing to conversations on the platform. Participants who fail to complete the course requirements will not receive a certificate and will not be eligible to retake the course.

More detailed information on course requirements will be communicated at the start of the course. No grades are assigned for Leading Change and Organizational Renewal. Participants will either be evaluated as complete or not complete.

You’ll have access to the materials in every prior module as you progress through the program. Access to course materials and the course platform ends 60 days after the final program deadline.

At the end of each course module, you can download a PDF summary highlighting key concepts introduced in the course. At the end of the program, you’ll receive a PDF compilation of all the module summary documents. We hope these serve as a helpful resource after you finish the course.

The personal case project is a learning exercise spanning all six modules of Leading Change and Organizational Renewal. It allows participants to apply course concepts to a real organizational challenge.

Participants identify a performance or opportunity gap within their organizations or a former workplace and analyze the root causes of it using course frameworks like the four components of architecture. Based on this analysis, participants propose an action plan to address the gap. Throughout the course, they refine their project based on peer feedback to develop an evidence-based solution grounded in course.

Once you've earned your Certificate of Completion, list it on your resume along with the date of completion:

Harvard Business School Online
Certificate in Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
[Cohort Start Month and Year]

List your certificate on your LinkedIn profile under "Education" as follows:

School: Harvard Business School Online
Dates Attended: [The year you participated in the program]
Degree: Other; Certificate in Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
Field of Study: Leave blank
Grade: Complete
Activities and Societies: Leave blank

For the program description on LinkedIn, please use the following:

Leading Change and Organizational Renewal is a 6-week, 35-40-hour online certificate program from Harvard Business School. Leading Change and Organizational Renewal equips experienced team leaders with tools and frameworks to anticipate and respond to external shifts, overcome barriers to change, and drive transformation.

 

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