The ability to make innovative strategic decisions and execute them effectively is vital for organisational success. Strategic decisions often emerge from aligning organisational capabilities with emerging opportunities in the market. However, the mindset required for comprehensive strategy—such as being detail-oriented or avoiding “analysis paralysis”—can conflict with the creativity needed for innovation.
Innovation is essential not only for identifying and developing capabilities and opportunities but also for capturing the imagination of key stakeholders, whose support determines the success of any strategy. It is equally integral to implementing strategies within the existing culture, people, and processes of an organisation.
This one-day masterclass equips leaders and teams to build a culture of innovation by evaluating their own, their team’s, and their organisation’s innovative thinking. Participants will explore strategic innovation, innovative approaches, and the key components of innovative capability, gaining practical tools to enhance creativity and innovation across their teams and organisations.
About the facilitators
Dr. Graham Ferguson
Graham is an academic at Curtin University who leads a team exploring innovative ways to provide services to unheard consumers including elderly people, people with disability, and people with mental health needs. This included working with technology providers, service providers, older consumers & families, advocacy groups, local authorities and government to run co-design workshops to identify and implement innovative thinking in under resourced areas. Graham has a breadth of experience in innovative projects with large transport, manufacturing and insurance roles including 10yrs as a strategy consultant.
Dr Ben Thomas
Dr Ben Thomas is an academic at Curtin University within the Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Strategy and International Business discipline group. He has teaching experience at MBA, Postgraduate and undergraduate levels delivering courses on start-up business planning, strategy and leadership with a focus on practical application. His current research focus is developing a greater understanding of the entrepreneurial journey and the role of training programs in developing the key entrepreneurial skills required at each stage. Further, Ben cut his teeth as a founder in the wine industry, founding and exiting WA’s first online wine marketplace, Vine Collective, and more recently wine production company, Berserkr Wines.