Delivery mode
Self-paced online
Coming
Location
E-learning environment
Language
English
Scope
1 ECTS
Courage and Serendipity: Managing the Unexpected in Organizations
Organizations today face constant uncertainty and rapid change. Success depends on the ability to embrace the unexpected, foster creativity, and act with courage in complex and evolving environments.
Courage and Serendipity: Managing the Unexpected in Organizations explores how creativity emerges in everyday organizational life and how courageous action can turn ideas into reality. The online course combines research-based insights with practical tools to help you design environments that support responsible decision-making and enable unexpected opportunities to emerge. Through self-paced learning modules and reflective exercises, you will learn how to challenge norms, build psychological safety, and use tools to translate creative thinking into tangible outcomes.
The course provides actionable strategies to navigate uncertainty, overcome fear, and design systems that encourage innovation and collaboration. It equips you with frameworks and practices to create environments where bold ideas can thrive and lead to meaningful results. Whether you are a leader, change agent, or professional seeking to make a difference, the program supports you in turning unexpected opportunities into responsible action.
Learning Outcomes
By taking this course, you will
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Be equipped to design for serendipity and better respond to the unexpected
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Explore how informal encounters can lead to creative ideas—and how to design systems that boldly welcome them
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Gain insight into the emotional and structural factors that enable people to take courageous action
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Identify practices and structures that support everyday creativity in teams and organizations (creativity as relational practice)
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Recognize the importance of boundary objects and how they facilitate shared understanding and creative action
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Understand the role of fear, psychological safety, and power in creative processes
For
This program is designed for professionals who want to understand how creativity, courage, and responsible action emerge in organizational life. It is ideal for those seeking to foster innovation and resilience in their teams.
Participants may include managers, team leaders, change agents, and experts who face challenges such as overcoming organizational inertia, creating psychological safety, and translating creative ideas into action. The course is also suitable for researchers and designers interested in organizational courage and the role of tools in enabling collaboration and innovation.
Content and Schedule
The program addresses key themes such as organizational courage, designing for serendipity, and the role of power, fear, and psychological safety in creative processes.
The course consists of self-paced lectures, expert interviews, quizzes, and reflective exercises. Through these, participants become familiar with practical tools and frameworks that support fostering creativity and courageous action in organizations.
Modules
Module 0 - Creativity
This module introduces the concept of creativity.
Module 1 - Courage and Power Dynamics: Courage as a Critical Force for Change
This module explores courage as a force for survival and change. It examines different forms of courage, its role in power dynamics, fear, and norms, and challenges heroic and masculine ideals of courage. Emphasis is placed on noticing differently, reflection, storytelling, and valuing competence over confidence.
Module 2 - The Paradox Between Courage and (Functional) Stupidity in Organizations
This module explores how courage can challenge functional stupidity in organizations without becoming reckless. It highlights courage as a collective practice, the value of asking “stupid” questions, and the importance of organizational structures and cultures in enabling or suppressing critical thinking.
Module 3 - Constructing Opportunities for Courage in Organizations
This module focuses on organizational foundations that support courageous action. Topics include psychological safety, reversing poor decisions, challenging norms and leadership practices, and the importance of reflective spaces.
Module 4 - Taking Courageous Action: The Mindset of a Gamechanger
This module emphasizes that courage develops through small, everyday actions. It addresses speaking up, questioning assumptions, moving from talk to action, and the gamechanger mindset, highlighting collective courage and vulnerability.
Module 5 - Courage as Collective Practice
This module examines courage as a shared organizational capability. It focuses on tools and structures that encourage norm-breaking ideas, learning from failure, and aligning measurement, rewards, and culture to support courageous action.
Instructors
Astrid Huopalainen
Astrid Huopalainen is an Assistant Professor in Leadership for Creativity at the Department of Management Studies and Department of Art and Media at Aalto University.
Astrid Huopalainen is a qualitative researcher who studies the connections and possible conflicts between art and organization, leadership in creative organizations, and creative work in the post-industrial era. Her multidisciplinary research interests include organizational aesthetics, leadership for creativity, and interactions between art and management.
Taija Turunen
Taija Turunen is an Associate Professor of Design Management at Aalto University School of Business.
Her work centers on curiosity, change, and ethics in organizations, exploring how leaders introduce novelty, whether through innovative products, services, or business models, and how these shifts challenge existing values and reshape organizational culture.
With experience as both a management consultant and a board member in manufacturing and service industries, Turunen bridges cutting-edge research with practice. She has developed tools and methods that help leaders navigate transformation, rethink assumptions, and turn disruption into opportunity.
Her international academic journey has taken her to the University of Cambridge, University of Technology Sydney, and Stanford University, enriching her global perspective on leadership and organizational change. Driven by a passion for learning and pedagogy, Turunen empowers leaders to embrace change with curiosity and confidence.
Program Fee and Registration
The fee for the Introduction to Courage and Serendipity: Managing the Unexpected in Organizations online course is € 150 (+ VAT).
This program has adopted Aalto EE's new Customer ID, and it is delivered on Aalto Learning Experience Alex e-learning environment. Before ordering, please visit aaltoee.fi/customerid.
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