The Creative Advantage 

  • Live / Online / Synchronous
  • Cost: $3095.00 $2630.75
  • DURATION: 3 DAYS (2 LEARNING MODULES PER DAY)
  • SESSION 1 DATES: Wed, May 27; Thu, May 28; and Fri, May 29
  • SESSION 2 DATES: Thu, Jun 4; Thu, Jun 11; and Thu, Jun 18
Request Information

Unlock creativity. Elevate collective impact. Transform how people, teams, and partners work and collaborate.

Creativity is no longer a “nice to have”—  it is a strategic advantage  

Not just for artists, creativity is a driving force behind strong strategy, effective teams, and professional growth. The Creative Advantage at Emerson College Executive Education helps participants discover their creative patterns, strengthen collaboration skills, and learn how to bring ideas to life in sync with others. 

Emerson brings together academic rigor, creative practice, and real-world application in a way few institutions can. This three-day, interactive program reflects Emerson’s belief that evolution is essential, and that creativity, communication, and collaboration are foundational to professional success.  

Why Creativity Matters

You can’t have strong strategy without creativity. 

Creativity influences how individuals adapt, innovate, collaborate, and make decisions. When understood and applied intentionally, it becomes a competitive advantage for both people and organizations. This program helps participants move beyond surface-level brainstorming toward sustained, scalable creative thinking that delivers real value. 

What to Expect from the Program 

World-renowned faculty 

Only 4-year college exclusively dedicated to communication and the arts 

Ranked No. #2 in Most Innovative Schools by U.S. News & World Report

The program is organized into two parts: 

Cultivated Creativity centers on individual creative development. Participants examine how creativity works, identify their personal creative processes, and build the confidence to apply creativity in alignment with professional goals. 

Photo of book design
Photo of laptop with students on video call

Collaboration & Scaling Creative Process shifts the focus to teams and organizations. Participants explore what enables successful creative collaboration, identify their collaborative styles, and design structures that support effective and scalable creative work.

Designed for real-world application, the program combines interactive workshops, practical tools, and experiential learning that participants can immediately apply in their professional roles. Learning extends beyond the classroom through guided preparation and post-program group sessions that support continued reflection, collaboration, and growth, making creativity not just discussed but actively practiced. 

Who Should Enroll? 

This program is ideal for professionals who: 

  • Are 5–10 years into their careers and looking to level up 
  • Lead teams (or aspire to) and want to collaborate more effectively 
  • Value both professional growth and personal development 

World-Class Faculty

Brenna McCormick

Director, Business of Creative Enterprises (BCE), Senior Executive-in-Residence, Department of Marketing Communication

A creative strategist, with a focus on branding, marketing, creativity and collaboration, Brenna McCormick specializes in the skills that help leaders and learners to succeed in the Creative Industries. A Senior Executive-in-Residence at Emerson College, she is the Director of the Business of Creative Enterprises (BCE) major in the Department of Marketing Communication. Brenna brings 15+ years of digital agency, consulting, luxury retail management, and leadership experience to her courses which include Creative Collaboration, Marketing the Creative Enterprise, Introduction to the Creative Economy, Creative Thinking & Problem Solving, and client-focused SMC Capstone. A faculty member since 2009, she believes in applying academic best practices to real world industry challenges. In 2023, she was awarded the Alumni Award for Teaching Innovation, for her passion, empathy and creativity-centric classroom learning experiences. 

This multidimensional, cross-disciplinary program combines applied learning, collaborative coaching, and structured workshops to help participants: 

Understand their unique creative processes and patterns 

Develop strategies to challenge creativity without burnout 

Build creative courage to navigate complex projects and goals 

Collaborate more effectively, elevating both individual ideas and collective team intelligence 

Program Curriculum 

The curriculum is divided into two integrated parts, Cultivated Creativity and Collaboration & Scaling Creative Process, guiding participants from self-discovery to team-based application. 

Participants begin by exploring how creativity works at the individual level: understanding their own thinking patterns, curating habits that support sustained creative energy, and building the courage to express, test, and implement ideas with purpose. The program then shifts to collaboration, examining what makes creative teams successful, how individual styles shift in group settings, and how structured processes can elevate collective thinking. 

Understanding creativity as a skill creates a fundamental perspective shift in how one thinks about, cares for, and cultivates their creative thinking and problem solving process. In this foundational module, participants explore, through research and play, the different ways in which our minds think, flex, process, and develop more powerful creative thinking. 

Our habits, daily processes and cultural consumption, have a significant impact on our creative process. In this module, participants will observe and explore their unique creative process, and develop tools and techniques to hone and adapt their creativity to better take on new challenges and navigate changing circumstances.

Creativity takes courage to practice, express, and implement. In this module, participants will explore and examine preconceptions and limitations that can impact the creative process as well as tools and tactics to expand it. Through hands-on activities, participants will learn to adapt their process for scope and scale (or both), overcome obstacles, and guide creativity towards value-based goals.

Through action-based learning, hands-on workshops, and applied assignments, participants leave with practical tools to optimize their creativity, collaborate more effectively, and translate ideas into real-world impact, supported by pre-course preparation and three months of post-course group sessions to reinforce and extend learning. 

Identify the often overlooked elements that make teams successful and lead to impactful creative initiatives. In this module, participants will explore and excavate: learning about the foundational elements of successful collaboration through creative industry examples as well as mining their own collaborative experiences to identify factors that support, or undermine, one of the most overlooked skills that is integral to scaling creative process.

The power of group dynamics has a significant impact on our creative process. How we create and work solo is often very different from how we create and work in groups. In this module, participants will discover their collaborative style, as well as gain deep insights into the unique factors that drive their creative collaboration, as well as what elements to consider when leading or bringing together a creative team.

Learn, explore and leverage the powerful role that structured processes and environments play in the creative collaboration process. In this workshop-style module, participants will learn, explore and design both processes and structures to create, facilitate and support creative collaboration and the pollination of impactful ideas.

Upcoming Course Dates

Session
Course Dates

1

Wed, May 27; Thu, May 28; and Fri, May 29

2

Thu, Jun 4; Thu, Jun 11; and Thu, Jun 18

Connect with Executive Education at Emerson

Request Information