Professor Jeff DeGraff is the co-creator of the Competing Values methodology that integrates innovation with finance, strategy, management, and leadership into a robust business model that boosts the bottom-line. 3M, Apple Computer, American Express, Coca-Cola, GE, Johnson & Johnson, LG, Pfizer, Toyota, Visa, and Yahoo! are just a few of his representative clients. DeGraff’s expertise has been captured in a five-part Leading Innovation & Growth (LIG) series, which includes three highly interactive workshops, for addressing your own organization’s goals.

The LIG series begins with an ‘Innovation 101′ workshop that encourages all employees to take ownership of innovation. The “Leading Innovation Enterprise Program” is meant for enterprise-wide employees, those from all departments and levels of your corporation. Next is the “Shared Vision & Jumpstart Program” that assists your project leaders and their teams with jumpstarting key projects. Lastly, there is the “Innovation & Growth Summit,” which tackles how to develop and refine the corporate systems needed for successfully rolling out your innovation projects.

These three workshops are also bundled together in an intense boot camp format, the “Black Belt Development Program,” for the convenience of companies needing executive level Black Belt graduates to lead their internal Innovation Factories and/or Think Tanks. It is strongly recommended that Black Belt development should occur before the Summit is held, which is why it is, technically, the third offering of the LIG series.

All Competing Values workshops take a “See one, Do one, Teach one” or an action learning approach to innovation. Our aim is to build a community of accomplished innovation leaders. By working on transformational projects with the high potential for developing new practices and competencies that lead to growth, leaders learn what works, and what doesn’t work, through real world experience. These projects act as an innovation test-drive. Your best and brightest will gain insights and skills, and then be able to implement best practices across all appropriate units and throughout your workplace. Any and all of these workshops can be repeated for different corporate divisions and geographical locations, as well as for specific jumpstart projects.

Wouldn’t it be great if you had a compass to direct your organization towards innovation and growth? That’s the function of the Competing Values Assessment (LIG – 5). The assessment is a roadmap, establishing where you are now, point A, and where you want to be in the future, point B. Our expert analysis and recommendations, based on the Competing Values Framework, will reveal what it will take to travel from point A to point B. The focus is on the development required of your culture, competencies, and customary practices to support innovation & growth. Once you’ve evaluated your internal capacity, you may be interested in our newest offering, the Innovation Index, which looks at external factors, as well, providing an inside track on growth in your industry and connecting innovation to your stock market prices.