Jeff DeGraff

Clinical Professor of Business Administration, Ross School of Business at University of Michigan

A middle-aged man with glasses, short light hair, and a mustache, wearing a dark blazer and black turtleneck, poses in front of a blue background.

Jeff DeGraff is known as the “Dean of Innovation.” A world-renowned thought leader and advisor, he helps organizations — from Apple and Coca-Cola to the U.S. military — build the culture and capabilities that drive growth. He’s the founder of the Innovatrium innovation lab and Executive Director of the Intellectual Edge Alliance (IEA), a nonprofit advancing innovation across tech, defense, education, and mission-driven sectors.

A Clinical Professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, Jeff co-created the Competing Values Framework, now used worldwide to lead change and innovation. His media work includes books, columns, and a PBS/NPR series focused on revitalizing purpose in mission-driven organizations.

His mission is the democratization of innovation — equipping people at every level to lead meaningful change. Jeff’s current focus is building a global school of thought — uniting business, government, and culture to shape the future of innovation and change.

Everything Videos Articles

Split image: Left side shows a painting of hands peeling apples with a knife; right side features a modern mechanical apple peeler, echoing Jeff DeGraff’s spirit of innovation bridging tradition and progress.

Business

AI will never be a shortcut to wisdom

Real understanding, argues Jeff DeGraff, doesn’t come from outputs — it comes from practice.

Jeff DeGraff

A silhouette of a person playing the trumpet symbolizes jazzy leadership, overlaid on a blue and white world map with radiating lines and data points.

Business

What all leaders can learn from jazz-inspired military trailblazers

In most organizations, contradictions are treated as problems to be fixed. But what if they’re actually the point?

Jeff DeGraff

The word "change" appears three times; the top two are crossed out in purple, while the bottom one—creativity highlighted—is circled in purple, all on a black background.

Business

Why “high tolerance of ambiguity” should anchor your creative toolkit

Creative thinkers are unafraid of the ambiguous spaces where innovation often resides — and this trait is vital when navigating change.

Jeff DeGraff

Innovation is Like the Path of Odysseus

Jeff DeGraff: As a rule of thumb I like to tell people you have to be very open and an innovation usually takes you three times as long and at least twice the amount of money you thought it would.

Jeff DeGraff

Experiments Are Not Good or Bad. There Are Good and Bad People

Bridges do collapse. Products do blow up. Drugs that save millions of people's lives often in the development stage kill people. This is something that you have to be very honest about.

Jeff DeGraff

Understanding the Value of Useful Novelty

Innovation is different because it's the only form of value that happens in the future for which we have no real data.

Jeff DeGraff

Class of 2013: The Graduation Speech I Didn’t Give

Congratulations to all the new graduates who have successfully accomplished this most impressive of endeavors.

Jeff DeGraff

On the Hypocrisy of Innovators

Recently I spoke to a conference of leading business school deans about the prospects of the MBA degree. My speech was entitled The Future has Come and Gone and You’ve […]

Jeff DeGraff

Why Leaders Don’t Understand How to Play the Innovation Game – and How You Can Help Them Win

You run the innovation playbook – a prophetic strategy, a product development obstacle course of a process, a portfolio management radar detection system and a wide array of eccentric creativity […]

Jeff DeGraff