
VALUES-LED INNOVATION


Create Your Legacy
Orange Grove Nine™ is the leader in values-led innovation.
Through skills-based trainings and customized consulting services,
our unique Orange Grove Nine Innovator System helps you mobilize your organization to shape your industry and the world.
ABOUT THE FOUNDERS
Culture Creator Alicia Korten and Innovation Leader Michael Perman founded
Orange Grove Nine™ to forge the field of Values-Led Innovation.

Alicia Korten
I build values-led cultures fueled by high-trust relationships. After our work together, clients commonly experience significant growth, receive best place to work and other industry awards. In addition to my work with Orange Grove Nine, I head the Culture Company.
My books and curriculums include Values Ignite, Values Sustain and Change Philanthropy, winner of Axiom's best business book award.
Clients include Levi's, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Mary's Gone Crackers, the Ford Foundation, the United Nations, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Arlington Community Federal Credit Union.
I grew up in several culturally diverse countries, received a degree at Brown University, and then went to Costa Rica on a Fulbright Scholarship to write my first book. During that time, a three-week trip to Panama extended to several years working with the Kuna, Embera and Wounaan Indigenous Peoples. There I learned powerful techniques used by these ancient cultures to build community. I have applied my life's learnings to create cultures that thrive.
I practice meditation, and live in Arlington, VA with my husband Lorne Epstein in a neighborhood of front porches and community dinners.



Michael Perman
I help organizations achieve growth and prosperity by galvanizing teams to think and act differently. My book Craving the Future explores the connection between human desire and innovation. In addition to my work with Orange Grove Nine, I head C'EST WHAT?, the mindful innovation firm based in Portland.
Previously I served as Senior Director for Levi's Global Marketing and Consumer Insights Departments. I used the science of how our brains work to lead breakthrough product innovations that generated over $600 million in new revenue streams. We developed innovation capacity by teaching design thinking skills to more than 5,000 employees.
After my work with Levi's,I became “Dean of Innovation” for the Gap, where I trained more than 3,000 employees to use their imaginative capacity to innovate new products and customer experiences.
Client experience includes Adidas, Hyatt, Williams-Sonoma, Google, Starbucks, General Mills, Nike, Banana Republic, Levi’s, Old Navy, Canine Companions for Independence and the Naval Postgraduate School.
I am a meditation practitioner and live in Portland, Oregon with my wife and a yellow lab named Artemis.
"No problem can be solved from the same
consciousness that created it."
--Albert Einstein
THE ORANGE GROVE NINE
INNOVATOR SYSTEM™
Values-Led Innovation
Activate one or more innovation zones to
seize opportunities at the intersection of turbulent markets and
the world you want to create.
Zone 1
MEASURE
Innovation
Readiness
Zone 2
SET
Innovation
Strategy
Zone 3
CREATE
Innovation
Framework
Zone 4
TRANSFORM
Innovation Culture
ZONE 1
MEASURE INNOVATION READINESS
Using OG9 Innovation Assessment, you measure innovation readiness across 20 key innovation capabilities, establish common language and spark critical conversations about your forward path for growth. Survey results, stakeholder conversations and co-creative sessions spark action on capacity-building priorities in four key areas:
-
Our Strategic Direction
-
How We Organize
-
How We Work
-
Our Results
ZONE 2
SET INNOVATION STRATEGY
With OG9 Futures, you can forge innovation strategies to meet your business goals that intersect emerging market opportunities with the world you want to create. The strategic lanes you forge will guide your new values-driven products, services and operational improvements over the next 3-5 years yielding growth and vitality. We deploy foresights, insights, scenario planning and other methods to enable you to make smart decisions.
Skills training and memorable sensory-expanding experiences strengthen the creative journey.
CREATE INNOVATION FRAMEWORK
With OG9 Framework, you create a powerful innovation system across your organization to seize market opportunities. Learning cards help you shape impactful conversations and make strategic choices in three areas:
Our Direction
Compass
Life Cycle
Spectrum
Risk
Portfolio
How We Organize
Centers
Resources
Pathway
Collaboration
Governance
How We Work
Mindset
Talent
Elevation
Design
New Worlds
TRANSFORM INNOVATION CULTURE
With the OG9 Innovator Mindset Learning Experience, you cultivate your staff's talent—igniting their imagination, building their innovation skills and setting a growth mindset throughout your organization. Videos, worksheets and optional online facilitated sessions with staff cohorts teach nine skills critical for innovation success:
Set Your Direction
Imagine Your Future
Define Your Creative Quest
Ignite Values
Get into Flow
Build Your Team
Navigate Turbulence
Pause Consciously
Go into the World
Listen Generously
Gather Insights
Test Your Prototype
BOOKS & CURRICULUMS

Michael Perman's CRAVING THE FUTURE outlines a step-by-step process for creating your innovation strategies.


Alicia Korten's VALUES IGNITE
provides a road map for discovering organizational values and igniting culture.
Alicia Korten's VALUES SUSTAIN helps leaders and staff bring core values to life for sustained culture shifts.