14 Metrics for Managing Innovation: Lessons From Growth Leaders ^Top of ambition.” Worse, “Every one of the tragic and costly new business failures had a succession of great-looking financial spreadsheets.” Innovation Follows Many Pathways It is limiting to measure innovation activity only in the R&D, Product Develop- ment Group, or Innovation Department Center. What is needed are metrics that capture the full scope of growth possibilities to be realized through innovation. Too much of the innovation conversation (especially in growth laggards or average performers) is limited to a narrow set of possibilities from changing the design or functionality of the core offering. These innovations capture attention because they are obvious. But such a view of the avenues for innovations that drive organic growth is too narrow and ultimately con- strains the effort to grow. In order to break out this narrow range of thinking and searching for innovation that create shareholder and customer value, the full spectrum13 of possibilities needs to be considered. The full spectrum innovation approach has 14 growth pathways. These path- ways allow firms to stretch, push and reimagine every dimension of their strategy, including the customer value proposition and the business model.14 Each pathway can be combined with other pathways, and escapes the simple characterization found in most metrics dashboards that only address the of- ferings pathways and yield a very biased and incomplete picture of the drivers of innovation performance.  13 George S. Day, Innovation Prowess: Leadership Strategies for Accelerating Growth, Philadelphia, PA: Wharton Digital Press, 2013. 14 For other ways of specifying growth pathways see Mohanbir Sawhney, Robert C. Wolcott, and Inigo Arroniz, “The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate,” MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2006, 75-81, and Geoffrey A. Moore, Dealing with Darwin, New York: Portfolio, 2005. Other valuable sources were Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor, The Innovator’s Solution, and Rita Gunther Mc- Grath and Ian C. MacMillan, Market Busters: 40 Strategic Moves That Drive Exceptional Business Growth (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005).