4 Metrics for Managing Innovation: Lessons From Growth Leaders ^Top gone. Now we’re in an environment where we’ve also learned that what you really need to have a handle on are the metrics, insights and what’s actually happening on the ground—the dashboard of daily life.”3 For most firms a troublesome issue is whether their dashboard of innovation metrics will contribute to a solution, or reinforce endemic problems with their innovation practices. Can a well-designed innovation dashboard help avoid a reversion to cumbersome and cautious legacy practices that have hobbled innovation performance in many firms? The purpose of this White Paper is to address this question by drawing upon a stream of research that was funded by the Mack Institute for Innovation Management during the past 12 years, culminating in the 2019 Fall Conference, “Choosing Innovation Metrics for Success in the Digital Era.”4 Among the many challenges are choosing the best set of metrics from among the plethora of possibilities (we have identified 58 candidates), and then aligning the chosen metrics with group and individual incentives to motivate superior innovation activity. The scale of these challenges can be seen from the results of a 2015 Mack-sponsored study of 192 companies that asked, “How satisfied is your company with the innovation metrics in the dashboard?”5 The results were dispiriting: 36 percent were “very or somewhat dissatisfied,” 34 percent were “neutral” and 22 percent were “somewhat or very satisfied.” There was a further 8 percent of respondents who said “don’t know,” which is a refreshing admission of the state of mind of many innovation executives we have talked with. There are few areas of management practice where 76 per- cent of those with an opinion were neutral at best and are mainly somewhat or very dissatisfied. 3 Transcript of a video talk by Kevin Sneader, reported in, “The Future of Business: Reimagining 2020 and beyond," McKinsey & Co., July 2020. 4 Mack Institute 2019 Conference, "Choosing Innovation Metrics for Success in the Digital Era," https://mackinstitute.wharton.upenn.edu/2020/innovation-metrics-for-success-digital-era/ 5 The details of this study are reported in George S. Day, “Explaining Organic Growth Performance: Why Dynamic Capabilities Need Strategy Guidance” in David J. Teece (editor) The Oxford Handbook of Dynamic Capabilities, Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2019.