How will you measure your Life?

by Clayton M. Christensen

The Author

• Clayton M. Christensen (born April 6, 1952) is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in the Technology & Operations Management and General Management faculty groups. He is best known for his study of innovation in commercial enterprises. His first book, The Innovator's Dilemma, articulated his theory of disruptive innovation. Christensen is also a co-founder of Innosight, a management consulting and investment firm specializing in innovation.

The Author…

• Mr. Clayton got an opportunity to work with Andrew Grove, the former chairman of Intel Corporation, where he explained his disruption model and what it means for Intel.

• The author didn’t tell Grove what to think, rather he taught him how to think and reach for a correct descision.

Disruptive Innovation??

• A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually goes on to disrupt an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology. The term is used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically first by designing for a different set of consumers in the new market and later by lowering prices in the existing market.

Disruptive…

• Christensen defines a disruptive innovation as a product or service designed for a new set of customers.

"Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches.

They offered less of what customers in established markets wanted and so could rarely be initially employed there.

They offered a different package of attributes valued only in emerging markets remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream."

Disruptive Innovations

Innovations Disruptions

Downloadable Digital media CDs, DVDs

Digital photography Chemical photography

Telephones Telegraphy

Plastic Metal, wood, glass etc.

How will you measure your Life?

• When people ask what they should do, the author rarely answer their question directly. Instead, he describes how the process in the model worked its way through an industry quite different from their own.

• And then, more often than not, they'll say, “OK, I get it.” And they'll answer their own question more insightfully than anyone can.

The Three Questions

• First, how can I be sure that I'll be happy in my career?

• Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?

• Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

Happiness in Career

• Frederick Herzberg, who asserts that the powerful motivator in our lives isn't money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements.

• Management is the most noble of professions if itʼs practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.

Family, a enduring source of Happiness

• Create a Strategy for your Life• A company's strategy is determined by the

types of initiatives that management invests in.

• If a company's resource allocation process is not managed masterfully, what emerges from it can be very different from what management intended.

Family…

• Keep the purpose of Life in front and decide how to spend your time, talent and energy.

• Figuring out the purpose of life is the most important lesson.

• Without a purpose, life’s hollow.

Family…

• Allocate your resources• The decisions about allocating your personal

time, energy, and talent ultimately shapes one’s life's strategy.

• Family is the most powerful source of happiness.

• Allocate your resources for your family and then for your career.

Family…

• Create a Culture• The underlying principle of most companies are

that, the intensity of agreement between the organization and it’s employees determines the use of power tools-coercion, threats, punishments etc.

• Embracing the priorities on the basis of assumptions rather than explicit decision making results in the creation of a Culture.

• Culture defines priorities.

Family…

• Build the Culture from the very beginning, not build on the power tool.

Stay out of Jail

• Avoid marginal cost mistakes• Future is uncertain, and doesn’t follow

mathematical certainties. • It’s NOT OK “just this once”.• Circumstances shouldn’t make you to break

your commitments.• Cross the Line once, and you will do it over and

over in the years that followed.

Importance of Humility

• Humble eagerness to learn from everybody.• Feel good about yourself and help those

around you to feel good about themselves too.

• Acting abusive, arrogant, or demeaning manner towards others show the symptoms of lack of self-esteem.Tending to show someone down to feel good about.

Choose the right Yardstick

• Money isn’t the yardstick for life, it’s the number of individual’s life one have touched.

• Worry about the individuals whom you have helped to be better in life, and not your individual prominence.

• Make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.